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A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

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Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#141

Post by bshipp »

notatoad wrote: post #134
WalterBright wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> plagiarizing parts of his presentation I don't agree. He copied parts of it from examples in a book on marketing strategy. One writing a book with samples in it would expect someone to use those samples. It's the whole point. Otherwise, it's a useless book describing things you can't use.

Yeah, if this was for a school assignment on marketing, that would be cheating. If it was something he was publishing under his own name, that would be plagiarism. But if you're giving a presentation to your bosses, pretty much everything is fair game.

If my programming tasks--comprised of Github snippets and Stackoverflow answers--were graded by any University TA I'd certainly fail too. But I'm getting appraised by different standards in the workforce than in school. The workplace doesn't care what I've learned, they care what I've done. if I choose to spend 3x the effort writing a library from scratch instead of recycling work that has already been published I wouldn't last very long.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#142

Post by GuiA »

starpilot wrote: post #123

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them i…

Then again, there is the tale of dulce de leche M&M’s - trying to tap into such a market, only for it to fail terribly.

https://mms.fandom.com/wiki/Dulce_de_Leche_Caramel_M%26M%27s

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#143

Post by twic »

analog31 wrote: post #113
irrational wrote: post #11

“I do have a Ph.D.,” he responded. “I’ve been poor, hungry and determined.” Love that.

I have a PhD, and I enjoyed the quote. Hats off to the guy. The PhD isn't a title of nobility.

There's an old joke (which you probably know!) that it stands for Permanent Head Damage.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#144

Post by news_to_me »

starpilot wrote: post #123

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them i…

This is why diversity is so important! Not only in business, but in general — everyone has huge blind spots, no matter what background they have. Life is much larger and more diverse than people usually imagine. Interacting and learning from people with different backgrounds than yours is a fundamentally rewarding experience, although it can be hard at times.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#145

Post by dharma1 »

axiom92 wrote: post #45
WalterBright wrote: post #25

I love this story. It's not about how Montañez "got lucky" - it's about how he, in several key spots, set himself up so luck would find him. It's a great American success story.

Also from the article: > Six months later, with Montañez’s help, Frito-Lay began testing Flamin’ Hot Cheetos in small Latino markets in East Los Angeles. > If it performed well, the company would move forward with the product; if it didn’t, they’d scratch it — and Montañez would likely return to janitorial duties. > So Montañez assembled a small team of family members and friends, went to the test markets, and bought…

growth hacking 101

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#146

Post by tylerhou »

oh_sigh wrote: post #139
tylerhou wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it is more commonly used among younger people. For example, here is the 50th anniversary celebration for the Afro-Latinx Society at my high school: https://www.exonians.exeter.edu/s/1682/index.aspx?sid=1682&g... But I'm sorry if I offended anyone. I've edited my comment to say Latino instead.

Why isn't it afrx-latinx?

Not sure if this is serious, but if it is, I assume it's because the -o suffix has a masculine connotation in Spanish but not Latin/English (where Afro comes from).

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#147

Post by GuiA »

bshipp wrote: post #141
notatoad wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, if this was for a school assignment on marketing, that would be cheating. If it was something he was publishing under his own name, that would be plagiarism. But if you're giving a presentation to your bosses, pretty much everything is fair game.

If my programming tasks--comprised of Github snippets and Stackoverflow answers--were graded by any University TA I'd certainly fail too. But I'm getting appraised by different standards in the workforce than in school. The workplace doesn't care what I've learned, they care what I've done. if I choose to spend 3x the effort writing a library from scratch instead of recycling work that has already been published I wo…

It depends. Eg if you’re copying GPL code in your company’s proprietary code base, the lawyers are going to insist that you spend 3x the effort writing a library from scratch.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#148

Post by cm2012 »

wutbrodo wrote: post #95
camjohnson26 wrote: post #14

This is a fantastic story. There are a few ethical problems including Montañez plagiarizing parts of his presentation and having friends and family buy out the products in the test market, but overall he refused to accept imposed limits and accomplished something phenomenal. One interesting thing is that Frito-Lay had no products targeting Latinos, and no one on the highly paid marketing team did anything about it. T…

(Note that I reductively throw around cultural class labels like "lower-middle class" in this comment for purposes of clarity: I don't mean to suggest that a person's social class is fixed, or well-defined, but it's just a brief way to get at the concept of different subcultures and their mannerisms, as well as the rough income bands that people tend to associate with them) > Also interesting is the backlash he faced…

This bottom up class dynamic is called tall poppy syndrome, or the crab bucket.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#149

Post by ravenstine »

news_to_me wrote: post #144
starpilot wrote: post #123

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them i…

This is why diversity is so important! Not only in business, but in general — everyone has huge blind spots, no matter what background they have. Life is much larger and more diverse than people usually imagine. Interacting and learning from people with different backgrounds than yours is a fundamentally rewarding experience, although it can be hard at times.

It has to be taken seriously by management, however. I've worked at a few places where diversity was king but upper management continued to make the decisions of aging middle-class white folks. Not that I have a problem with that in and of itself, but it was funny how they would hire lots of women and minorities, say that they wanted to target undeserved demographics, but then never actually attempt to do it. Diversity is, more often than not, a veneer.

Re: A janitor at Frito-Lay invented Flamin’ Hot Cheetos (2017)

#150

Post by mcny »

GuiA wrote: post #142
starpilot wrote: post #123

My takeaway: there are huge potential markets in people who are not like me. The execs were probably completely unaware of this market, and it took an outsider to hold their hand and bring it to them. I love flaming hot cheetos and know tons of people who do, but there is no way I would have thought of taking the hot pepper / other spices from a traditional Mexican food (elotes, which I had in LA) and adapting them i…

Then again, there is the tale of dulce de leche M&M’s - trying to tap into such a market, only for it to fail terribly. https://mms.fandom.com/wiki/Dulce_de_Leche_Caramel_M%26M%27s

My guess based on what I read from the grandparent post is there was probably some poor product fit. Perhaps we would have done better marketing it towards "gringos"?

From your link:

> In July 2001, Dulce de Leche M&M's were introduced in five markets with large Hispanic populations: Los Angeles, San Diego, Miami, Florida; Mcallen-Brownsville, Texas; and San Antonio, Texas. The flavor never became popular with the Hispanic community, who preferred existing M&M's flavors, and it was discontinued in most areas by early 2003.

Perhaps there is an opportunity in introducing it to people who don't have previous experience with this flavor? Just thinking out loud...

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