How Truff founders Nick Ajluni and Nick Guillen deliver the heat

It’s rare to find founders still intimately involved with the day-to-day aspects of a business after six years of explosive growth, but Nick Ajluni and Nick Guillen, who created popular hot sauce brand Truff, aren’t like other founders. See all of Ad Age's 2023 Creativity Award winners here They’re still regularly hustling—writing captions, creating content and DMing larger brands to pitch partnerships. That difference has helped to catapult Truff, which started as Instagram handle @sauce, to fame. “Our team is very entrepreneurial,” Guillen said on a recent episode of “Truff Talk,” a video series that chronicles the brand’s rise. “It’s not seven layers of corporate approvals—it’s ideas that get thrown around often and executed on very quickly.” Last year, Truff, which has expanded beyond its hot-sauce roots to also sell truffle pasta sauce, truffle mayonnaise and truffle salt, collaborated with Hidden Valley Ranch on a ranch flavor and with Taco Bell on nacho fries. The latter sold more than 1.3 million units at 7,000 restaurant locations during its two-week run. In the fall, Truff aired its first TV ad. View this post on Instagram A post shared by T R U F F (@sauce) “We obviously created the category of truffle hot sauce, and I think we did it in a very thoughtful way,” Ajluni said on “Truff Talk.” See all the 2023 Ad Age Creativity Awards winners.

How Truff founders Nick Ajluni and Nick Guillen deliver the heat

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