He Makes $20k/Month on the Weekends

0:00 I started going farmers market after farmers

0:02 market and over the course of a summer

0:05 I sold $60,000 worth of product working part-time under 20 hours a week.

0:09 Your first 3 months you did 20,000 a month working 20 hours a week.

0:14 Yeah.

0:14 Give or take.

0:15 Yeah.

0:15 Holy crap.

0:16 In the beginning, we didn't really know how good this was going to do.

0:20 So, we just started it out of our basement.

0:22 You don't need a team there.

0:23 You're making a couple hundred bucks an hour

0:25 of profit for the time spent of the market.

0:27 That's an amazing living that you know

0:29 you can only scale farmers markets so much.

0:31 So you start going online.

0:33 What does your first three months of online sales look like?

0:36 When we went online in the beginning,

0:39 we did in less than 30 days what we did in 4 months.

0:43 Our best month so far, we did over $160,000 in sales.

0:47 Holy cow.

0:48 Basically over the past couple of years,

0:51 just online sales alone, a little north of3 or 4 million.

0:54 Wow.

0:55 We've kind of just scratched the surface of the marketplace.

0:59 What other farmers market items, products,

1:01 services did you see around you that seem to be extra popular, extra profitable?

1:09 I met this guy who sold pizza dough mix at his local farmers market.

1:13 He made 60 grand in a summer, mostly profit,

1:15 working 20 hours a week out of his basement.

1:18 No restaurant, no food truck.

1:19 Started the business with next to nothing.

1:21 Basically, every market he walked home empty.

1:23 his best day.

1:24 Pulled in three grand in four hours.

1:26 So, we're gonna interview this guy.

1:27 But before I get there, I'm going to start this episode today by breaking down

1:31 how you can start your own farmers market because guess what?

1:33 I just did this with my wife.

1:35 We're doing this right now and it's actually really profitable.

1:37 So, I'm going to cover that first.

1:39 Then, I'm going to interview Michael about his pizza kit business.

1:41 At the end of that interview, we're going to talk about other farmers

1:45 market side hustles that are printing money, homemade pasta, all kinds of stuff.

1:48 And then he's going to give us more farmers

1:50 market hacks that you can apply to any business.

1:53 And my favorite hack is a branded bag trick

1:55 that sold his product before customers ever reached his table.

1:58 Enjoy.

1:59 Okay, so let's talk farmers markets.

2:01 Now, I haven't spoken about this publicly yet, but it's a pretty cool story.

2:05 So, my wife and a friend launched their second kids farmers

2:07 market here in the Dallas Fort Worth area about a month ago.

2:10 They did their first last year, and it was a big success.

2:13 Their first one last year had 50 booths,

2:15 and it took them a couple months to sell all the booths.

2:17 This one took them about a week to sell twice as many booths, hundred.

2:21 And it was a huge success and it just

2:24 got me thinking more and more about farmers markets.

2:26 Not just from the perspective of a vendor at a market,

2:29 but from the perspective of the person who owns the market.

2:31 So I know a farmers market is like the least sexy business out there.

2:34 But the unsexy businesses are the best.

2:36 They're the most profitable ones.

2:37 They're the ones that people are sleeping on.

2:39 So hear me out for a few minutes

2:41 and then I'll get into my interview with Michael.

2:42 Let me try to convince you to start a farmers market.

2:45 I'll tell you exactly how ours broke down.

2:46 So let me be very clear.

2:48 My wife and her friend/ business partner did like 95% of the work here.

2:52 I vibe coded an app for the judges so that they could

2:55 score the booths on three different

2:57 age categories and several different factors.

2:58 That's what I did.

2:59 And then I showed up and filmed content.

3:01 They did all the work,

3:02 but I had a cool inside look into how it works and how much

3:06 money it could make if the one that we didn't just do were a nonprofit.

3:10 We're doing this to help kids become entrepreneurs and not to be rich.

3:14 But plenty of people could do this to get

3:16 rich and it costs almost nothing to start.

3:18 So the magic is in the overhead or the lack thereof.

3:22 We had almost zero overhead.

3:23 Now typically your biggest overhead is going to be your lease

3:26 or your rent or your land or like where are

3:29 you going to put this market all these people to set

3:32 up 10x10 tents 6 foot plastic folding tables and chairs.

3:34 Where are you going to do this?

3:36 Well, you could do it like near city hall like I do here in my small town.

3:40 But what my wife and her friend did is they went

3:43 to a popular outdoor walkable shopping area here in the Dallas Fort Worth area.

3:46 It's been here for about 15 years.

3:48 It's got all the typicals.

3:50 Cheesecake Factory, Grimmaldi's Pizzeria, burger place,

3:53 frozen yogurt, grocery store, you name it.

3:55 It's nice.

3:56 It's cool.

3:56 But these guys are in the business of occupancy.

3:59 They want as close to 100% occupancy as possible.

4:01 And they also have uh apartments.

4:03 It's a mixeduse complex.

4:04 So, they need things to be bustling.

4:06 They need things to appear busy.

4:08 And so it's in their best interest to host a farmers market.

4:11 And so I think it was my wife called the marketing manager or emailed

4:15 them or whatever and they were thrilled to be a part of this.

4:18 They said, "Yeah, let's set a date a few months in the future.

4:21 Let's rope off some parking spaces for you and we'll help you advertise it.

4:24 We'll put it up on our electronic billboard that like

4:27 100,000 people drive by every day." That's not an exaggeration.

4:29 It's right on the freeway.

4:31 We'll send an email out to our list.

4:33 like we will advertise this market for you and we won't

4:35 charge you for it and we're going to give you gift

4:38 cards to our shopping center to all the businesses here

4:40 to give to the judges just to say thanks for helping participate.

4:43 So, we did it last year.

4:45 It was a huge success and then we did it this year and it was a mega success

4:50 and I basically played zero role in marketing it either

4:53 to the vendors or to the people that showed up.

4:55 I posted about it on Instagram the morning of.

4:57 I have no idea if it drove any traffic

4:59 but it was way too short notice to make a difference.

5:02 So, I don't want anyone to think that you have to have an audience to do this.

5:06 It was packed.

5:07 And it's perfect because people are already coming to that shopping center.

5:09 Most of the people at the market probably had

5:11 no idea there was even a market there that day.

5:14 They just went there to buy some Lululemon leggings or whatever and then

5:17 saw a bunch of kids selling cool stuff and so they started shopping.

5:20 But a lot of people did know there was a market.

5:22 So, they came there and then they

5:23 might have bought some Lululemon leggings as well,

5:26 which the shopping center would be thrilled about.

5:28 And then you have all the friends and family.

5:31 You have these 7 to 17year-old kids with a booth

5:34 and their parents are posting about it on Facebook and Instagram and everywhere

5:37 to friends and family and extended family and they're showing up and driving

5:41 business to the shopping center and to the other kids as well.

5:44 So, it's this beautiful win-win all the way around.

5:47 Now, here's what we did wrong.

5:49 We provided tables and chairs.

5:50 Never again.

5:51 Ever.

5:51 Ever.

5:52 Ever again.

5:52 What you need to provide is just a space on the ground.

5:56 Hey, here's a map.

5:57 You take a laminated piece of paper with a number on it.

6:00 Take a sandbag.

6:00 You throw the piece of paper on the ground.

6:02 You throw the sandbag on it so it doesn't blow away.

6:05 And then you tell people the day before,

6:06 the week before, you are booth number six.

6:08 And then around 8:00 a.m.

6:10 all the vendors show up an hour before it starts.

6:12 They set up.

6:13 They set up their tent.

6:14 We set out the tables and chairs beforehand, which is a big pain,

6:17 and I won't get into it, but we're not going to do that again.

6:19 And that was basically our only overhead.

6:20 That was our only cost.

6:21 And then they have an hour to set up or 2 hours or whatever they want or need.

6:24 And then people start showing up at 9 and it lasts until 12,

6:27 1, 2:00 in the afternoon.

6:28 That's how it works.

6:29 A lot of these kids made hundreds of dollars in profit.

6:32 I think a few made over a thousand.

6:34 And then some kids made less than a hundred.

6:36 It just didn't go well.

6:37 And the kids that typically didn't do well were the ones that sold really,

6:41 really cheap knickknacks, you know,

6:42 like 3D printed objects or crafts or stuff that people buy to be nice,

6:47 but they don't really need.

6:48 And it's also the stuff that takes forever for these kids to make.

6:51 So, side note, I don't recommend you sell that stuff.

6:54 The kids that did well sold higher ticket stuff.

6:56 And in this case, higher ticket is like$ 20 to $50.

6:59 My daughter sold $35 custom hats.

7:01 She had an 80% margin and she made hundreds of dollars of profit in a few hours.

7:06 Her overhead was a $70 hat pressing machine and some like $4

7:10 blank hats she bought on Amazon and some patches and stuff like that.

7:15 Great business.

7:15 So, I think there's even more opportunity to do this for adults

7:18 and you could charge a lot more on booth fees as well.

7:21 And this concept of doing it at an outdoor shopping market,

7:24 that's not really a thing.

7:25 Now, I know Tractor Supply, they have markets on Saturdays,

7:28 and it's genius because it brings people to the Tractor Supply.

7:32 And Tractor Supplies usually aren't like in as good of location as a Walmart.

7:35 They're usually kind of off the beaten path in more rural areas.

7:38 And so it's a great way for Tractor Supply

7:41 to market to the community to let people know

7:43 that they're there and then also to have a high

7:45 sales day on that Saturday because people are showing up,

7:47 buy hot chocolate, then they go in and buy a bunch of chickens or whatever.

7:51 So Tractor Supply is kind of pioneering

7:53 this along with my wife and her business partner.

7:55 But at the end of this, the shopping center went up to my wife.

7:58 Remember this is the second time they did it and said, "This was amazing.

8:01 How soon can we do this again?" And they don't even have results yet.

8:04 It's not like they signed a bunch of 10-year leases on the spot.

8:08 like, you know, commercial real estate doesn't work that way,

8:11 but they just want bustling activity, and that's what they got.

8:14 So, here's how the unit economics breakdown.

8:16 First of all, this shopping center is not massive.

8:18 I would say it's midsize for DFW, certainly on the lower end of midsize,

8:23 but it could fit at least 200 booths.

8:26 And these booths are on sidewalks and in parking spaces.

8:28 And they also have a parking garage, so they have plenty of parking.

8:31 That's not an issue.

8:32 So, a booth fee realistically at an average market is 50 to 100 bucks.

8:36 And remember, you don't need to provide anything.

8:38 They bring their tent, their tables,

8:40 and their chairs and their supplies and their equipment.

8:42 And if they need electricity,

8:44 they just plug up to an outlet and you know, the shopping center covers that.

8:49 So, 200 stall market, $100 a piece,

8:51 that's $20,000 for five or six hours of work on a Saturday,

8:55 plus of course like some prep work beforehand, some marketing.

8:58 But in the case of my wife,

9:00 like they have a Facebook page with like 300 followers,

9:03 Instagram page with something tiny.

9:05 like they didn't have a big audience.

9:07 They're just piggybacking on an existing audience of this shopping center.

9:10 That's why it works.

9:11 So, you do one of these every weekend,

9:13 put 10 grand profit in your pocket, 40 grand a month.

9:16 I think that's possible.

9:18 Or just be a vendor at these things.

9:20 Or show up to one of these and see which booths are consistently busy

9:24 and then copy that concept at the same market or at a different market.

9:28 I really, really love the branded bag idea

9:30 that you're about to hear in this interview.

9:32 You ever heard of Justin's Nutter?

9:34 multiund million dollar brand sold in thousands

9:35 of grocery stores that started at a farmers market.

9:38 Tate's Bake Shop, I think that's a billion-dollar business.

9:40 Farmers market.

9:41 Berts Bees, Green Goo, Sprouts Markets, that started as a farmers market.

9:46 I am actually going to finally launch my powdered drink mix business that I've

9:50 been talking about for years called Busy Juice at my local farmers market.

9:54 That's 2 minutes down the road from me on May 9th.

9:57 And I'm going to document that whole process, buying the bags,

9:59 sealing the bags, buying the ingredients, mixing it in my kitchen.

10:03 regulatory stuff.

10:03 I'm going to have a live stream set up at the tent all day.

10:07 I'm going to bring samples of drinks.

10:08 People are going to taste it.

10:09 I'm going to sell it for 30 bucks a bag.

10:11 It's got like 70% profit margins.

10:13 I'm going to eat my own dog food or drink

10:15 my own powdered drink mix in in this case.

10:17 So, be looking for that video in late May or June.

10:20 These markets are just an amazing place to get

10:23 immediate real-time feedback from strangers on your product.

10:25 Doesn't have to be food.

10:26 It could be cutting boards.

10:27 It could be anything.

10:28 Beef jerky.

10:29 I guess that's food.

10:30 But go find what works.

10:31 In the case of this guy I'm about to interview,

10:34 he had no precedent for a pizza mix making

10:36 a,000 or $2,000 in four hours at a farmers market.

10:39 That wasn't a thing.

10:40 He didn't go copy anyone else.

10:42 He just blazed his own trail and now he's got

10:44 a multi-million dollar business on his hand a couple years later.

10:46 So go start a farmers market or go be a vendor at a farmers market or go support

10:51 your local farmers market as a consumer and check

10:53 out this interview and please share with a friend.

10:55 Hey, YouTube's fine, but what about when you're driving around?

10:57 What about when you're mowing the lawn?

10:59 You need my audio podcast, The Kerner Office.

11:01 Just look up TKO Pod in Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

11:06 Well, why don't you start by telling us who you are and what you do?

11:10 So, my name is Mike McCoy and I'm co-founder of Prep a Pizza where we

11:15 sell a pizza dough making kit to people who want to make better pizza at home.

11:19 That's basically what I did for more than a decade is kind of nerded out.

11:22 Bought every bit of equipment, tried all kinds of brands.

11:26 Like in the very beginning, I created a fake pizzeria so I could

11:30 contact every vendor and get like flowery you wouldn't

11:33 buy anywhere else on Amazon or interesting in any

11:36 kind of specialty stores or even the restaurant stores.

11:40 So I could find, you know, kind of what I was looking for realistically.

11:44 It was, you know, I always try with food at home

11:47 is like how can I emulate a restaurant that I love?

11:51 And so I start with, you know, okay, well, what brands of flour are they using?

11:55 What kind of techniques are they doing?

11:57 What types of other ingredients are incorporated with this?

12:01 And how can I, you know, almost exactly mimic it,

12:04 you know, to the point where now we've created this?

12:07 Gotcha.

12:08 What was what background did you have that led you to start this business?

12:11 So I, for lack of a better word,

12:13 I've reinvented myself in business about five different times.

12:17 I had been doing a lot of business

12:19 in the past that I wasn't really passionate about.

12:22 None of the things that I did were really anything that I loved.

12:26 And for a while, I was kind of in a rut.

12:28 Wasn't really happy.

12:29 You know, family wasn't really happy with what I was doing anyways in business.

12:34 And so we kind of like sat down one night and it's just like, okay, well,

12:38 what's something that I could do that I really love

12:41 and I'm passionate about and that I could really like,

12:43 you know, sink into, you know, the first thing that came to mind was

12:47 like we should start a piece pizzeria because,

12:49 you know, I'd been making pizza at home for, you know, more than a decade.

12:52 I've been nerding out on it just like you did.

12:55 And realistically, it was my passion.

12:57 It was my love, you know, for a really long time.

13:00 And everybody else loved it, too.

13:01 like, you know, we'd always have pizza parties

13:04 and things like that and everybody would say,

13:06 "Wow, you should really open a pizzeria.

13:07 You should really open a pizzeria." And so one day I turned to my wife and said,

13:11 "Would you like me to open a pizzeria?" And she said,

13:14 "No." Cuz we've both worked in the restaurant industry before.

13:17 It's brutal.

13:17 Like, you'll be there night and day.

13:19 Like, I don't want you to open up a pizzeria.

13:21 So I sat and I thought and I was like, well I kind of come from a direct

13:26 response marketing background and basically have all kinds

13:29 of background with restaurant training as well

13:31 as you know online training and things like that.

13:34 So I thought well how can I marry all of that together?

13:38 And that's where kind of our pizza dough making kit kind

13:41 of was born where basically I provide you with the best

13:44 quality ingredients and also training and support so that way

13:48 you could execute because that's the biggest problem with most people.

13:52 Most people have a challenge in getting to the finish line and so then they go

13:56 back they revert backwards and go to the grocery

13:59 store and you know buy what's pre-made, what's kind of easiest.

14:02 And once you get past the point, just like you did,

14:06 once you get back past the point of making something really good, you're like,

14:10 "Wow, this can be amazing at home." And that's kind of the biggest

14:13 hurdle that I think most home cooks have with making pizza.

14:16 It's funny because you had that you said

14:18 the comment where you're so good at making pizza, you should open a pizzeria.

14:22 Like, I swear every failed restaurant that ever failed was

14:26 because someone had that same experience over and over and over.

14:29 they were good at making X, Y, or Z food and all their friends and family said,

14:33 "You should open a restaurant." What those people don't realize is

14:35 that opening a restaurant is nothing like being a good cook.

14:38 Like being a good cook is like 20% of it.

14:40 You still have to run a dang business, you know?

14:42 And so then they open this restaurant

14:44 and they're there till midnight every night

14:46 and then it fails because a business is

14:48 much different than just cooking in your kitchen.

14:50 So what did that first month look like?

14:52 How did you start your business?

14:54 So basically in the beginning we didn't really

14:56 know how good this was going to do.

14:59 So, we realistically kind of just started it out of our basement,

15:02 for lack of a better word.

15:03 I would measure, me and my wife would spend, you know,

15:06 evenings in the basement like measuring out

15:08 ingredients and building these kits and, you know,

15:11 we pre-ordered all of these different bags and stuff like

15:14 that that we could then load everything with with, you know,

15:18 just like normal gram scales in our basement at on tables and stuff like that.

15:24 And then we had a ceiling machine and we would build these and we'd build,

15:29 you know, typically like a hundred at a time.

15:31 And then I would go out to farmers markets because

15:33 I knew that that was kind of like the fastest way

15:36 that you could go and present some type of food

15:40 related product and see if there was a market for without,

15:44 you know, realistically low-end investment.

15:45 weren't really spending any money online or anything

15:48 that I started going to farmers markets and then

15:50 I started to go to three or four farmers

15:53 markets a week and every single time I'd go, you know, I'd show up,

15:57 I'd have a little pizza oven and my table set up and, you know,

16:01 30 to 40 of these and every single time

16:03 I'd walk home without and people would buy them.

16:06 And I wasn't the cheapest product at the farmers market.

16:10 You know, we charged $30 for our kit, $29.97 online.

16:14 And realistically to a consumer for pizza dough,

16:16 I mean that's probably the biggest comment we get online.

16:18 Oh, that's really expensive.

16:19 But it's not just about the ingredients inside of the bag.

16:22 It's about the training, the support that you get, you know,

16:25 the actual level of commitment to making sure

16:28 you pass the finish line and enjoy your experience.

16:31 That's what really sells.

16:32 At any rate, I started going farmers market after farmers market.

16:36 And basically over the course of a summer, you know,

16:39 I sold roughly $60,000 worth of product

16:42 kind of your first summer working part-time.

16:45 Like I mean typically the farmers market is like a couple hours.

16:49 I was maybe like three to four a week.

16:51 So under 20 hours a week that I was

16:54 working on this project selling $60,000 worth of stuff.

16:57 So it wasn't that at all.

16:59 So your first three months you did 20,000

17:01 a month working 20 hours a week, give or take.

17:04 Yeah.

17:05 Holy crap.

17:05 What was your profit on that 60,000?

17:08 So, in the beginning, it was pretty much all, you know,

17:11 for the most part profit because the margins on the actual product.

17:15 So, I would say if you factored in our time,

17:18 we spent a lot of time making everything.

17:21 So, it wasn't, you know,

17:22 like realistically the showing up to the market and everything

17:25 like that in the end result of selling that part was,

17:28 you know, kind of a limited amount of time.

17:30 the backend time which was you know us being

17:34 our own in-house manufacturing facility that was probably the majority I

17:38 would say of the work but as far as you

17:41 know ingredients are not inexpensive but they're not expensive but then

17:44 we also were buying in bulk so I could lower

17:48 my cost and things like that but then we were

17:51 manufacturing in house so technically we literally in house manufacturing

17:55 in basement yeah manufacturing at home so and then you know,

17:59 we just kind of grew from there.

18:02 Yeah.

18:02 Then when I took it online, basically we kind of knew we had something,

18:06 didn't really know how well it would do online

18:09 and I was a little bit new to, you know,

18:12 like Facebook advertising and I kind of hired agencies out then took everything

18:15 over on my own and now we've been pretty much exploded from there.

18:19 So I want you to grade my pizza recipe and then I'm going to guess your margins.

18:23 my my pizza double zero flour 1 kilogram 1,000 gram that's going to that's

18:27 going to set me back and I I don't buy in bulk that's

18:31 going to set me back like eight bucks or something right six bucks something

18:35 like that six to eight bucks then I'm going to put in 700 gram

18:38 of water and I'm going to put in like six gram of yeast

18:41 and 25 gram of salt that sounds about right so if I were selling

18:45 that it looks like you're 30 bucks for six pizzas worth and so that's

18:49 like I'm guessing I don't know is that like a pound and a half.

18:53 So, the package itself weighs out to 2 L pounds.

18:56 Okay.

18:57 2 lbs.

18:57 Okay.

18:57 So, I'm guessing you've got like 80% margin on that product.

19:01 As far as the the actual ingredients and things

19:04 like that, I'd say that's that's probably pretty close.

19:06 Gross margin.

19:07 Yeah.

19:07 Yeah.

19:08 I mean, I I will say that our good

19:10 friend Zuckerberg gets the majority of our money right now.

19:14 Sure.

19:14 Yeah.

19:14 We'll go in we'll go into the ecom side,

19:16 but now I'm thinking for like I'm still thinking on uh the farmers market side.

19:21 So, first summer, are you doing like one farmers

19:23 market every Saturday or are they more often than that?

19:26 So, there are ones that you can do like throughout the week.

19:30 So, I did a Wednesday, Thursday,

19:32 and two Saturday markets and that was the four that that I did in a week.

19:38 Okay.

19:39 So, I had my wife go to one and I went to another one on Saturday.

19:44 But realistically, in a lot of towns, there are ones that you can do.

19:49 You know, essentially Wednesday through Saturday,

19:51 typically there's a market in some some place or some town close to you.

19:56 It just depends on what town it is.

19:59 So, okay.

20:00 But realistically, someone could easily get three in by themselves.

20:04 So, you guys were doing like,

20:06 call it like 12 to 16 markets a month that first summer, right?

20:10 Yeah.

20:11 Okay.

20:11 Okay.

20:11 So, call it 48 markets.

20:13 You're doing like 1,200 to,500 in sales per market on average.

20:17 And I'm sure some are like 400 and some are 2,000.

20:20 Is that accurate?

20:21 Yeah.

20:22 It just depends on the day.

20:23 Yeah.

20:24 And then markets are what, four to six hours.

20:27 So, typically the the ones around here are about two

20:30 to three hours of the total time of the actual market itself.

20:34 So, like I'd say you're probably there for maybe

20:37 four and a half hours total, if that.

20:40 Okay.

20:40 Like it really wasn't that long.

20:42 So you're only making pizzas for samples.

20:44 You're not selling pizzas.

20:46 It's just the kids.

20:47 Right.

20:47 Right.

20:48 So the goal in the beginning was not to become a pizzeria, but to sell Yeah.

20:52 You know, show pe showcase the product, sell people on, hey,

20:55 you can do this, too, and this is how good it can.

20:59 So I would make it exactly the same.

21:01 So there'd be no difference in the dough, you know,

21:04 and I would do minimal stuff like minimal cheese,

21:07 minimal toppings, you know, things like that.

21:09 highlight the dough.

21:11 Minimal sauce, minimal cheese,

21:12 so they could really taste what good dough could be versus,

21:16 well, you're just putting a ton of sauce or you're just putting the best.

21:19 Yeah.

21:20 Yeah.

21:20 Now, are you putting anything else in the mix other than flour, salt, yeast?

21:25 So, we add a couple of helpers.

21:27 We provide honey as a helper, like powdered honey.

21:30 We're going to change that in time for vegan people,

21:34 but basically a healthier sugar, which helps the yeast activate.

21:38 We also provide diastatic malt powder.

21:40 We do a two-part recipe.

21:42 We teach pish, which is a bread making step

21:45 of making a pre-ferment before you actually finish your dough.

21:49 So, when you mixed more ingredients in the pizza industry,

21:52 it helps to kind of move things along faster.

21:54 That's why we chose this recipe because we're trying to, you know,

21:57 like if I said, "Hey, man.

21:59 All right, cool.

22:00 You know, mix all that stuff together.

22:01 All right, now let it sit in the fridge for three days,

22:04 you know." Yeah, that's what I do.

22:06 Yeah, I love it.

22:07 Yeah.

22:07 So some people, you know, are are definitely more into like the faster time.

22:11 So we were trying to sure, how could we give people the right recipe,

22:15 but also the fastest recipe where we landed with this.

22:18 I mean, you've got to you've got to build it

22:20 for the lowest common denominator for the everyday at home.

22:23 You got to make it easy, simple, frictionless.

22:24 Yeah.

22:25 You said the word poolish and I I heard Veto, that YouTuber.

22:28 I'm sure you you know him.

22:30 Yeah.

22:30 Yeah.

22:31 He's so entertaining.

22:31 I know him very well.

22:33 I see him every year at the Pizza Expo.

22:36 Oh, that's awesome.

22:36 We talk a good bit.

22:38 So, he's a good friend.

22:39 It's funny because I'm thinking back

22:41 to the conversation you had with your family.

22:42 Like, what is your passion?

22:43 Like, oh, it's pizza.

22:44 If I were to have that conversation with my family, oh man, it's pizza.

22:49 It's barbecue.

22:49 It's mowing the lawn.

22:51 It's trimming trees.

22:52 It's planting trees.

22:53 It's fruit.

22:53 It's horiculture.

22:54 Like, I have so many passions.

22:56 But I will say like in the passion versus profit argument,

23:00 like passion is just the way to go, man.

23:02 Like you might not be able to afford starting

23:04 a business that's your passion early on, but as soon

23:07 as you can like do a business that you

23:09 are passionate about and you will have the most rewarding, fulfilling life ever.

23:13 They always say if you do what you love, you never work a day.

23:17 You never work a day.

23:18 And it's true.

23:19 It's a cliche, but it's so true.

23:20 Okay, so by my count, you're making it, you know,

23:23 exclude the time it takes you to prep the stuff.

23:25 If you just look at the the time spent at the market,

23:28 it's only you because you're offering something that's very simple.

23:31 you know, pay here, here's the QR code to Venmo or whatever, right?

23:34 You don't need a team there.

23:36 You're making a couple hundred bucks an hour

23:38 of profit for the time spent at the market.

23:40 Of course, doesn't account for your time before then.

23:42 That's an amazing living, but you, you know,

23:45 you can only scale farmers markets so much.

23:47 So, you start going online.

23:49 What does your first three months of online sales look like?

23:52 So actually in the very beginning and another thing too just

23:56 like a sidebar is that we didn't just do farmers markets.

23:59 We did different food shows.

24:01 We did lots of golf tournaments.

24:03 We did neighborhood events.

24:05 Basically anywhere that would let me show up,

24:07 make a little bit of pizza and had a crowd like

24:10 is kind of where you know golf tournaments was really big one.

24:13 like it was a super, you know, lowfi thing to spend,

24:16 you know, a golf round sitting around making pizza,

24:19 chit chatting with people and, you know,

24:22 easily I was selling 40 or 50 of them at a golf tournament.

24:25 Wow.

24:25 It was definitely a good place for it.

24:27 Guys, tkowners.com.

24:28 That's my community where people are building businesses.

24:31 I do AMAs, Q&As's every week live.

24:34 You can ask me anything you want.

24:35 You can have accountability partners.

24:37 It's about a thousand people in there building, starting, growing businesses.

24:40 Check out TKO as in the kerner office.

24:42 tkowners.com.

24:43 When we went online in the beginning,

24:45 I was kind of I was a little bit new to Facebook marketing.

24:49 So, I hired an agency on at first and we did okay,

24:53 but realistically, we didn't really do great.

24:56 And it wasn't until I took things over myself

25:00 and really started investing in to the marketing and understanding

25:04 everything that we went like probably our first four

25:07 months of marketing basically our sales online were dismal.

25:10 Although we did, you know, get a call from a show that everybody knows that you

25:14 go on their show and they'll maybe invest in your business.

25:18 Oh, did you did you go on it?

25:20 We haven't yet, but basically they invited us to try out for the the show.

25:24 And I laughed because when they called us, I said, "Well,

25:28 we've sold five of these online,

25:30 so I'm not really sure we're ready for you guys yet,

25:33 but I guess we'll sign up." Uh,

25:34 so maybe at some point we'll get on that show, too.

25:38 But it's kind of funny.

25:40 At any rate, so after that basically we did in less than 30

25:44 days what we did in four months in sales just by me taking over

25:50 everything and really understanding the marketing

25:52 and how Facebook marketing works and you know

25:55 kind of applying the right principles

25:58 and like we've been just scaling from there.

26:01 We're our best month so far we did over $160,000 in sales.

26:06 Holy cow.

26:06 You know, and basically over the past couple of years, just online sales alone,

26:12 a little north of three or four million dollars in sales.

26:15 And we've kind of just scratched the surface of the marketplace.

26:19 We're just understanding how to build this business.

26:22 You know, as I'm sure you're aware of, the ecom world is not,

26:26 you know, the it's not just like press play and you're instant millionaire.

26:29 You've got to actually like do a lot of things

26:32 to get it going right and efficient and, you know, cost efficient.

26:36 based on your advertising and that's the most expensive thing.

26:39 But kind of like the good thing about what we're doing is that we had, you know,

26:44 margins in place that allowed us to really kind of explode our marketing where

26:48 other companies out there might only have a 10 or a 15 or 20% margin.

26:52 Yeah.

26:53 I mean, it looks like you have 60 active ads right now, which is awesome.

26:56 Most people don't realize that about Facebook ads.

26:58 You have to have a way more creatives than you think,

27:01 and you have to rotate them much more often than you think.

27:05 We're like, we're friends of the farmers market.

27:07 My wife put on a farmers market for kids.

27:09 She was in charge of it with a friend

27:11 and we're vendors at a farmers market here in town regularly.

27:14 We sell all kinds of stuff.

27:16 We're an entrepreneurial family.

27:18 So, I'm going to one next month and I'm going to sell a powdered

27:21 drink mix in a gusset bag like what you sell yours in, right?

27:24 It's a powdered drink mix with three ingredients

27:26 that I personally drink and invented and love.

27:28 And so, I'm going to do it a to make money, b to make some content about it.

27:33 What tips would you have for me for selling a product that has

27:36 a form factor just like yours but is a powder drink mix instead?

27:40 It's going to be a similar price point as well.

27:42 Yeah, I'd say literally set up some cameras behind you.

27:45 Yeah.

27:46 And have people try it.

27:47 Do people have issues with the cameras or the mics at all?

27:51 Ever?

27:51 No.

27:52 Never had one issue, you know,

27:54 with it or anyone like thinking, you know, something was wrong?

27:58 But to me, it just felt like if I was too like abrasive about it,

28:03 then people would care.

28:04 If that makes sense.

28:05 Like if I was just like, "Okay, hey, can you hold this mic real quick because

28:09 I'm trying to make content for my, you know,

28:11 blah blah blah." That people just pretend

28:13 like it's not there unless they say something.

28:15 Yeah.

28:16 Hypothetically, so you did 60 grand the first summer just at farmers markets.

28:19 What might you have done in sales that same summer if you had no samples?

28:23 You were just kind of selling them

28:25 on the dream and you just had the product there.

28:28 Honestly, I think I will say that it it

28:31 was 5050 because I also tried selling without samples.

28:35 Okay.

28:35 and more so I would say without samples someone that had bought

28:41 some equipment and failed you know so realistically it's kind of like you

28:46 know the a lot of people that went to farmers markets also

28:50 were the outdoor cooking crowd of people and so it was a very

28:55 easy pull for our product I would say that definitely samples help

28:59 you know and in the beginning samples I would suggest for any

29:03 product doesn't matter what it is like samples because that you know

29:07 except obviously like eggs you can't crack an egg and then say hey

29:11 you know you just get to say my chickens lay the best

29:14 eggs right now if in Texas we have the Texas cottage food law

29:18 where if I were to make pizzas at this market I need

29:21 a food handlers permit and it's totally different than if I sell cookies

29:24 because those don't require refrigeration I don't need any licensing if I

29:27 sell cookies right in your case did you need a special license

29:31 to give out samples or no so that's kind of interesting And we

29:35 actually talked with someone in Texas about reselling our product there as well.

29:41 And the laws are only applied if you sell the pizza.

29:47 So, if I'm just giving you a sample of a pizza that I've made,

29:52 you know, to test out,

29:54 it doesn't apply because the exact same laws in Georgia where,

29:58 for example, if I show up to a farmers market and I'm selling pizza to people,

30:03 I am now a food truck.

30:05 You're basically a restaurant.

30:06 Yeah.

30:07 Yeah.

30:07 So, because of that, so the law is almost like identical between the two states.

30:12 Yeah.

30:12 in most states.

30:13 I found out that like Pennsylvania is

30:15 the only one that's like really weird about it.

30:18 But other than that, the majority of states,

30:20 it's it's been, you know, something where anyone could do.

30:23 Okay.

30:23 What was your best market ever with regards to sales and what was your worst?

30:28 I think my best market ever we did like close to three grand,

30:32 but it was a really it was a really big like it was kind of a a big

30:38 event that was all tied up together with the farmers market as part of it.

30:43 So there were basically it was almost like triple the amount

30:47 of people that would normally come to the farmers market.

30:50 And I would say that every farmers market is not a great, you know, great place.

30:55 So you have to be a little bit picky and choosy.

30:59 Yeah.

30:59 I would say ones that cities hold on like that are actually inside of the city

31:05 limits I've found tend to be better than ones outside of the city limits.

31:10 That's the one I'm doing.

31:11 Yeah.

31:11 Yeah.

31:11 And the reason why is because I've been to ones

31:14 that basically are a farmers market like in the traditional

31:18 sense of on the side of the road that no

31:21 one showed up to because it was poorly marketed.

31:24 Where the cities are trying to, you know, especially smaller cities,

31:26 they're trying to get people to come into their town

31:29 and also do business with the other businesses in town.

31:32 And farmers markets is a great way to kind of get people

31:36 around the area to actually come in and invest in the town itself.

31:40 Yeah.

31:40 Okay.

31:40 What about these classes?

31:42 Who's doing classes and what how big is that business?

31:46 So, every person who buys our pizza dough making kit gets our free master class.

31:51 So, basically, we provide them with a course.

31:53 It walks them step by step on how to make pizza dough the proper way.

31:57 You know, has tons of different troubleshooting information.

31:59 It's actually something we're reshooting because we also

32:02 found other things that people had problems with.

32:04 So, it's something that's ever evolving for us.

32:07 But then we also back that by providing customer support.

32:11 So for example, like if you had a question and you

32:13 were making dough and you needed a little bit of help,

32:16 you could hop on the chat on our website and lo and behold,

32:18 I'm the person answering it right now.

32:20 And so I I help people out every single day.

32:23 You can even call our 800 number and get real answers to kind of, you know,

32:28 the goal realistically our goal is is to have people enjoy what they're making,

32:32 be successful in their making, and you know, making it,

32:35 and then having a really good pizza at home,

32:37 better than any around them, which makes them want to make it more often.

32:41 Okay.

32:41 So, you've got a master class, but that's free to anyone that purchas it just

32:44 so they can learn how to better use your product.

32:46 That's not like a a revenue generating side of the business,

32:49 but it supports your revenue.

32:51 Exactly.

32:51 Yeah.

32:52 Okay.

32:52 If someone's watching this right now and they love pizza

32:56 or they love cooking and they want to monetize that somehow,

32:59 what suggestions would you have for them?

33:01 Would it be selling pizza at a farmers market?

33:03 Would like in the pizza space, what's like an approachable business idea or more

33:08 than one um that people could implement?

33:10 Yeah, I mean I would say that you know reselling pizza related

33:17 products versus selling pizza because for example

33:20 selling pizza there's an initial investment

33:23 just like having a restaurant in the equipment to make the pizza

33:27 as well as the licensing that you would need to to sell it.

33:31 Not that it's like super expensive, but sometimes,

33:34 you know, not everybody has, you know,

33:36 let's just call it under $25,000 stowed away to, you know,

33:41 start a pizza venture with.

33:43 And so, realistically, selling products like this, I think, or other, you know,

33:48 even equipment would be something where, you know,

33:51 you can showcase equipment and how it works in certain ways.

33:54 I wouldn't say like stones and steels are really hard to showcase, you know,

33:59 like at a venue like that, but that would

34:02 be something that easily someone could go and sell.

34:05 You know, they would just require the inventory.

34:08 So, yeah.

34:09 When you were spending time at these markets,

34:11 what other like farmers market items, products, services did you see around you

34:16 that seem to be extra popular, extra profitable?

34:20 So, I would say the majority of people that seem

34:24 to make the most money were someone who made baked goods.

34:29 They seem to sell out of their products pretty frequently.

34:32 And especially if they were good at making the baked goods,

34:35 they didn't have a lot left over.

34:37 you know, definitely, you know,

34:39 I know home making is a really big niche and so, you know,

34:42 people making breads and things like that at home

34:45 and being able to go and sell that at farmers markets,

34:47 those seem to do really well.

34:49 And then, you know, kind of like I would say interesting things as well.

34:53 Uh, you know, like we had there was a lady that sold pickles,

34:57 like she made her own pickles and everything like that.

35:00 There was a lady who, you know,

35:02 basically kind of had multiple different farmers markets

35:05 and she sold pasta and so basically fresh make pasta.

35:08 She made it out of her basement and everything like that.

35:11 And then, you know, had kind of like this army

35:14 of girls going around to different farmers markets selling pasta.

35:16 She did well.

35:17 So, I think she does pretty well at it considering she has I mean,

35:20 if you have an army of people that you're paying to go do it,

35:23 like you're not going to scale something that doesn't work.

35:25 Yeah.

35:25 That's very interesting.

35:26 What was the form factor?

35:28 I imagine it wasn't dried out.

35:30 Did she like make the pasta fresh and then bag it and refrigerate it?

35:34 Basically, it was refrigerated pasta and so

35:36 they'd show up coolers and basically, you know, interesting.

35:39 And she had a following at the market because

35:42 that's that's typically what happens is like you start

35:44 to build a following of people that buy

35:46 your product and then buy it over and over again.

35:50 And almost like weirdly only want to buy it

35:52 from the farmers market like where I had to convince several people.

35:56 They kept asking me,

35:57 "When are you going to be back at the market?" And I'm like,

35:59 you know, I I got to go to my website, but you can buy it online.

36:03 I literally will ship it to you tomorrow.

36:05 And they're like, yeah, oh, I don't trust the internet.

36:09 And I'm like, just come on, let's let's talk.

36:13 Michael, this is an incredible business.

36:15 Thank you for sharing your time with us.

36:16 I love your story.

36:17 Where can we find you if we want to learn more or buy your pizza kits?

36:21 Yeah.

36:21 So, if you go to prepap.com, you can buy our pizza kit and you'll see a boatload

36:27 of ads from me if you're on Facebook or Instagram or Google.

36:32 Okay.

36:32 Thank you, Michael.

36:34 No problem.

36:34 Thank you.

36:35 Listen, I need more people like this to interview on my podcast.

36:38 So, if you know of someone with a side hustle

36:41 or a business that's unique and cool and super profitable,

36:43 email Molly M o ly at co-founders.com.

36:47 That's one word, coofounders.com.

36:49 Mollyfounders.com.

36:50 Tell her your story and we'll give you

36:51 a hundred bucks if we end up interviewing them.