Lindenwood Magazine - Fall / Winter 2019

20 | FALL/WINTER 2019-20 Backer’s Line of Hot Sauces Finds National Audience by Matt Mathews The Heat is On Lindenwood is no stranger to having its alumni become successful entrepreneurs. However, none have brought the heat in quite the same way as Charlie Backer (MBA ’06) founder of Hot Charlie’s, which sells a mix of tantalizing hot sauces and flavorful rubs and dusts. Over the past three years, Backer has managed to take his business from a home kitchen in Oakville, Mo., selling to friends and family, to a distribution deal that puts his sauces and dusts into nationwide distribution. “I wanted to create something with a lot of flavor with a decent amount of heat,” said Backer. “I just went to Dierbergs [grocery] and grabbed a bunch of stuff and sort of threw it together, and it sort of stuck.” The unlikely hot sauce entrepreneur worked in the corporate world in a human resources department for several years before he could put his MBA to use. But the success of his recipe among family and friends led him to take the leap into his business. “This is silly,” he mused. “I was selling from a Facebook page. That first week, I sold five bottles. Soon, it was up to 50 bottles a week, which is still crazy to me… I was dealing with a lot of hot peppers at home, which wasn’t easy. So I had to get a bottler and work through the proper channels from there.” The business of hot sauce has seen a recent renaissance, with “gourmet” or “craft” hot sauces being produced by many different groups, big and small. But what makes Hot Charlie’s different is all in the sauce. “We use real garlic,” Backer said. “It’s not granulated. It’s not powdered. It’s a thicker sauce… The way that people explain it is when they eat it they can taste it on their tongue; they taste the flavor of all the peppers and then the heat slowly creeps up.” The heat serves as a compliment to the overall flavor of the sauce and the individual peppers and never overwhelms the taster’s senses. Using his business and entrepreneurial ethic, as well as lessons gained from his MBA, Backer has managed to find national distribution through Home Goods. Speaking on his MBA, backer notes that it was his professors that showed him a path forward. “The thing that I like most about Lindenwood,” he says, “is that you’re not dealing with professors who are just professors, but professors who have a day job and seeing how they can take that knowledge of their work and apply that to the classroom.” Hot Charlie’s full product range can be found online at hotcharlies.com . Additionally, they can be found in butcher shops, Ace Hardware, and other locations throughout the St. Louis metro area, as well as nationally through Home Goods. Follow Hot Charlie’s on Twitter @hotcharlies for updates to the product line. n Lindenwood University REAL SUCCESS FALL/WINTER 2019-20 | 21 DARK CARNIVAL Thousands of members of the university community and the community at large attended Lindenwood’s annual free Dark Carnival on Oct. 23 to enjoy games, entertainment, and two haunted houses. Campus & Alumni EVENTS LU 2019