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This is part II (of a five part series) leading up to, “How to Start a Mobile Food Business (Legally!!!),” a La Cocina Incubator workshop. You can read part I on Business Planning here.
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Its a simple question: Who is going to buy your food?

Good products fill a need and yours (if its going to be popular) will be no different. You probably got the idea for starting your mobile food business because you said to yourself: A) Why doesn’t somebody make X (Fill in the Blank)?, B) I can do X so much better than Y, or C) I always want X when I go to Y but its never there. The important thing when deciding about opening your own mobile food business (or any business) is what is that first need (market) that you identified, and is that enough to sustain your core business?

Let’s say your friends tell you that the enchiladas you make after going out to the bar are the best they’ve ever tasted. And (after everyone has tasted them again sober) you decide that you think that you can make a living from selling enchiladas to people like yourself; people leaving a bar who want quality enchiladas on their way home. Lets break up the follow-up questions for your new venture into three categories: 1) Why mobile? 2) Who’s your customer? and 3) Is this Feasible?

Why mobile?
Why does this need to be a mobile business? Does a mobile business allow you proximity/flexibility that wouldn’t be available in a brick and mortar restaurant? Does the lower cost of entering a mobile business allow you to explore your concept in a way that you couldn’t do otherwise? If your primary interest is in making the highest quality product possible, you are always going to have better control over food quality and be able to charge higher prices out of a brick and mortar space. It is just going to be much more capital intensive to open, and you will be locked into one place.

Who is your market?
How many people have this need that you have identified? Could another product fill this need? Why not? Will you need to educate your customers about the value of your product? Do people with his desire go (and buy things) at the same time that you have identified as your market opportunity? Do people on their way home from the bar care about food quality? If no, why are they going to buy your product?

Is this feasible?
So you’ve found, what you consider to be, a serious untapped market of drunk enchilada aficionados. Now you’ve got to ask, why isn’t somebody serving this market already? Are there permitting restrictions that will prevent you from selling what you want, when you want to? Are there problems with how you’d serve your enchiladas? What if you have to change your enchilada recipe, time of service, or delivery method; Is this still the business that you wanted to get into in the first place? How much do you actually make selling each enchilada with your grandmother’s 100 year old secret recipe?

Its important for me to note, that (conservatively) 7 out of 10 would-be mobile cart entrepreneurs that I meet with initially get to this point in the conversation and say, “Wow, this not what I want to do.” There’s no shame in realizing that the distance from an idea to reality isn’t feasible. Or that, in order to make something feasible, it would require significantly altering the spirit that initiated the idea in the first place. You’ll still aways be able to make the best enchiladas you’ve ever had for your friends after you go to the bar, but you’ll just have to keep your day job. This is not meant to be discouraging, but isn’t it better to ask the hard questions before you spend the time and money?

After asking all these questions, most people come to two realizations: 1) That its a fundamental love of your product that has to sustain you through finding a market, and 2) that it will be necessary to expand your initial core market in order justify making this business work.

With regard to the latter, once you have decided to expand your core business market, how are you going to do it? First you have to always remember that you don’t want to alienate your primary market. If you sell to hipsters on fixed gear bikes, your next natural market isn’t suburban moms. You’ll need to figure out who else might have an interest in your product? Or is it simply a matter of adding products that might increase your average sale, or allow you to attract more customers than only enchilada eaters. In many ways this could be the best reason to open a mobile business, as mobility allows you to quickly move to a new location (or from high value market to high value market). But be careful: Space is precious on a mobile unit and adding products can quickly take you from a cart to a truck (or from $10,000 investment to $50,000). Also, keep in mind that if the second market you identify is a Farmer’s market at 8am on Sunday morning, how will you make that work if you’ve been out until 3am selling food the night before?

Selling.
Once you’ve defined your market, now you have to convince people to try your product. It is essential for you to choose a consistent voice for your product, verify that the product voice resonates with your target market, and then make sure that your product’s visual appearance reinforces that voice. If all of these parts don’t work together, customers will recognize that lack of consistency and your product will resonate as inauthentic (regardless of whether it is or isn’t). Good examples of this are: A punk brand that has cutesy packaging, or marketing a product aimed at high wealth, older customers that contains expletives. Have a consistent voice that reflects your values and passion about your product and be very careful to reinforce that voice at every point of customer contact. Mobile businesses, more so than many others, are (for better or worse) quickly identified by their owners. If you don’t like being a bit of a showman, then maybe mobile isn’t the way for you. On the other hand, if you like engaging, educating, and talking with with customers about your product you might find that you are able to build a large and loyal customer base that will find you whenever you choose to serve.

Continue to Part III: Set Realistic Expectations
Continue to Part IV: Know How to Use Technology (or Hire Someone Who Does)
Continue to Part V: Be Flexible With Your Vision
Return to Part I: Write Something Down

this post was written by Matt Cohen

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