How We Made Our First Dollar
Yay, we sold something! And here's how it happened.
We made a dollar!
I feel like the first dollar in a venture is a meaningful milestone. And we earned a dollar!
We’re not profitable, but now we’ve made money from a stranger! 🤑
Read on to see how much money we made and what the sales funnel was shaped like.
Before we start, a quick note for anyone who is reading this for the first time: Hi, I’m Eric. Tom and I are starting a baked goods business. We make kolaches, and we intend to sell (A) wholesale to coffee shops and (B) directly to consumers. Our underlying strategy is to run this like we would run a tech startup instead of following the best practices of a restaurant.
Total Revenue: $162
(I know what you’re thinking: “Goodness, thes fellows are HUNDREDAIRES! 🤩🤩🤩", but please contain yourselves.)
Last week we did our first wholesale orders to coffee shops. We piloted with 3 coffee shops, who are carrying our kolaches on a trial basis.
It’s not much, and we lost money on it, but I feel great about it.
All 3 coffee shops sold out
All 3 had positive feedback
All 3 re-ordered and increased order size (new orders for $243)
We heard stories like, “This regular came in on Sat, loved them, then came back for them on Sunday” and “This customer asked us if they could buy these for delivery for his office”, which gives us confidence that we’ll be able to generate a regular book of business.
Funnel Shape:
So how did we get here?
90 prospects - We identified 90 coffee coffee shops in Chicago and emailed all of them to set up sample meetings
11 responses - Most people just didn’t respond yet, a few said it’s not a fit.
6 sample meetings - In 2 emails, we got 6 sit down conversations
4 interested - 2 dropped out (nobody said no, they just stopped responding to emails)
3 placed orders - whoohooo!
3 re-ordered - double whoohooo!
Current Thoughts:
Happy wholesale customers - The re-orders almost doubled volume, which is about as good of a signal as we can get. This tells me that we just need to get people over the hump of ordering.
Timing wasn’t great - We’re doing this over the holiday season, so I think we will continue to get sample meetings in the new year as (a) our credibility improves, (b) we stay persistent with outreach, (c) cafes have fewer things competing for their attention.
It’s not much, but it’s a start, and Tom and I feel like we see the path to turning this into a profitable venture.