Zach Willis, a former NDSU football player, is the owner of Big Deck Barbecue Co., a Fargo-based company specializing in high-quality, unique barbecue sauces and rubs.
The inspiration for Big Deck Barbecue Co. originated from family gatherings on the deck built by his father, Tyson, where they would enjoy Tyson’s delicious food.
Under Zach’s leadership, Big Deck Barbecue Co. has expanded its production capabilities and distribution network, with products now available widely in the region.
A Q&A with Zach Willis
Q: What’s your background? What was your upbringing like?
A: I was born and raised in Fargo. I’m a product of divorced parents who always drove themselves constantly to do better for me and my siblings. I went to West Fargo High School and graduated in 2017. I went to NDSU on a football scholarship and initially planned on going into physical therapy for school. I wasn’t good enough at science, so I switched to industrial engineering. I wasn’t good enough at math for that, so I switched to marketing, where I ended up and graduated with my marketing degree in 2021.
We didn’t have a lot growing up— there are always people who have a harder time growing up, but things weren’t easy and we went through a lot of hard times when it came to money and the dynamic of having a split home. I was lucky though to have two parents who loved me and my siblings more than life itself and constantly drove themselves to not settle where the circumstances of life placed them. I’m so proud of my parents and I’m thankful they instilled that drive to always push ourselves for better.
Q: When did you realize you wanted to start your own business?
A: I knew I wanted to start my own business from a young age. I was the kid who walked around the neighborhood and mowed lawns or did something or other to make extra cash. But it really set in in high school, when the desire to control my own destiny became a priority of mine. Like I said, we struggled financially when I was growing up and I figured the best way to give myself the opportunity to give my kids a better situation than I had was owning my own business.
Q: Is there a specific mentor or role model who influenced your entrepreneurial journey?
A: My dad and my grandpa inspired me to want to pursue entrepreneurship.
Q: How did you come up with the idea for your business?
A: All of the recipes were my dad’s ideas. He’d been making them for a while before I suggested we started selling them. He had already had the name picked out for a long time as well. It just took us taking action and deciding to finally start it up one night—in his garage during COVID—to finally get the wheels rolling.
Q: What steps did you take to turn your idea into reality?
A: I would not recommend the path we took. Anything you find in a book or online about starting a business, follow that. We did very little actual structure building or planning, but we just did it. It caused some headaches later on, but the biggest step we ever took with our business was the first one. We just had to start.
Q: What was the biggest challenge you faced when starting out, and how did you overcome it?
A: The biggest challenge we faced was simply knowledge about what we were doing. I think that’s a huge barrier for a lot of people to start their business. Where do we get supplies? Who are we going to sell to and how are we going to sell it to them? How do we follow compliance? How could we possibly get the funding that we need?
Again, this isn’t some prophetic or deep answer, but we just did what we had to do. We adopted the motto ‘FITFO’ – Figure It The **** Out. There’s no option when running/ starting a business to say, “Well, we couldn’t figure it out.” You just have to find a way—the answers and the path are out there, no matter how difficult they may seem to find.
Q: Did you have a clear business plan from the beginning or did your plan evolve over time?
A: We had a general idea I guess, but we also never expected it to get bigger than selling out of my dad’s garage to friends and family. When it started growing faster than we thought it would, we would set goals and checkpoints of where we wanted to get to. So when we’d accomplish each pillar, it became commonplace for us to reconvene and ask each other, ‘What’s next? How do we get there?’ then acting accordingly to what we decided.
Q: What was the most surprising thing you learned when starting your business?
A: I don’t know if it was a surprise as much as it was a wake-up call, but we quickly found out that no one was coming to save us. No one owed us anything in our pursuit of this. No one was coming to do the work for us and no progress was made unless we went and made it happen. That’s a hard lesson. A lot of hard choices and circumstances pop up when starting a business from the ground up—you have to put your head down and do the work because the cavalry isn’t coming to save you. You either get it done or it fails—that’s a lot of pressure, but your decisions in those moments define where you and your business go.
Q: What strategies or decisions contributed the most to your business’s growth?
A: I learned quickly to stop listening to my brain when looking at choices or decisions. If it was shows or vendors that wanted us to do something that every piece of data or logic screamed for us to not do, I learned to just do it. I’d rather do something and fail than not do it and wonder what would have happened if we did it—I couldn’t live with myself if we missed an opportunity that could have grown the business.
There were a lot of stretches of 20-hour work days and working through the night, but I knew what was waiting on the other side was worth it. I teetered on acting recklessly with my business choices sometimes, but I trusted my gut and myself that I could figure it out if we took the leap. I still follow that thought process today.
Q: What has been the biggest failure or setback you faced as an entrepreneur and how did you learn from it?
A: There have been a lot of little things and some big things that I would put in the ‘miss’ category, but at the risk of sounding like some phony motivational speaker, failure only comes if you quit when encountering a problem. Every issue we’ve ever had has brought us to where we are now and taught us something—and unfortunately, facing adversity or hitting home runs are the only ways to learn how to do anything in your business.
Everything that has gone wrong since we’ve started Big Deck Barbecue Co. has laid out an opportunity to close up shop but we simply haven’t let that be an option. We look at what went wrong, re-group, and don’t make that mistake again.
I don’t think anyone who takes a stab at running their own business can fail. It’s hard and scary to do. Just don’t let the bad choices end your desire to get where you want to go.
Big Deck Barbecue Co. Flavors
Q: What’s your leadership philosophy?
A: I try to empower people with the necessary knowledge and belief in themselves to make decisions day-to-day without the fear of heavy-handed retribution. I want smart and tenacious people—babysitting them and being a helicopter manager takes away their best attributes.
Surround your business with good people and trust that they’ll make decisions that advance the business.
Q: How do you build and maintain a strong company culture?
A: I try to keep things lighthearted and enjoyable—this isn’t life or death. The fate of the world doesn’t rest on what we’re doing. But, we also need to be able to lock in and do the hard things when they’re necessary. Also, I treat people like human beings. I check in on them and see how they’re doing. They have a life outside of the building and might be dealing with things you’ll never know about. Let them take the day if they need it. If someone is gone and your business can’t function without them being there, then that rests solely as a skill issue for the owner.
The truth is, no employee will ever care as much about your business as you do. That’s okay. But it is unreasonable to expect things out of people who are above and beyond because you did it yourself for the business. Acknowledge that and understand that everyone has a role to play, and if that role needs to expand or you expect them to do more, compensate them accordingly. I think that helps with burnout and building resentment. It’s not some secret sauce to keep people happy. Treat them well and take care of them if they’re doing a good job. I think it’s sometimes human nature to fall into the ‘well I did it, why shouldn’t they’ mindset sometimes. There’s a balance in pushing them to be the best version of themselves and exploiting a good worker because they’ll do whatever you ask them to. We’ve all had bad bosses—I take it upon myself to try not to be a bad boss.
That also leads to being able to take truly having a culture that empowers people to give feedback on you as a boss and make changes if the criticism truly is something you need to change. People enjoy being heard and seeing the things that are troubling them change.
Did You Know?
Big Deck Barbecue Co. also makes hot sauce!
Q: What’s the best piece of business advice you ever received?
A: You have to just do the work. What you want is waiting for you on the other side of what you don’t want to do. The only way forward is to put one foot in front of the other—there is no option to hit a dead-end. There’s always a way forward, some way or somehow, you just have to find a way.
Q: Are there any resources you would recommend to other entrepreneurs out there?
A: Whatever it is, just use an accounting software. We still feel the ramifications of not being prepared and organized for that. Otherwise, just lean on people for support and find other people who are in a spot you aspire to be in and ask how they did it. I think a lot of people would be surprised at how open and willing successful people are to help guide you along the way. Never stop learning from people like that and help people that come to you when that time comes.
Big Deck Barbecue Co
Facebook | /bigdeckbbq
Instagram | @bigdeckbbqco
Twitter | @bigdeckbbqco
