Hello everyone !
My name is Vincent, I am 23 years old and I live in Montreal, Canada.
I started my 1st business 4 years ago. I was selling residential paint contracts door to door. Then I hired painters and planned the production. I hated production and the process of it, but was really good in sales. I did this for 2 years.
After closing my business, I wanted to gain more experience in sales and I did a couple door to door sales job for different product (HVAC, merchant processing and cable). I became pretty solid and one the best in the companies I worked for.
Last year, I had an opportunity to start my own home security / home automation business. Now, I have around 10 reps going door to door. I want to grow this business as much as I can and automate it with a sales manager and reinvest my profits in another venture or real estate.
My girlfriend is passionate about restaurants / pastries. She dropped out of school last year and currently works with me. Last year, she was searching for a business idea / opportunity in the food market. It's a really hard market so she wanted to find a niche that is less risky.
When I was working in merchant processing, a colleague talked to me about a business of a guy he know that makes a special sort of greek donuts. The recipe is super simple, has no perishable ingredients (no milk, no eggs) and is super good. His business exploded and opened 16 locations in a year.
We did a little market research to know more about the donut market in our area. We discovered that there are not a lot of places that offer freshly made donuts, but when they do, they are very popular. We also have Tim Hortons, which are very low quality donuts and are still very popular.
So, she started making donuts and tried different recipes and found a very good one that has no perishable ingredients, low sugar and vegan. The cost of 1 donut is between 0,07-0,10$ depending on the icing. So a box of 12 donuts would cost about 0,84$ - 1,20$. If we add the box, it would still end up less than 2$ / box which is really low. We could sell a box for about 18$ (or 1,50$ / donut). This is Canadian dollars so about 25% less than USD. Usually freshly made donuts in shops are sold around 2$-3$ / unit here.
She looked to open a shop and searched for different spots in the city. The cost of opening a location is very expensive and pretty risky so she never pursued this venture.
Recently, I was listening to a podcast about a guy that was selling meat door-to-door and was making very good money. He says it was very easy because of the low cost and high volume. There is no monthly fees, no contracts, installation, etc. You just sell and deliver.
I found this pretty interesting, because I only sold expensive things door to door. Then it made me realise, why not just sell donuts door to door? Its low cost, high margin and who doesn't like fresh donuts? It would pretty easy to convince people to just buy a box or 2 with a beautiful story of young women making her dream come true.
Then I brainstormed and did some calculations and I think it could be pretty profitable. Tell me what you think about this plan :
- Hire a couple of young guys / girl to do door to door (like 16-17 years old)
- Train them
- Make a couple box of fresh donuts samples to make people taste
- Send them door to door in the same area (easy to deliver afterwards)
- Offer something like 1 box for 18$ or 2 box for 30$ or offer like 1 box / month for a year with a rebate
- Pay them like minimum wage + a little bonus / tips
- Take info of customers (email, rebate for likes on social medias, phone number)
- Deliver on the freshly made donuts Saturday or Sunday
- Retarget the customers with ads / email / social media to create recurring revenue
- Expand product line with coffee or other pastries
- After a certain time, we could just open a store in a location where we did a lot of canvassing and people would know / like our brand
- Repeat in another area
The goal here is to gain traction and develop a base of customers before opening a shop. She would also take order for catering, sell to different coffee shops and even UberEats.
So here is a little calculation :
Price = 18$ / box
1 rep sells 2 box / hour * 20 hours / week = 40 boxes
Revenue = 720$
Cost to make = 2$ / box * 40 boxes = 80$
Salary (10$ / hour + 1$ / box) = 12$ / hour * 20 hours = 240$ / week
Gross profit / rep = 720$ - 80$ - 240$ = 400$ / week
10 reps = 4000$ / week
Only weekends
Salary 4 cooks = 4 * 15$ / hour * 6 hours / day * 2 days = 720$ / week
Salary 2 delivery guys = 2 * 15$ / hour * 8 hours / day * 2 days = 480$ / week
Profit = 4000$ - 720$ - 480$ = 2800$ / week = 11 200$ / month
Less commercial kitchen and other expenses = 3 000$ / month = 8 200$ / month
What do you guys think about this process ? Do you guys think it's feasible? Are my calculation realistic?
Thank you
My name is Vincent, I am 23 years old and I live in Montreal, Canada.
I started my 1st business 4 years ago. I was selling residential paint contracts door to door. Then I hired painters and planned the production. I hated production and the process of it, but was really good in sales. I did this for 2 years.
After closing my business, I wanted to gain more experience in sales and I did a couple door to door sales job for different product (HVAC, merchant processing and cable). I became pretty solid and one the best in the companies I worked for.
Last year, I had an opportunity to start my own home security / home automation business. Now, I have around 10 reps going door to door. I want to grow this business as much as I can and automate it with a sales manager and reinvest my profits in another venture or real estate.
My girlfriend is passionate about restaurants / pastries. She dropped out of school last year and currently works with me. Last year, she was searching for a business idea / opportunity in the food market. It's a really hard market so she wanted to find a niche that is less risky.
When I was working in merchant processing, a colleague talked to me about a business of a guy he know that makes a special sort of greek donuts. The recipe is super simple, has no perishable ingredients (no milk, no eggs) and is super good. His business exploded and opened 16 locations in a year.
We did a little market research to know more about the donut market in our area. We discovered that there are not a lot of places that offer freshly made donuts, but when they do, they are very popular. We also have Tim Hortons, which are very low quality donuts and are still very popular.
So, she started making donuts and tried different recipes and found a very good one that has no perishable ingredients, low sugar and vegan. The cost of 1 donut is between 0,07-0,10$ depending on the icing. So a box of 12 donuts would cost about 0,84$ - 1,20$. If we add the box, it would still end up less than 2$ / box which is really low. We could sell a box for about 18$ (or 1,50$ / donut). This is Canadian dollars so about 25% less than USD. Usually freshly made donuts in shops are sold around 2$-3$ / unit here.
She looked to open a shop and searched for different spots in the city. The cost of opening a location is very expensive and pretty risky so she never pursued this venture.
Recently, I was listening to a podcast about a guy that was selling meat door-to-door and was making very good money. He says it was very easy because of the low cost and high volume. There is no monthly fees, no contracts, installation, etc. You just sell and deliver.
I found this pretty interesting, because I only sold expensive things door to door. Then it made me realise, why not just sell donuts door to door? Its low cost, high margin and who doesn't like fresh donuts? It would pretty easy to convince people to just buy a box or 2 with a beautiful story of young women making her dream come true.
Then I brainstormed and did some calculations and I think it could be pretty profitable. Tell me what you think about this plan :
- Hire a couple of young guys / girl to do door to door (like 16-17 years old)
- Train them
- Make a couple box of fresh donuts samples to make people taste
- Send them door to door in the same area (easy to deliver afterwards)
- Offer something like 1 box for 18$ or 2 box for 30$ or offer like 1 box / month for a year with a rebate
- Pay them like minimum wage + a little bonus / tips
- Take info of customers (email, rebate for likes on social medias, phone number)
- Deliver on the freshly made donuts Saturday or Sunday
- Retarget the customers with ads / email / social media to create recurring revenue
- Expand product line with coffee or other pastries
- After a certain time, we could just open a store in a location where we did a lot of canvassing and people would know / like our brand
- Repeat in another area
The goal here is to gain traction and develop a base of customers before opening a shop. She would also take order for catering, sell to different coffee shops and even UberEats.
So here is a little calculation :
Price = 18$ / box
1 rep sells 2 box / hour * 20 hours / week = 40 boxes
Revenue = 720$
Cost to make = 2$ / box * 40 boxes = 80$
Salary (10$ / hour + 1$ / box) = 12$ / hour * 20 hours = 240$ / week
Gross profit / rep = 720$ - 80$ - 240$ = 400$ / week
10 reps = 4000$ / week
Only weekends
Salary 4 cooks = 4 * 15$ / hour * 6 hours / day * 2 days = 720$ / week
Salary 2 delivery guys = 2 * 15$ / hour * 8 hours / day * 2 days = 480$ / week
Profit = 4000$ - 720$ - 480$ = 2800$ / week = 11 200$ / month
Less commercial kitchen and other expenses = 3 000$ / month = 8 200$ / month
What do you guys think about this process ? Do you guys think it's feasible? Are my calculation realistic?
Thank you
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