Author Topic: First day in business  (Read 3905 times)

ninja

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First day in business
« on: August 13, 2018, 09:43:10 AM »
Just had our first day selling coffee I roast at a local farmer's market. Sold 35 bags and (my wife didn't keep good count) atleast 30 cups of coffee!

Used Facebook to post our event - spent $10 and had five customers that were not my facebook friends say they saw us on facebook... marketing dollars very well spent.

That's one day closer to leaving my day job!

HAPPYINAZ

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #1 on: August 13, 2018, 04:37:27 PM »
nicely done!

FreelanceToFreedom

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #2 on: August 16, 2018, 05:37:54 PM »
That's awesome! If you don't mind sharing, what are your margins on bags of coffee?

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #3 on: August 17, 2018, 09:51:58 AM »
I'm going to have to refigure that... I was (after paying myself $20/hour to produce it) making 1.50 to 2.50 a bag depending on size/variety/grind - but that's when I averaged my equipment cost over only 1000 bags - which it should way out-live. I need to refigure it with more realistic longevity for my equipment. I used 1000 bags because that was my goal for the rest of this market season and next season - but it looks like I'll be outpacing that.

robartsd

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #4 on: August 17, 2018, 12:34:02 PM »
I'm going to have to refigure that... I was (after paying myself $20/hour to produce it) making 1.50 to 2.50 a bag depending on size/variety/grind - but that's when I averaged my equipment cost over only 1000 bags - which it should way out-live. I need to refigure it with more realistic longevity for my equipment. I used 1000 bags because that was my goal for the rest of this market season and next season - but it looks like I'll be outpacing that.
I assume the market is weekly, so this week's numbers may be a better indication of than opening day alone. If you outsell what you did last week, you're doing quite well. Did the time spent selling also get added in to your estimates at $20/hr?

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #5 on: August 17, 2018, 01:10:58 PM »
I'm going to have to refigure that... I was (after paying myself $20/hour to produce it) making 1.50 to 2.50 a bag depending on size/variety/grind - but that's when I averaged my equipment cost over only 1000 bags - which it should way out-live. I need to refigure it with more realistic longevity for my equipment. I used 1000 bags because that was my goal for the rest of this market season and next season - but it looks like I'll be outpacing that.
I assume the market is weekly, so this week's numbers may be a better indication of than opening day alone. If you outsell what you did last week, you're doing quite well. Did the time spent selling also get added in to your estimates at $20/hr?

No - I only include the time to roast and package in my 20/hr expense. I'm expecting a slower week this week - no one that bought my coffee should have run out yet - I'm expecting things to yo-yo a bit as people run out and become REPEAT customers. There's also a competing event on the nearby military base on Saturday that may take a bite out of my sales. That's for beans. I expect to sell more brewed coffee this week since last week people didn't know we would be there and brought their own or purchased from the nearby coffee shop.

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #6 on: August 20, 2018, 01:21:50 PM »
Week two was a slower market day all-around with a competing event on the nearby military installation... sold 29 bags.  Sold (my wife is bad at keeping track of this number) over 25 cups of coffee. We also had an open house the day prior for the launch of our business - sold 15 bags there. Gave brewed coffee away at that event.

Went backwards to all expenses - used 2000 bags as the lifetime of our equipment (which should be a low [conservative] number). We make 2-2.50 off of a bag of coffee depending on which bean - a little more than half of that for our smaller bags. It'll be pretty complicated to come up with our profit margin for cups of coffee... especially cold-brew since we need to buy all of our ice ahead of time from WalMart. I'm guessing we are around 1.25 profit for a cup of coffee.

But I do have all of our expenses and sales tracked (except for the inaccurate count of cups sold that my wife is supposed to track) - I can tell you that after these three events and some online sales our business has already paid us back 22% of our initial investment...I'm super pleased with that number.

...looks like I can't quit the day job yet - but holy-Hell am I looking forward to that day!

kontrakode

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #7 on: August 20, 2018, 09:53:09 PM »
Nice little business you got going there!

How do you make the coffee at the markets? Electric espresso machine, or some other portable method?

sonya

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #8 on: August 21, 2018, 12:35:25 PM »
Sounds almost like a dream job - have fun and best of luck with it. So exciting!

beekayworld

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #9 on: August 21, 2018, 03:37:00 PM »
(my wife didn't keep good count) atleast 30 cups of coffee!

Good job!

Just count the cups at the start of the day and see how many are left at the end.  If you leave the house with 60 paper cups and return with 25, then you know you sold 35.  Write it down on a piece of paper left at home if you want or make a note  on your phone. This way you don't have to remember it or jot it on a napkin or cup you can't find later because you accidentally used itLOL!

Most sales are going to be one purchase=one paper cup.  It's easier to count the random oddball situations than to count the normal situations.

Situations where one order does not equal one cup used:
Customer had his own mug and asked for his coffee to be poured into that. (+1 order beyond tally of cups used).
Customer asked for an extra cup to share the drink with her teen. (-1 order from tally of cups used).

 So you only tally any oddball orders. One without a cup or one with an extra cup. If you had both of those examples, the two cancel each other out.

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #10 on: August 22, 2018, 08:47:04 AM »
(my wife didn't keep good count) atleast 30 cups of coffee!

Good job!

Just count the cups at the start of the day and see how many are left at the end.  If you leave the house with 60 paper cups and return with 25, then you know you sold 35.  Write it down on a piece of paper left at home if you want or make a note  on your phone. This way you don't have to remember it or jot it on a napkin or cup you can't find later because you accidentally used itLOL!


It's so simple! Thanks for the good idea.

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #11 on: August 22, 2018, 08:48:25 AM »
Nice little business you got going there!

How do you make the coffee at the markets? Electric espresso machine, or some other portable method?

We make a large sun-tea jar of cold brew in our fridge for 24 hours for our iced coffee and have a pour-over station I made myself with poplar and copper conduit for hot coffee.

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #12 on: August 22, 2018, 08:50:03 AM »
Sounds almost like a dream job - have fun and best of luck with it. So exciting!

It is my dream job! Can't wait until I hit an acceptable amount of FI that I can make this my full-time gig.

Neo

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #13 on: August 23, 2018, 10:31:49 PM »
Super cool. Congrats and glad you're having fun.

Murr

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #14 on: August 24, 2018, 05:24:18 AM »
Do you mind sharing what set up you have for the roasting process? I assume you are just roasting at home for now? Sounds like an awesome business with plenty of ways to scale up, congratulations

NearlyThere

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #15 on: August 24, 2018, 08:02:18 AM »
I love hearing about people setting up business, whether side hustles or businesses to replace their current job. Congratulations Ninja. I hope it's a great success.

As of 21st Sept I'm 9 years in business. Can't say every minute has been easy but i have loved becoming my own boss and then a boss of 23 others. We support 24 families now and to me thats a huge achievement.

BTW It doesnt get easier, but you grow as an entrepreneur and yesterdays problems are easier dealt with and todays' problems will become tomorrows history.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2018, 08:05:00 AM by NearlyThere »

beekayworld

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #16 on: August 25, 2018, 10:35:03 AM »

It's so simple! Thanks for the good idea.

You're so welcome! I'm glad it was helpful.

I'm inspired to order some green coffee beans and roast them.  Do you think a hot air popcorn popper would do a good job for my own individual use?

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #17 on: August 27, 2018, 09:13:08 AM »
Do you mind sharing what set up you have for the roasting process? I assume you are just roasting at home for now? Sounds like an awesome business with plenty of ways to scale up, congratulations

I use a modified gas grill with a metal drum on a 60rpm motor. It's a lot more hands(ears, nose, eyes)-on but yields a really great roasted coffee - once you get good at it. I roast in 10 lb. batches.

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #18 on: August 27, 2018, 09:17:07 AM »

It's so simple! Thanks for the good idea.

You're so welcome! I'm glad it was helpful.

I'm inspired to order some green coffee beans and roast them.  Do you think a hot air popcorn popper would do a good job for my own individual use?

Supposedly that's a good way to roast very small batches - like enough for one coffeepot at a time. I've never tried it. Make sure you buy GOOD beans - there are great places out there like sweetmarias.com with the good (and ethical) stuff... and there's the places with coffee at half the price that is well-suited for Maxwell House!

Make sure you do it outside because of all the smoke - and I'm assuming the chaff that will come blowing out making a mess. There's a lot of oil that'll come out of your beans - so any popcorn you would pop afterward would probably be coffee-flavored - my guess is that once you use your popper for this it's really not useful in any other way again.

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #19 on: August 27, 2018, 09:27:38 AM »
Had a strong weekend - sold 43 bags of coffee between two events, 19 cups of coffee, 2 t-shirts (that haven't even made it back from the screen-printer yet) made it to 200 followers on Facebook and was interviewed by a local paper (not sure when we'll be printed).
Altogether my wife and I worked 23 hours on the business. I figure our profits paid us at $5.55 an hour. (but the rest of the proceeds are paying us back for financing the start-up costs... so it's really better than that).  Even after ordering 12 shirts, 72 mugs 500 business cards, two car magnets and a vinyl sign the business has advanced from paying back 19.9% of our investment to 29.8% in just this one weekend. We have

I'm expecting next weekend to be a big one with the article coming out and I should start to see repeat customers coming back after they've ran out of their first bag - after all, this will only be my fourth weekend selling coffee. There are nine Farmer's Market Saturdays left - I don't think it'll happen - but wouldn't it be cool if the business paid us back before this season was over? Our initial goal was for it to pay us back by the end of the FOLLOWING season.... so things are going great.

One more week closer to leaving the day job!

beekayworld

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #20 on: August 27, 2018, 05:25:34 PM »
Wonderful!! Congratulations on the great sales!! 


Supposedly that's a good way to roast very small batches - like enough for one coffeepot at a time. I've never tried it. Make sure you buy GOOD beans - there are great places out there like sweetmarias.com with the good (and ethical) stuff... and there's the places with coffee at half the price that is well-suited for Maxwell House!

Make sure you do it outside because of all the smoke - and I'm assuming the chaff that will come blowing out making a mess. There's a lot of oil that'll come out of your beans - so any popcorn you would pop afterward would probably be coffee-flavored - my guess is that once you use your popper for this it's really not useful in any other way again.

Thank you for the great tips! Yes, I'll do it outside and make that popper a dedicated coffee bean popper.
« Last Edit: August 27, 2018, 05:27:06 PM by beekayworld »

FreelanceToFreedom

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #21 on: August 27, 2018, 06:51:39 PM »

It's so simple! Thanks for the good idea.

You're so welcome! I'm glad it was helpful.

I'm inspired to order some green coffee beans and roast them.  Do you think a hot air popcorn popper would do a good job for my own individual use?

Some hot air poppers will work, but they have to have a certain design that allows for enough air flow/agitation.

I bought an air popper from Sweet Marias that's been working well. Surprisingly, they bundle in 4lb of green coffee beans as well - and the popper is only $20!  https://www.sweetmarias.com/nostalgia-electric-popcorn-popper.html

I assume that's a loss-leader to get people hooked, because they're basically giving you the popper for free

ninja

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Re: First day in business
« Reply #22 on: September 10, 2018, 12:28:56 PM »
Been a few weeks since I've posted on this...

Things are still looking up. The local paper printed an article about us and we sold out 90 minutes before the market was over... even though the weather was bad. Next market I'm going to have 50 bags available.

Learned a few key lessons on inventory management - barely got beans in time to roast for the market and ran out of small bags for our 6 oz size and was faced with the dilemma of either increasing to 12 oz bags on part of a large order (to my mother of all people for gifting to her siblings) or not making a suspense. Since it was for family I didn't mind (well, I did - but my hands were tied) upgrading the size.

Even after the expenses of ordering another 100lbs of coffee the business has now paid us back 44% of our total investment - after only five weeks of sales.

Still can't quit the day job - but each day/bag is just a little bit closer!