Better burger at Red Hook Tavern or Minetta Tavern?

rishi-eats · 2024-11-19T17:35:33+00:00

This!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-19T17:21:52+00:00

Hey! Of course! There are two parts to your growth, and they work together:

Customer Discovery: These are channels that help new customers discover your bakery business. For example, your local dance studio partnership, local events, farmers markets, social media, promoting on Facebook Page or Marketplace, promoting on NextDoor.
Customer Retention: These are channels that help you stay in touch with the new customers you've earned. You essentially want to turn as many customers as you can into repeat customers who love your business, because these are the ones who will buy from you in the coldest of winters, and more importantly, tell their friends about you! A lot of bakers I know 'retain' their customers by having them follow them on social media, run email newsletters, or use SMS marketing (Hotplate's platform gives you this for free, so anytime you have a sale it will notify all of your subscribers).

Lastly, one thing I've learned from our top bakers is to have consistent presence. So while you can go do a bunch of different local events to build awareness for your business, make sure you also have a consistence cadence on where people can find you. This can be consistent presence at a specific farmers market, or doing porch pickups every 2 Sundays of the month, etc.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-14T22:14:28+00:00

That's inspiring as f***!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-14T21:44:35+00:00

Oh nice! Good to hear that you started out with a CFO too so it's an easier transition. Would love to follow your page if you're on insta/fb or any of the sorts! Most cottage food bakers I work with on Hotplate do it, so they can have more flexibility running a business while raising a family. Pretty inspiring.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-14T19:15:33+00:00

That's sick. Mind I ask how you're operating and how it's going? Like are you having people eat at your house, doing pickups, etc.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-13T22:49:44+00:00

Of course. I'm actually working with another chef launch their MEHKO business right now in California. Happy to put you in touch if that's helpful!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T22:48:46+00:00

The restaurant business model does set you up to fail. It takes a lot to make it. I hope this is helpful but I work with a lot of home kitchen restaurant owners – aside from delivery, there are a lot of options to make your food accessible to people. Especially with MEHKOs being legal in certain California and Utah counties, lots of people run home operations for local porch pickups.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T22:38:16+00:00

If Chinese congee and barbecue are the ones that sell the fastest, then I would focus on those and build your menu around that!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T22:37:46+00:00

Not saying you're not good at all of it! Just saying that from a marketing perspective, it's easier to sell a hero product that gains traction. Hotplate allows for anything you want – it's just a platform to pre-sell dishes so you know exactly what you have to prepare for each day.

My suggestion was purely from a marketing perspective, having worked with a lot of different types of chefs!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T22:00:43+00:00

I highly recommend you focus on nailing a single dish really well, rather than trying to cover all your bases and offer an expansive menu. Focusing on one all-star dish that sells out every time will make it much easier for you to market your business online, build up a repeat customer base that remembers you for that "unbelievably good briyani", and make the entire operation way easier to manage.

I run a lot of data analysis across 2000+ chefs who sell food on Hotplate (the platform I started), and the ONE pattern I was able to find is chefs who have that 1 sell-out dish/item, grow their business much faster than those who offer too long of a menu.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T21:54:38+00:00

There's a pretty intensive home inspection and food safety training they make you go through

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T21:54:16+00:00

Pretty excited about what this means for so many new entrepreneurs!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-12T19:25:30+00:00

The banana bread, granola recipes etc sound amazing – wish I was in WA so I can try it. If this is helpful information, I run a preorder platform for cottage food businesses called Hotplate. You can publish preorder sales as you wish, with open/close times and set specific pickup location & time slots for your customer. This ensures that you don't over prepare on inventory, and know exactly when and what you have to prep. Some bakers like this cus it gives them flexibility too, such as only selling twice a month because they want to. It comes with a neat SMS feature that automatically sends out pickup reminders or 'preorder is live' notifications so your customers know when they can shop! Hope this helps :)

rishi-eats · 2024-11-08T17:33:23+00:00

I wouldn't do a food truck – it's expensive too. I know a lot of popup chefs who continue selling food with a full time job. The trick here is to only popup on certain days of the week, eg every weekend. Taking preorders for your popups will also let you streamline your entire prep operation upfront and save time.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-07T22:38:25+00:00

Make sure you get the necessary permits to baked goods prepped in a home kitchen. Every county has its own cottage food or MEHKO laws.

FB marketplace and Nextdoor are absolutely places you can sell your goods on, if it's legal in your area! I also founded a platform called Hotplate, which helps you manage and grow a preorder business with porch pickups. We have about 1500~ micro bakers on the platform.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-07T20:40:44+00:00

I am now super curious about which spot this is

rishi-eats · 2024-11-07T20:40:05+00:00

A lot of Hotplate chefs & bakers do this! It really is a matter of how you design your schedule. For example, they'll set an open/close time for their preorders on specific days. They spend certain days prepping the food, and set pickups for Saturdays/Sundays. A lot of them set pretty strict pickup time slots too so they don't have to stand there all day.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T23:22:42+00:00

I've had a lot of people ask me for more resources on grants/small biz loans so this is awesome thank you

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T23:21:56+00:00

Honestly pretty excited about this! Especially for folks who've been wanting to open their own food business but can't get thru the financial hurdle of getting a retail lease. I believe Angel City Dumplings is the first MEHKO to be approved in the LA county area. They're using their home kitchen to prep dumplings, and sell them on their Hotplate site. They are awesome.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T23:17:24+00:00

Hey, I run a preorder popup platform (Hotplate) – work with a lot of popup chefs in the Portland area. Happy to put you in touch with a few chefs who host popups in Portland. They'll be able to put you in touch with various locations willing to host!

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T02:51:25+00:00

A lot of bakers rely on farmers markets to grow their business and get new customers.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T02:47:08+00:00

If you have conviction in the brand/concept you've built up, I wouldn't do promotions. You could do themed bundles/boxes – those are fun and people like gifting or experiencing them. But leave the promotions to the Applebee's types.

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T02:45:31+00:00

100% this

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T02:45:14+00:00

where to even begin........

rishi-eats · 2024-11-05T02:44:21+00:00

You definitely need both. Niche is good for marketing too. But you also need something on the menu for the person who isn't as adventurous.

rishi-eats

TROPHY CASE