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The Koerner Office - Business Ideas and Deep Dives with Chris Koerner
The Best First Side Hustle Anyone Can Start - Ep. #294
00:37:17
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- [00:00]
Michael McCoy
I started going farmer's market after farmer's market, and over the course of a summer, I sold $60,000 worth of product. Working part time, under 20 hours a week.
- [00:10]
Podcast Host
Your first three months, you did 20,000amonth? Working 20 hours a week? Give or take, yeah. Holy crap.
- [00:16]
Michael McCoy
In the beginning, we didn't really know how good this was going to do, so we just started it out of our basement.
- [00:22]
Podcast Host
You don't need a team there. You're making a couple hundred bucks an hour of profit for the time span of the market. That's an amazing living that, you know, you can only scale farmers markets so much, so you start going online. What does your first three months of online sales look like?
- [00:37]
Michael McCoy
When we went online in the beginning, we did in less than 30 days. What we did in four months. Our best month so far, we did over $160,000.
- [00:48]
Podcast Host
Holy cow.
- [00:49]
Michael McCoy
Basically, over the past couple of years, just online sales alone, a little north of three or four million dollars. And we've kind of just scratched the surface of the marketplace.
- [00:58]
Podcast Host
What other farmer's market items, products, services did you see around you that seemed to be extra popular, extra profitable? I met this guy who sold pizza dough mix at his local farmers market. He made 60 grand in a summer, mostly profit, working 20 hours a week out of his basement. No restaurant, no food truck. Started the business with next to nothing. Basically every market. He walked home empty his best day, pulled in three grand in four hours. And so we're going to interview this guy. But before I get there, I'm going to start this episode today by breaking down how you can start your own farmer's market. Because guess what? I just did this with my wife. We're doing this right now, and it's actually really profitable. So I'm going to cover that first. Then I'm going to interview Michael about his pizza kit business. At the end of that interview, we're going to talk about other farmer's market side hustles that are printing money, homemade pasta, all kinds of stuff. And then he's going to give us more farmers market hacks that you can apply to any business. And my favorite hack is a branded bag trick that sold his product before customers ever reached his table. Enjoy. Okay, so let's talk farmers markets. Now, I haven't spoken about this publicly yet, but it's a pretty cool story. So my wife and a friend launched their second kids farmer's market here in the Dallas Fort Worth area about a month ago. They did their first last year, and it was a big Success. Their first one last year had 50 booths and it took them a couple months to sell all the booths. This one took them about a week to sell twice as many booths, a hundred. And it was a huge success. And it just got me thinking more and more about farmer's markets. Not just from the perspective of a vendor at a market, but from the perspective of the person who owns the market. So I know a farmer's market is like the least sexy business out there, but the unsexy businesses are the best. They're the most profitable ones. They're the ones that people are sleeping on. So hear me out for a few minutes and then I'll get into my interview with Michael. Let me try to convince you to start a farmer's market. I'll tell you exactly how ours broke down. So let me be very clear. My wife and her friend slash business partner did like 95% of the work here. I vibe coded an app for, for the judges so that they could score the booths on three different age categories and several different factors. That's what I did. And then I showed up and filmed content. They did all the work, but I had a cool inside look into how it works and how much money it could make if the one that we didn't just do were a non profit. We're doing this to help kids become entrepreneurs and not to be rich. But plenty of people could do this to get rich. And it costs almost nothing to start. The magic is in the overhead or the lack thereof. We had almost zero overhead. Now, typically your biggest overhead is going to be your lease or your rent or your land or like, where are you going to put this market? All these people to set up 10 by 10, 10, 6 foot plastic folding tables and chairs. Where are you going to do this? Well, you could do it like near city hall, like I do here in my small town. But what my wife and her friend did is they went to a popular outdoor walkable shopping area here in the Dallas Fort Worth area. It's been here for about 15 years. It's got all the typicals. Cheesecake Factory, Grimaldi's pizzeria, burger place, frozen yogurt, grocery store, you name it. It's nice, it's cool. But these guys are in the business of occupancy. They want as close to 100% occupancy as possible. And they also have apartments. It's a mixed use complex. So they need things to be bustling, they need things to appear busy. And so it's in their best interest to Host a farmer's market. And so I think it was my wife called the marketing manager or emailed them or whatever, and they were thrilled to be a part of this. They said, yeah, let's set a date a few months in the future. Let's rope off some parking spaces for you and we'll help you advertise it. We'll put it up on our electronic billboard that like a hundred thousand people drive by every day. That's not an exaggeration. It's right on the freeway. We'll send an email out to our list. Like, we will advertise this market for you and we won't charge you for it. And we're going to give you gift cards to our shopping center to all the businesses here to give to the judges just to say thanks for helping participate. So we did it last year. It was a huge success. And then we did it this year and it was a mega success. And I basically played zero role in marketing it. I either to the vendors or to the people that showed up. I posted about it on Instagram the morning of. I have no idea if it drove any traffic, but it was way too short notice to make a difference. So I don't want anyone to think that you have to have an audience to do this. It was packed and it's perfect because people are already coming to that shopping center. Most of the people at the market probably had no idea there was even a market there that day. They just went there to buy some Lululemon leggings or whatever and then saw a bunch of kids selling cool stuff and so they started shopping. But a lot of people did know there was a market, so they came there and then they might have bought some Lululemon leggings as well, which the shopping center would be thrilled about. And then you have all the friends and family. You have these 7 to 17 year old kids with a booth and their parents are posting about it on Facebook and Instagram and everywhere to friends and family and extended family. And they're showing up and driving business to the shopping center and to the other kids as well. So it's this beautiful win win all the way around. Now, here's what we did wrong. We provided tables and chairs. Never again, ever, ever, ever again. What you need to provide is just a space on the ground. Hey, here's a map. You take a laminated piece of paper with a number on it. You take a sandbag, you throw the piece of paper on the ground, you throw the sandbag on it. So it doesn't blow away. And then you tell people the day before, the week before, you are booth number six. And then around 8am all the vendors show up. An hour before it starts, they set up, they set up their tent. We set out the tables and chairs beforehand, which was a big pain and I won't get into it, but we're not going to do that again. And that was basically our only overhead, that was our only cost. And then they have an hour to set up or two hours or whatever they want or need. And then people start showing up at nine and it lasts until 12, 1, 2 o' clock in the afternoon. That's how it works. A lot of these kids made hundreds of dollars in profit. I think a few made over a thousand, and then some kids made less than a hundred. It just didn't go well. And the kids that typically didn't do well were the ones that sold really, really cheap knickknacks, you know, like 3D printed objects or crafts or stuff that people buy to be nice but they don't really need. And it's also the stuff that takes forever for these kids to make. Side note, I don't recommend you sell that stuff. The kids that did well sold higher ticket stuff. And in this case, higher ticket is like 20 to $50. My daughter sold $35 custom hats. She had an 80% margin and she made hundreds of dollars of profit in a few hours. Her overhead was a $70 hat pressing machine and some like $4 blank hats she bought on Amazon and some patches and stuff like that. Great business. So I think there's even more opportunity to do this for adults. And you could charge a lot more on booth fees as well. And this concept of doing it at an outdoor shopping market, that's not really a thing. Now I know Tractor Supply, they have markets on Saturdays and it's genius because it brings people to the Tractor supply. And tractor supplies usually aren't like in as good of a location as a Walmart. They're usually kind of off the beaten path in more rural areas. And so it's a great way for tractors applied to market to the community to let people know that they're there and then also to have a high sales day on that Saturday because people are showing up, buy hot chocolate, then they go in and buy a bunch of chickens or whatever. So Tractor Supply is kind of pioneering this along with my wife and her business partner. But at the end of this, the shopping center went up to my wife. Remember this is the second time they did it. And said this was amazing. How soon can we do this again? And they don't even have results yet. It's not like they signed a bunch of 10 year leases on the spot. Like, you know, commercial real estate doesn't work that way. But they just want bustling activity and that's what they got. So here's how the unit economics break down. First of all, this shopping center is not massive. I would say it's mid size for dfw, certainly on the lower end of mid size. But it could fit at least 200 booths. And these booths are on sidewalks and in parking spaces. And they also have a parking garage. So they have plenty of parking. That's not an issue. So a booth fee, realistic basically at an average market is 50 to 100 bucks. And remember, you don't need to provide anything. They bring their tent, their tables and their chairs and their supplies and their equipment and if they need electricity, they just plug up to an outlet and you know, the shopping center covers that. So 200 stall market, a hundred dollars a piece, that's $20,000 for five or six hours of work on a Saturday. Plus of course like some prep work beforehand, some marketing. But in the case of my wife, like they have a Facebook page with like 300 followers. Instagram page was something tiny. Like they didn't have a big audience. They're just piggybacking on an existing audience of this shopping center. That's why it works. So you do one of these every weekend, put 10 grand profit in your pocket, 40 grand a month, I think that's possible. Or just be a vendor at these things or show up to one of these and see which booths are consistently busy and then copy that concept at the same market or at a different market. I really, really love the branded bag idea that you're about to hear in this interview. You've heard of Justin's Nut Butter Multi hundred million dollar brand sold in thousands of grocery stores that started at a farmer's market, Tate's Bake Shop. I think that's a billion dollar business. Farmer's market, Burt's Bees, Green Goo Sprouts Markets that started as a farmer's market. I am actually going to finally launch my powdered drink mix business that I've been talking about for years called Busy Juice at my local Farmer's Market that's two minutes down the road from me on May 9th. And I'm going to document that whole process. Buying the bags, sealing the bags, buying the ingredients, mixing it in my kitchen, the regulatory stuff. I'M going to have a live stream set up at the tent all day. I'm going to bring samples of drinks. People are going to taste it. I'm going to sell it for 30 bucks a bag. It's got like 70% profit margins. I'm going to eat my own dog food or drink my own powdered drink mix in this case. So be looking for that video in late May or June. These markets are just an amazing place to get immediate real time feedback from strangers on your product. Doesn't have to be food. It could be cutting boards, it could be anything. Beef jerky, I guess that's food, but go find what works. In the case of this guy I'm about to interview, he had no precedent for a pizza mix making a thousand or $2,000 in four hours at a farmer's market. That wasn't a thing. He didn't go copy anyone else. He just blazed his own trail and now he's got a multi million dollar business on his hand a couple years later. Go start a farmer's market or go be a vendor at a farmer's market or go support your local farmer's market as a consumer and check out this interview and please share with a friend. Oh, and if you're here for the first time, please hit follow or subscribe on Apple podcasts or Spotify or wherever you. It would really go a long way. Thank you. Well, why don't you start by telling us who you are and what you do.
- [10:58]
Michael McCoy
So my name is Michael McCoy and I'm co founder of Prep A Pizza where we sell a pizza dough making kit to people who want to make better pizza at home. Okay, that's, that's basically what I did for more than a decade. It's kind of nerded out, bought every bit of equipment, tried all kinds of brands. Like in the very beginning I created a fake pizzeria so I could contact every vendor and get like flower. You wouldn't buy anywhere else on Amazon or interesting in any kind of specialty stores or even the restaurant stores. So I could find, you know, kind of what I was looking for. Realistically it was, you know, I always try with food at home is like how can I emulate a restaurant that I love? And so I, you know, would start with, you know, okay, well what brands of flour are they using? What kind of techniques are they doing? What types of other ingredients are incorporated with this and how can I, you know, almost exactly mimic it, you know, to the point where now we've created this gotcha.
- [11:57]
Podcast Host
What Was what background did you have that led you to start this business?
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Michael McCoy
So I, for lack of a better word, I've reinvented myself in business about five different times. I had been doing a lot of business in the past that I wasn't really passionate about. None of the things that I did were really anything that I loved. For a while there, I was kind of in a rut. Wasn't really happy, you know, family. Wasn't really happy with what I was doing anyways in business. And so we kind of like sat down one night and it's just like, okay, well, what's something that I could do that I really love and I'm passionate about and that I could really, like, you know, sink into? And, you know, the first thing that came to mind was like, we should. Should start a pizzeria. Because, you know, I've been making pizza at home for, you know, more than a decade. I've been nerding out on it just like you did. And realistically, you know, it was my passion. It was my love, you know, for a really long time. And everybody else loved it too. Like, you know, we'd always have pizza parties and things like that. And everybody would say, well, you should really open a pizzeria. You should really open a pizzeria. And so one day I turned to my wife and said, would you like me to open a pizzeria? And she said, no, because. Because we both worked in the restaurant industry before.
- [13:08]
Podcast Host
Oh, brutal.
- [13:08]
Michael McCoy
He's like, you'll be there night and day, like, I don't want you to open up a pizzeria. So I sat my thought and I was like, well, kind of come from a direct response marketing background and, you know, had basically have all kinds of background with restaurant training as well as, you know, online training and things like that. So I thought, well, how can I marry all of that together? And that's where kind of our pizza dough making kit kind of was born, where basically I provide you with the best quality ingredients and also training and support so that way you can execute. Because that's the biggest problem with most people. Most people have a challenge in getting to the finish line. And so then they go back, they revert backwards and go to the grocery store and, you know, buy what's pre made kind of easiest. And. But once you get past the point, just like you did, once you get back past the point of making something really good, you're like, wow, this can be amazing at home. And that's kind of the biggest hurdle that I think Most home cooks have with making pizza.
- [14:09]
Podcast Host
It's funny because you had that, you said the comment where you're so good at making pizza, you should open a pizzeria. Like, I swear every failed restaurant that ever failed was because someone had that same experience over and over and over. They were good at making X, y or Z food. And all their friends and family said, you should open a restaurant. What those people don't realize is that opening a restaurant is nothing like being a good cook. Like, being a good cook is like 20% of it. You still have to run a dang business, you know. And so then they open this restaurant and they're there till midnight every night. And then it fails. Because a business is much different than just cooking in your kitchen. So what did that first month look like? How did you start your business?
- [14:46]
Michael McCoy
So basically in the beginning, we didn't really know how good this was going to do. So we realistically kind of just started it out of our basement, for lack of a better word. I would measure, me, my wife would spend evenings in the basement like measuring out ingredients and building these kits. And you know, we pre ordered all of these different bags and stuff like that that we could then load everything with with like normal gram scales in our basement on tables and stuff like that. And then we had a sealing machine and we would build these and we build, you know, typically like 100 at a time. And then I would go out to farmers markets because I knew that that was kind of like the fastest way that you could go and present some type of food related product and see if there was a market for it without realistically low end investment. Weren't really spending any money online or anything like that. And I started going to farmers markets and then I started to go to three or four farmers markets a week. And every single time I'd go, you know, I'd show up, I'd have a little pizza oven, my table set up, and you know, 30 to 40 of these. And every single time I'd walk home without and people would buy them. And I wasn't the cheapest product at the farmer's market. You know, we charged $30 for our kit, 29.97 online. And realistically to a consumer for pizza dough, I mean, that's probably the biggest comment we get online. Oh, that's really expensive. But it's not just about, you know, the ingredients inside of the bag. It's about the training, the support that you get, the actual level of commitment to making sure you pass the finish line. And Enjoy your experience. That's what we're really selling this. At any rate, I started going farmer's market after farmer's market and basically over the course of a summer, you know, I sold roughly $60,000 worth of product. Kind of your first summer part working part time. Like, I mean, typically the farmer's market is like a couple hours, and I was maybe like three, three to four a week. So I mean under 20 hours a week that I was working on this project selling $60,000 worth of stuff. So it wasn't that at all.
- [16:54]
Podcast Host
So your first three months you did 20,000amonth working 20 hours a week? Give or take, yeah. Holy crap. What was your profit on that? 60,000.
- [17:04]
Michael McCoy
So in the beginning it was pretty much all, you know, for the most part profit because the margins on the actual product. So I would say if you factored in our time, we spent a lot of time making everything. So it wasn't, you know, like, realistically the showing up to the market and everything like that, in the end result of selling that part was, you know, kind of a limited amount of time. The back end time, which was, you know, us being our own in house manufacturing facility. That was probably the majority, I would say, of the work. But as far as, you know, ingredients are, are, they're not inexpensive, but they're not expensive. But then we also were buying in bulk so I could lower my costs and things like that. But then we were manufacturing in house, so technically we, you know, literally in house.
- [17:50]
Podcast Host
Manufacturing in basement.
- [17:51]
Michael McCoy
Yeah, manufacturing at home. And then, you know, we just kind of grew from there. And so then when I took it online, basically we kind of knew we had something, didn't really know how well it would do online. And I was a little bit new to, you know, like Facebook advertising and I kind of hired agencies out, took everything over on my own. And now we've been pretty much exploding.
- [18:18]
Podcast Host
Okay, so I want you to grade my pizza recipe and then I'm going to guess your margins. My pizza, double zero flour, 1 kg thousand grams. That's gonna, that's gonna set me back. And I, I don't buy in bulk. It's gonna set me back like eight bucks or something, right? Six bucks, something like that. Six to eight bucks. Then I'm gonna put in 700 grams of water, and then I'm gonna put in like 6 grams of yeast and 25 grams of salt. That sounds about right. So if I were selling that, it looks like you're 30 bucks for six pizzas worth. And so that's like, I'm guessing, I don't know, is that like a pound and a half? Is that right?
- [18:52]
Michael McCoy
So the package itself weighs out to two pounds.
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Podcast Host
Okay, two pounds. Okay. So I'm guessing you've got like 80% margin on that product as far as
- [19:02]
Michael McCoy
the actual ingredients and things like that. I'd say that's.
- [19:05]
Podcast Host
That's probably pretty close gross margin. Yeah.
- [19:08]
Michael McCoy
Yeah. I mean, I will say that our good friend Zuckerberg gets the majority of our money.
- [19:13]
Podcast Host
Sure. Yeah. We'll go in, we'll go into the E comm side. But now I'm thinking for, like, I'm still thinking on the farmer's market side. So you first summer, are you doing like one farmer's market every Saturday, or are they more often than that?
- [19:27]
Michael McCoy
So there are ones that you can do, like, throughout the week. So I did a Wednesday, Thursday, and two Saturday markets, and that was before that, that I did in a week.
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Podcast Host
Okay.
- [19:40]
Michael McCoy
So I had my wife go to one and I went to another one on Saturday. But realistically, in a lot of towns, there are ones that you can do, you know, essentially Wednesday through Saturday. Typically there's a market in some place or some town close to you. It just depends on what town it is, so. But realistically, someone could easily get three in by themselves.
- [20:03]
Podcast Host
So you guys were doing like, call it like 12 to 16 markets a month that first summer.
- [20:09]
Michael McCoy
Right.
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Podcast Host
Accurate. Okay, so call it 48 markets. You're doing like 1200-1500 in sales per market on average. And I'm sure some are like 400 and some are 2000. Is that accurate?
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Michael McCoy
Yeah, it just depends on the day.
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Podcast Host
Yeah. And then markets are what, four to six hours?
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Michael McCoy
So typically the ones around here are about two to three hours of the total time of the actual market itself. So, like, I'd say you're probably there for maybe four and a half hours total, if that.
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Podcast Host
Okay.
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Michael McCoy
Like, it really wasn't that long, guys.
- [20:42]
Podcast Host
Tkowners.com that's my community where people are building businesses. I do AMAs, Q&As every week live. You can ask me anything you want. You can have accountability partners. It's about a thousand people in there building, starting, growing businesses. Check out TKO, as in the Kerner office. TKowners.com. so you're only making pizzas for samples. You're not selling pizzas, just the kids.
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Michael McCoy
Right, Right. So the goal in the beginning was not to become a pizzeria, but to sell, you know, show people, showcase the product, sell people on. You can do this too. And this is how good it can be. And so that's, you know, so I would make it exactly the same so there'd be no difference in the dough, you know, and I would do minimal stuff, like minimal cheese, minimal toppings, you know, things like that highlights, but you know, minimal sauce, minimal cheese. So they could really taste what good dough could be versus well, you're just putting a ton of sauce or you're just putting.
- [21:37]
Podcast Host
Yeah, yeah. Now are you putting anything else in the mix other than flour, salt, yeast?
- [21:43]
Michael McCoy
So we add a couple of helpers. We provide honey as a helper, like powdered honey. We're going to change that in time for vegan people. But basically a healthier sugar which helps the yeast activate. We also provide diastatic malt powder, which basically we do a two part recipe. We teach poolish, which is a bread making step of making a pre ferment before you actually finish your dough.
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Podcast Host
Mm.
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Michael McCoy
So when you mixed more ingredients in, makes it even, you know, basically it's in the pizza industry. It helps to kind of move things along faster. And so that's, that's why we chose this recipe. Because we're trying to, you know, like, if I said, hey, man, all right, cool, you know, mix all that stuff together. All right, now let it sit in the fridge for three days.
- [22:28]
Podcast Host
Yeah, that's what I do. I love it.
- [22:31]
Michael McCoy
So. And some people, you know, are definitely more into like the faster time. So we were trying to figure out how can we give people the right recipe, but also the fastest recipe for them. And that's where we landed with this.
- [22:43]
Podcast Host
I mean, you've got a. You've got to build it for the lowest common denominator for the everyday at home. You got to make it easy, simple, frictionless. You said the word foolish. And I heard Vito, that YouTuber, I'm sure you, you know him?
- [22:54]
Michael McCoy
Yeah, yeah.
- [22:55]
Podcast Host
He's so entertaining.
- [22:56]
Michael McCoy
I know him very well. I see him every year at the pizza expo.
- [23:01]
Podcast Host
Oh, that's awesome.
- [23:01]
Michael McCoy
And we talk a good bit. So he's a good friend.
- [23:05]
Podcast Host
It's funny because I'm thinking back to the conversation you had with your family, like, what is your passion? Like, oh, it's pizza. If I were to have that conversation with my family, oh, man, it's pizza, it's barbecue, it's mowing the lawn, it's trimming trees, it's planting trees, it's fruit, it's horticulture. I have so many passions. But I will say, like, in the passion versus profit argument, like, passion Is just the way to go, man. Like, you might not be able to afford starting a business that's your passion early on. But as soon as you can, like do a business that you are passionate about and you will have the most rewarding, fulfilling life ever.
- [23:39]
Michael McCoy
Yeah. They always say if you do what you love, you never work a day.
- [23:42]
Podcast Host
You never work a day. And it's true. It's a cliche, but it's so true. Okay, so by my count, you're making it, you know, exclude the time it takes you to prep the stuff. If you just look at the time spent at the market, it's only you because you're offering something that's very simple. You know, pay here, here's the QR code to Venmo or whatever. You don't need a team there. You're making a couple hundred bucks an hour of profit for the time span of the market, of course, doesn't account for your time before then. That's an amazing living. But you know, you can only scale farmers markets so much, so you start going online. What does your first three months of online sales look like?
- [24:17]
Michael McCoy
So actually in the very beginning, and another thing too, just like a sidebar, is that we didn't just do farmer's markets. We, we did different food shows, we did lots of golf tournaments, we did neighborhood events. Basically anywhere that would let me show up, make a little bit of pizza and had a crowd. Like is kind of where, you know, golf tournaments was really big one. Like it was a super, you know, lo fi thing to spend, you know, a golf round, you know, sitting around making pizza, chatting with people and you know, easily I was selling 40 or 50 at the MetaGolf tournament. It was definitely a good place for it. But when we went online in the beginning was kind of. I was a little bit new to Facebook marketing, hired an agency on. At first we did okay, but realistically we didn't really do great. And it wasn't until I took things over myself and really started investing in to the marketing and understanding everything that we went like probably our first four months of marketing. Basically our sales online were dismal. Although we did get a call from the show that everybody knows that you go on their show and they'll maybe invest in your business.
- [25:24]
Podcast Host
Did you, did you go on it?
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Michael McCoy
We haven't yet, but basically they, they invited us to try out for the show and I laughed because when they called us I said, well, we've sold five of these online, so I'm not really sure we're ready for you guys yet, but I guess we'll sign up. So maybe at some point we'll get on that show too. But it's kind of funny at any rate. So after that, basically we did in less than 30 days what we did in four months in sales, just by me taking over everything and really understanding the marketing and how Facebook marketing works and kind of applying the right principles. And we've been just scaling from there. Where our best month so far, we did over $160,000 in sales. You know, basically over the past couple of years, just online sales alone, a little north of three or four million dollars in sales. And we've kind of just scratched the surface of the marketplace. We're just understanding how to build this business. You know, as I'm sure you're aware of, the e Comm world is not, you know, it's not just like press play and you're instant millionaire. You've got to actually, it's hard do a lot of things to get it, you know, going right and efficient and, you know, cost efficient based on your advertising. And that's the most expensive thing. Kind of like the good thing about what we're doing is that we had, you know, margins in place. That allowed us to really kind of explode our marketing where other companies out there might only have a 10 or a 15 or 20% margin.
- [27:00]
Podcast Host
Yeah, I mean, it looks like you have 60 active ads right now, which is awesome. Most people don't realize that about Facebook ads. You have to have a way more creatives than you think, and you have to rotate them much more often than you think. Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast. So if you know of someone with a side hustle or a business that's unique and cool and super profitable, email Molly mo l l y@co founders.com that's one word. Co founders.com Mollyofounders.com Tell her your story and we'll give you a hundred bucks if we end up interviewing them. We're like, we're friends of the farmer's market. My wife put on a farmer's market for kids. She was in charge of it with a friend. And we're vendors at a farmer's market here in town regularly. We sell all kinds of stuff. We're an entrepreneurial family. So I'm going to one next month and I'm going to sell a powdered drink mix in a gusset bag like what you sell yours in. It's a powdered drink mix with three ingredients that I Personally drink and invented and love. And so I'm going to do it. A, to make money, B, to make some content about it. What tips would you have for me for selling a product that has a form factor just like yours, but is a powdered drink mix instead? It's going to be a similar price point as well.
- [28:05]
Michael McCoy
Yeah. I'd say literally set up some cameras behind you.
- [28:09]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [28:10]
Michael McCoy
And have people try it.
- [28:11]
Podcast Host
Do people have issues with the cameras or the mics at all ever?
- [28:14]
Michael McCoy
No, never. Never had one issue with it or anyone, like, thinking something was wrong. But to me, it just felt like if I was too, like, abrasive about it, then people would care if that makes sense. Like if I was just like, okay, hey, can you hold this mic real quick? Because I'm trying to mail content for my blah, blah, blah, that people just
- [28:35]
Podcast Host
pretend like it's not there unless they say something.
- [28:37]
Michael McCoy
Yeah.
- [28:39]
Podcast Host
Hypothetically. So you did 60 grand the first summer just at farmer's markets. What might you have done in sales that same summer if you had no samples? You were just kind of selling them on the dream and you just had the product there?
- [28:51]
Michael McCoy
I mean, honestly, I think I will say that it was 50, 50, because I also tried selling without samples and more so I. I would say without samples, someone that had bought some equipment and failed, you know, so realistically, it's kind of like, you know, the. A lot of people that went to farmers markets also were the outdoor cooking crowd of people. And so it was a very easy pull for our product. I would say that definitely samples help, you know, and in the beginning, samples, I would suggest for any product, doesn't matter what it is, like, sample, because that, you know, except obviously, like, eggs. You can't crack an egg and then say, hey, you know, you just get to say, my chickens lay the best eggs.
- [29:38]
Podcast Host
Right now in Texas, we have the Texas cottage food law, where if I were to make pizzas at this market, I need a food handler's permit. And it's totally different than if I sell cookies, you know, because those don't require refrigeration. I don't need any licensing if I sell cookies. Right. In your case, did you need a special license to give out samples or no?
- [29:55]
Michael McCoy
So that's kind of interesting. And we actually talked with someone in Texas about reselling our product there as well. And the laws are only applied if you sell the pizza. So if I'm just giving you a sample of a pizza that I've made to test out, it doesn't apply because the Exact same laws in Georgia, where, for example, if I show up to a farmer's market and I'm selling pizza to people, I am now a food
- [30:25]
Podcast Host
truck, whereas you're basically a restaurant. Yeah, Your cat like one.
- [30:30]
Michael McCoy
Because of that, the law is almost like, identical between the two states. In most states, I found out that Pennsylvania is the only one that's, like, really weird about it. But other than that, the majority of states, it's been something where anyone could,
- [30:44]
Podcast Host
okay, what was your best market ever with regards to sales, and what was your worst?
- [30:49]
Michael McCoy
So I think my best market ever, we did, like, close to three grand. But it was a. It was a really big, like, it was kind of a big event that was all tied up together with the farmer's market as part of it. So there were basically. It was almost like triple the amount of people that would normally come to the farmer's market. And I would say that, you know, every farmer's market is not a great, you know, great place. So you have to be a little bit picky and choosy.
- [31:21]
Podcast Host
Yeah.
- [31:23]
Michael McCoy
I would say ones that cities. Hold on. Like, that are actually inside of the city limits, I've found, tend to be better than ones that are outside of the city limits.
- [31:34]
Podcast Host
The one I'm doing. Yeah.
- [31:35]
Michael McCoy
Yeah. And the reason why is because I've been to ones that basically are a farmer's market, like, in the traditional sense of on the side of the road that no one showed up to because it was poorly marketed. Where the cities are trying to, you know, especially smaller cities, they're trying to get people to come into their town and also do business with the other businesses in town. And farmers markets is a great way to kind of get people around the area to actually come in and invest in the town itself.
- [32:03]
Podcast Host
Yeah. Okay. What about these classes? Who's doing classes and what. How big is that business?
- [32:09]
Michael McCoy
So every person who buys our pizza dough making kit gets our free masterclass. So basically, we provide them with a course. It walks them step by step on how to make pizza dough the proper way. You know, has tons of different troubleshooting information. It's actually something we're reshooting because we also found other things that people had problems with. So it's something that's ever evolving for us. But then we also back that by providing customer support. So, for example, like, if you had a question and you were making dough and you needed a little bit of help, you can hop on the chat on our website, and lo and behold, I'm the person answering it. Right. Now. And so I, I help people out every single day. You can even call our 800 number and get real answers to kind of, you know, the goal, realistically, our goal is, is to have people enjoy what they're making, be successful in their making and you know, making it and then having a really good pizza at home, better than any pizza around them, which makes them want to make it more often.
- [33:04]
Podcast Host
Okay, so you've got a masterclass, but that's free to anyone that purchases it just so they can learn how to better use your product. That's not like a revenue generating side of the business, but it supports your revenue.
- [33:13]
Michael McCoy
Exactly. Yeah.
- [33:14]
Podcast Host
Okay, if someone's watching this right now and they love pizza or they love cooking and they want to monetize that somehow, what suggestions would you have for them? Would it be selling pizza at a farmer's market would like in the pizza space? What's like an approachable business idea or more than one that people could implement?
- [33:32]
Michael McCoy
Yeah, I mean, I would say that, you know, reselling pizza related products versus selling pizza, because for example, selling pizza, there's an initial investment, just like having a restaurant, you know, in the equipment to make the pizza as well as the licensing that you would need to, to sell it. Not that it's like super expensive, but sometimes, you know, not everybody has, let's just call it under $25,000 stowed away to, you know, start a pizza venture with. So realistically selling products like this, I think, or other, even equipment would be something where, you know, you can showcase equipment and how it works in certain ways. I wouldn't say like stones and steels are really hard to showcase, you know, like at a venue like that. But that would be something that easily someone could go and sell, you know, they would just require the inventory.
- [34:29]
Podcast Host
So when you were spending time at these markets, what other like farmers market items, products, services did you see around you that seemed to be extra popular, extra profitable?
- [34:41]
Michael McCoy
So I would say the majority of people that seem to make the most money were someone who made baked goods. They seemed to sell out of their products pretty frequently. And especially if they were good at making the baked goods, they didn't have a lot left over. So, you know, definitely, you know, I know making is a really big niche. And so, you know, people making breads and things like that at home and being able to go and sell that at farmers markets, those seem to do really well. And then, you know, kind of like I would say interesting things as well. Like we had, there was a lady that sold pickles like she made her own pickles and everything like that. There was a lady who you know, basically kind of had multiple different farmers markets and she sold pasta. So basically fresh make pasta. She made it out of her basement and everything like that. And then, you know, had kind of like this army of girls going around to different farmers markets selling pasta. She did well, I think she does pretty well at it considering she has, you know, I mean, if you have
- [35:41]
Podcast Host
an army of people that you're paying,
- [35:43]
Michael McCoy
army of girls going out there selling
- [35:45]
Podcast Host
scale, you're not going to scale something that doesn't work. Yeah, that's very interesting. What was the form factor? I imagine it wasn't dried out. Did she like make the pasta fresh and then bag it and refrigerate it?
- [35:54]
Michael McCoy
Basically it was refrigerated pasta. And so they'd show up coolers and basically, you know, interesting. And she had a following at the market because that's, that's typically what happens is like you start to build a following of people that buy your product and then buy it over and over again and almost like weirdly only want to buy it from the farmer's market. Like where I had to convince several people, they kept asking me, when are you going to be back at the market? And I'm like, you know, I, I gotta, gotta take. But you can buy it online. I literally will ship it tomorrow. And they're like, yeah, well, I don't trust the Internet. And I'm like, just come on, let's, let's talk.
- [36:31]
Podcast Host
Michael, this is an incredible business. Thank you for sharing your time with us. I love your story. Where can we find you if we want to learn more or buy your pizza kits?
- [36:39]
Michael McCoy
Yeah, so if you go to prepapizza.com you can buy our pizza kit and you'll see a boatload of ads from me if you're on Facebook or Instagram or Google.
- [36:50]
Podcast Host
Okay, thank you, Michael.
- [36:51]
Michael McCoy
No problem. Thank you.
- [36:52]
Podcast Host
Hey guys, if you're still listening to this, it's probably because you haven't had a chance to take your AirPods out. You're still mowing the lawn, you're still driving, what have you. If you're still here with me, I would really, really love and appreciate a five star review on Spotify, Apple or wherever you get your podcast. It would mean a lot if you want to go the extra mile. Share this episode with a friend that might have an interest in starting a business. It would mean a ton. Hope you have the best day of your life today.