'People Don't Buy What They Don't Know'

This snack brand was failing. Then its founder discovered the problem: He wasn't speaking his customers' language.

- JASON FEIFER

Jason Wright made a new kind of snack chip, and he knew it was good. When people tried it, they bought it. He even launched inside Whole Foods - a dream for many food brands.

So after it launched, why were sales dead?

To save his business, Wright needed to untangle a problem that bedevils many innovators: The concept was so new that consumers found it off-putting. "Because having a product that's never been done before, with a name that they've never seen before," he says, "puts people in a bad place, or they just walk by it." Instead of showing them his idea, Wright realized he needed to speak their language first.

Wright never actually set out to make snack chips. His company, Wilde Brands, began with protein bars made with real meat - like an updated beef jerky. But Wilde had a larger competitor it couldn't keep up with.

"I was thinking of how to save Wilde, and I was depressed," Wright says, in his South Carolina twang. "So I turned to my Southern roots comfort food. I was eating potato chips. And meat was on my mind, because we'd been making protein bars out of meat."