Hi there 🥰,
In today´s blog, we continue with our mini-series with episode 4, My failures ( learnings ) with Selling hot beverages, bread, and breakfast at high school.
Passion Market Fit
So here we have our Passion Market Fit model.
Selling hot beverages, bread, and breakfast at high-school
Desirability: The market for high school food is always high, that is why many high schools around the world charge for their food. It generates a steady flux of income. The bigger the number of students, the bigger the profits on food. Simple.
Let's put it like this, in my high school, there were 2 official breaks during studies, morning and lunch. However, there was an unofficial "break" which was at the beginning of the study day (6:45 am to 7:45 am) where all the students are arriving at school, that "break" in fact was a window between 45 to 60 mins where lots of friends arrived at school without having breakfast or simply they wanted more food ( you know, we are young and growing up)
I served that "break" because school wasn't serving it. The school wasn't selling coffee to students (because it was seen as a bad thing.....yeah right), they didn't sell hot chocolate, they didn't sell bread in the morning, and also cheese for the hot chocolate (yes we put mozzarella cheese inside the chocolate in Bogotá, crazy stuff hehehe)
So, I sold coffee, hot chocolate, mozzarella cheese, and bread. Boom. I sold everything most of the time in the first 20 mins.
Feasibility: Here is where my model started to get some limitations. For this business, I needed to make the beverages.
Fresh coffee and hot chocolate needed to be done in the mornings, my parents helped me make the coffee and fill up around 8 thermoses (vacuum flask), 6 for coffee, and 2 for hot chocolate.
Bread and cheese were already bought done, my dad works close to a bakery, so he made a deal with the baker to buy a few dozens of bread for a cheaper price.
Besides this, the model was totally feasible. Limited but feasible.
Viability: Same as candy, music distribution, and adult films distribution. I was limited by school regulations. Sellin any product or service was not permitted. The viability of the model was really dependant on my capacity to move the product without being seen.
Additionally, after a few months in it, in order to increase profits, I needed to scale up which was very challenging at that time because every new thermos added weight to my already filled bags, and also draw more attention to my business.
Survival
So, why did I fail?
Well, before giving the big reasons, it is worth telling you that this business was my answer to my "failures" with music and adult film distribution. After a massive demand drop due to the Fast Internet taking over my client's homes, I got into hot beverages as another way to create a new source of income.
So, this time besides the regulations which made scaling up very very difficult, it was the feasibility of the model. Making the beverages was putting lots of pressure on my parents and also on me every morning of those school years. I thank my parents for helping me and guiding me through this venture. Love you 🧡
My learnings
I must say that selling food is one of the fastest (if not the top 1 fastest) ways of creating a source of income. Serve an unserved market and you will for sure get some income coming in.
I love how a simple thing such as coffee or hot chocolate can really improve the lives of my customers, who don't like a nice warm beverage on a cold morning?
Scaling up this one is possible, but it really depends on market regulations, unless I change my market location, to serve another audience. But well, at that time my audience was teenagers at high school, still good enough.
After failing on candy, music, and adult distribution, this venture wasn't bad at all, I like to keep coming up with new ideas to get sources of income, and this one was actually pretty nice because it involved my parents in the production process.
Thanks for reading,
Note for me: Memento Mori
Big hug,
Andres