Two young entrepreneurs, with no prior experience or external investment, built a successful pretzel food truck business from scratch, achieving significant monthly revenue by leveraging online resources, a unique product, and strategic event participation.
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No experience, no outside investment.
These two behind me are bringing in
$18,000 a month from selling pretzels.
The best part is they started with a
recipe from the internet.
Starting in [music] our home kitchen,
straight down Google pretzel recipes.
They found their first recipe online.
We were going with the food truck
[music] still before we even perfected it
it
and built their own hotbox trailer.
I built out the trailer. So, we sold
around 400 pretzels um in one day.
Translate to around like $67,000.
First month, $8,000. I mean, must have
been the right kind of events.
That was really when we felt like the
[music] concept was proven.
Let's give this a shot, you guys.
Look at that. Queso, baby. Here we go. M.
M.
Now, that is the best pretzel I've ever
Blake, Roman, it's absolutely a pleasure
to meet you guys. Give our audience a
quick look into who you are, what your
business is, and when you got started.
So, we are Hotbox Pretzels. Uh we
specialize in making giant uh handmade
fresh pretzels that are top to order.
Yeah. And then we then take those
pretzels and serve them out of a food truck.
truck.
All right, let's get into it.
Yeah. We started about uh 7 months ago.
Nice. So we're pretty new still. Yeah.
Well, let's go check out the kitchen. Yeah.
Yeah.
All right, guys. Where are we?
We are at Jack's Kitchens. This is our
commissary. This is where we make all of
our pretzels. We come here on daily
basis pretty much making the pretzels
here to bring with us to go to events
all over Jacksonville. What do you rent
the space for?
Uh, so we pay around, it varies. Um, we
pay around 15 to 20 bucks an hourly
rate. We pay anywhere from 700 to a,000
a month. Once we hit 50 hours here, um,
they don't charge us anymore. Um, so
it's pretty cheap. Yeah, it's it's a
good rate. Um, we pay a little extra.
Um, we pay $40 for a freezer space and
then we have our own um, little shelving
area that we can keep all of our
ingredients in. That's about $40 extra
per month, too. And that's all included
in that,000. So that thousand is
everything we use and that's if we're
using this place more than 50 hours a month.
month.
All right guys, why pretzels? Out of all
the things you could have figured out
recipes for baked, you chose pretzels.
So help us understand why.
Yeah, so basically where we were working
um we were selling the pretzels. They we
would deliver them to the tables. People
loved them. It was just smiles on
everyone's faces. Phones would come out,
pictures of the pretzels. The family
loved them. People who are drinking on
the golf course, drinking beer all day
loved them. So, we were just like,
"Yeah, let's bring this to events." We
did some research. There were no pretzel
trucks in the area. We saw a little gap
in the market. We were like, "There's a
lot of food trucks in Jacksonville.
There's I would say how many? Like two
300 food trucks here in Jacksonville."
So, we have a lot of competition, but we
found no pretzel food trucks. So, we
were like, let's let's go for it.
Just made sense.
What restaurant did you guys then work at?
at?
So, it was a golf course uh down there.
They made handmade pretzels there. And
and you guys were part of the handmade.
So, no, we weren't part of it. We were
just uh running food, busing tables, and
so we would be running these pretzels
all the time. And when we were dropping
off the tables, people loved them.
People would come there specifically for
the pretzel there.
So, we were like, "Yeah, people pretzels."
pretzels."
When you have those bruskies, something
salty sounds good, right?
Yeah. Yeah.
Sweet. Yeah. We'll walk you guys through
the process of building everything out
here because ultimately, what goes into
the food truck in the trailer? a
prepped, ready to go to be baked pretzel
or it's already baked?
Uh, the pretzel's already baked. So, we
have it essentially ready to go. Uh, it
we flash freeze them. So, when you take
them out, you let it thaw, cook it in
the oven for about 30 seconds, and then
all of our pretzels we do topping to order.
order.
Gotcha. So, the toppings
toppings are on there. Yeah. On the go.
Everything else happens. Everything else
is in here.
That makes sense that you would spend so
much time here cuz that's 80% of your
work. The rest is the rest is exchanging
it into the customer's hand.
All right, guys. Where are we going next?
next?
We're going to Abyss Park. Um that is
where we had our first event. Um right
when we got our license, it was first
trial running Popbox pretzels.
Let's hop in and go.
Tell us why we're here.
When we first got started, we got our
license and we were itching to get get
going. And um we live a few blocks away
from here, so not too far. And they have
a they have a baseball league that goes
on here on the weekends on Sundays. And
so we reached out and asked if we could
come do an event here. And our first
event was here.
First ever.
Who did you call to get permission or do
you need permission? Did you show up?
Um it was mainly just coordinating it
with like the the manager of the
baseball league.
There's not there's not like a specific
permit for the Parker.
Yeah. We have like our license for all
of Jacksonville. So we're allowed to
like go to just pretty much set up
wherever um under the city.
So your neighbor had a barbecue truck.
How did that evolve into a mentorship?
And what was the biggest valuable lesson
you learned from that relationship and
continuing [music] to?
So he kind of just helped us get
started. He gave us a lot of the
valuable contacts to get into these
bigger events and stuff like that. It
was that was our biggest fear going into
it kind of thing was how do we book
events? How do we get in contact with
the right people? And he kind of assured
us that it's easy like just get as many
emails as possible, send emails to
everyone, pictures, menu, all that kind
of stuff. and
he just kind of guided us along the way
and is still helping us out today.
What was it? Break it down for was it an
email? Was it a just a n
n
Facebook group chats um by some people
who have contacts with all these
neighborhoods and different events and
they'll post the events and then once
you get accepted into these private
group chats, you're in like a a
community with other food trucks and you
kind of like bid or like they'll post it
and you kind of just got to be the first
one and say, "Yep, we're available. Um
we'll be there." and then they'll
contact you like privately and get you
on that job. And he gave us a lot of
those contacts to get into those group chats.
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Okay, guys. Where are we and why is this
significant to your story here? So we're
at the University of North Florida. This
is where we met in the dorms. We lived
here for about a year and this is where
we where we kind of started the
business. So we actually lived right in
that room right out there. Yeah. Yeah.
For a full year.
So a year ago, you guys, you had no idea
on how to make pretzels, no recipe
expertise, anything like that. Walk us
through the process of developing the
pretzel recipe. Where did you get the
details or resources and really
everything in general?
So it started with Google. straight down
Google um pretzel recipes. Going down,
testing them out. Tried one, tried
another, tried another, kind of mixed
all the ingredients together, kind of
played with some stuff, started in our
home kitchen um just making it. We
didn't have the best oven in there. Um
so it couldn't it couldn't get the
perfect texture we were looking for. So
we tested, tested, tested, got a good
recipe that tastes good, but our oven
just couldn't fulfill what we needed. So
then the next step was to find a kitchen.
kitchen.
Interesting. So, we found the kitchen um
with the correct ovens we needed. Kept
perfecting that recipe and now we got it down.
down.
So, it's [music] the texture and then
the oven makes a difference. I didn't
know that is important for pretzels.
Huge difference. Yeah. Our oven at home
can't get hot enough,
Blake. I mean, the the texture that
Romans talk about, is it just the
texture that you guys wanted to to to
perfect or Yes.
Like you knew what you were going for or
was it exploration in a sense? So, we
knew we wanted to do something a little
bit different than like ordinary
pretzels cuz most pretzels you get,
they're going to have the leathery
almost texture on the top and they're
going to be chewy. We wanted to do
something where we still had the top
that had that leather type texture but
we wanted it to be different like almost
crispier on the bottom but softer in the
middle [music] instead of more chewy.
So, that was kind of what we were going
for and just kind of played around until
we got that.
That's cool. And when you did perfect
the recipe, how long did it take by the
way by the time you guys were like,
"Wow, I think this is it." It was a
while. Probably we were we were going
with the food trucks still before we
even perfected it. Probably for the
first like 2 to 3 months, I would think.
I mean, they were still they were still
good, but now we're just now we're at
that next level where they're they're
perfect now.
I noticed you have a really professional
website. How important is that online
presence uh for your business?
So, it's been really important for us.
Uh the fact that we can have a QR code
on our trailer that people can scan and
it'll bring them straight to our
website. We get questions all the time.
How can we book you guys? how can we
find you guys? I go, just go scan that
QR code right there. It'll bring you
straight to our website. Um, we have
pictures of everything. We have our
menus. We have our catering menu. We
have a form on there where uh people can
fill it out and they'll actually fill
out that form and it will send them uh
straight to our email. So, we can call
them immediately, get them booked for
whatever event they need.
How much did it cost you to get the
website set up?
So, it was a super fair price. I think
it was only I only pay around $3 a
month. Um, so it's Yeah, it's a awesome
price. The startup cost is about 15 to
start and then it's only $3 a month.
Yeah, it's
I've heard of other designs of thousands
of dollars hiring a designer, etc. But
you're talking three bucks,
$3 a month a month. Yeah. So, it was uh
super low. It doesn't really cost us
anything and it
Do you have any experience in building
websites, anything like that?
Uh no, no experience. Um they have like
an AI builder on their website um that
makes it super easy. I put in like all
our fonts that I wanted to use, all our
colors, all our images, and everything.
And then it pretty much just uh designed
the website. I added like a couple extra
tabs and stuff like that. We sell like
our hats and shirts on our website as
well. Uh yeah, we have some merch on
there and uh I just customized it a
little bit, but the AI builder is a huge
a huge perk on their uh Hostinger's
website. And then uh fun fact, I also uh
my mom has her own business and she's
not too big on online presence, so I
recommended her to Hostinger. Um she got
on there with the AI builder as well um
and was able to build her own website.
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right, guys. Let's talk about what is
the most difficult thing about getting
started. The most difficult thing was
just we didn't have anything to follow
off of. We were going blindly. There was
no pretzel trucks to follow. We were
pretty much just figure it out as we go,
testing the equipment, seeing what
works. the fact that we can make them
here and we can actually flash freeze
them and in there. Um, we've done taste
tests side by side of them straight out
of the oven versus frozen out of our
oven and it's so similar like there's
barely any differences.
All right, break down the startup cost
for us. If you spent 10K, how was it
allocated across all the necessary equipment?
equipment?
So, we started with about $10,000. Is
that what it was?
Um, yeah, it was it was actually
actually right on the nail right
there.$10,000. First 5,000 went to the
trailer. Uh, we bought one that was
semibu built out already, not fully
equipped. Um, they they started a food
truck before, didn't fully finish
building it. So, I bought that. Uh, we
got it wrapped. The wrap was about I
want to say 1,500 for the wrap.
I built out the trailer. I installed all
the sinks, the plumbing, the electrical,
and did all that. Finishing from what
they they did before. That was around
1,000 2,000. And then we had to get
shirts, branding, hats, that kind of
stuff. Around 1,000, maybe a little less
on that. And then just pans for the
kitchen. Um just all those Yeah, kitchen
equipment. Then other than that, we kind
of just moved slowly. We kind of figured
out what we would need. Um we got the
equipment for in the trailer. We got
like a hot box. Um where's what we got
the name from? Um we got the queso
warmer and that was really that was
really it to start and then we kind of
just moved moved our way up. So we were
just buying equipment, testing it. We
did spend a lot of money on stuff we
don't even use anymore
really. We ended up selling it on like
Facebook Marketplace or stuff like that.
Now we have a downpad. Now we have all
the all the correct equipment. And we
have both of those equipment in the van
and our trailer.
All right. So, we are heading to the 904
Papa Festival next, right? Yes.
All right, guys. Let's go and show you
what's going on on there and really try
to taste the pretzels as well.
So, we are at the 904 Food Festival,
right? Y
this is one of the events you
participate what yearly or is this the
first time?
It's monthly.
What does it cost for you to be part of
this event? Uh, so this one's about 300
bucks um for this location right here on
the boardwalk. It's a fair price. Fair price.
price. Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. Let's dive into what you said
earlier on and that is you made some
money or saved up some money to get this
started with side hustles. What were they?
they?
So, I had a couple side hustles for
probably about a year. I was doing
pressure washing and then once it got a
little colder, um the pressure washing
kind of slowed down and I got into
hanging Christmas lights and then I did
some remodeling, kitchens, bathrooms,
stuff like that. That's pretty that's
pretty much it. And then I had the uh
the job at the country club. Um, so at
some points I was working three jobs,
three jobs at one time.
So there is no excuse for anyone
watching right now, right, not to get
started in anything even with 10,000
that you saved up because you hustled. Yeah.
Yeah.
Walk me through the revenue growth month
one to say month six an example. Was it
like a,000 the first month, six later?
Help us understand the evolution of the
revenue growth. So I believe when we
started uh the first month I think the
total came out to be around 8,000 and
then um second month it jumped up to 12.
Third month
first month 8,000. I mean must have been
the right kind of events we're talking about.
about.
Yeah. So during the springtime there's a
lot of music festivals because of the
weather and stuff. So we kind of started
out in a hot point of the year and
luckily we just hit the ground running.
That's awesome.
And then just continued to build from
there. And our third month was probably
our best month for sure.
Where do you hope to be by the end of
23? the end of 23. Uh, best month.
I I would love to hit the 25 mark. That
would be awesome. I feel like 22 is
maybe a little bit more realistic.
Exactly. But 25 is the goal, you know.
So, we've asked our audience and we do
all the time like what questions they
want us to ask. We do polls and more
than 50% have said that the fear of
failure is the obstacle to starting any
kind of business. And you guys have
clearly gotten through that somehow. So,
what is your advice to our young viewers
and all viewers on how to overcome that?
I would say my advice is probably just
to go for it. I mean, you only have one
life. Um, you never know how it's going
to turn out. We had no idea how our
pretzel food truck was going to turn out
when we started. We had knew nothing
about it and we just kind of went for
it, started it, and now we're here a
year later still doing events and it's
going good.
There's no telling what's going to
happen unless you do it. You know,
if you just think about it for all the
time, there's nothing's going to come
from it unless you actually get involved.
involved.
Guys, is fear of failure holding you
back? We've got some incredible
step-by-step blueprints led by
worldclass entrepreneurs on how to start
and scale any business. So, head over to
upflip.com to gain access now. When did
the idea of starting this business come
about and then the difference between
that moment and the first sale? Just
curious. So, we probably had the idea uh
first in June of 2022 and then our first
sale was in February of 2023. So,
definitely a good little space in
between the two.
Give us an understanding of why the
space isn't just obviously starting the
business, the planning process. Can you
break down the timeline for us?
Right. So, planning definitely takes a
lot from it. Uh getting the food truck
and getting it set up and ready to go
takes a while. And then the licensing
with the state and permitting uh that
also took about 5 to 6 months itself. Really?
Really?
That long? Yeah.
Yeah.
So when it comes to pretzels, I'm
curious what's important in terms of the
equipment to have to have the perfect results.
results.
So the ovens. The ovens play a big part.
Big mixer. Um so we can make big
batches, but most importantly, these
ovens right here.
Why? What's important?
So they're a convection oven. So they
have a fan in the back that actually
rotates all that heat around and they go
to 500°.
Yeah. You're cooking them at 500
500° about 4 to 5 minutes. Yeah. And we
we rotate them in the oven when they're
cooking so they can all cook.
And you're saying if it wasn't a
convection, it wouldn't be the same result.
result.
Yeah. Just cuz the heat doesn't travel
around in the oven. It's more of a dead
space kind of heat where this fan keeps
the the heat evenly. Everything gets
evenly distributed.
Interesting. If I didn't do convection,
what would the pretzel look like then if
I take it out?
Um more flat. Uh more flat and it
doesn't it just doesn't rise as much.
Um, and with that heat of how hot it is,
just that initial 500° makes it cook so
fast that it has it'll rise rise super fast.
fast.
Dude, that's awesome. The whole science
to it. I mean, it's simple, but whole
science to it.
Blitz time with Roman. Thank you guys
for submitting your questions. First one
is, if you could serve a celebrity, who
would it be?
Uh, Danny Duncan. What flavor do you
think you'd recommend to him?
Uh, I'd do the pizza.
Pizza. Awesome. What's the most unusual
topping request you've ever received?
Uh, we've had Nutella drizzle with
jalapenos on it. Oh,
Oh, yeah.
yeah.
I was like, did that ever happen?
Yeah, we made it happen for them and
they liked it. Yeah,
that's sweet. What's the most pretzels
you've ever made in a single day?
500 in one day. Nice.
Nice. Yeah.
Yeah.
What's the most unexpected skill you've
learned from running a food truck?
Just being fast with orders.
Sounds good, dude. Uh, what's your
favorite way to unwind after a busy
week? I know the answer. Surfing.
Surfing. Yeah.
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah.
All right. Best part of being an entrepreneur?
entrepreneur?
You can kind of make your own schedule.
So, if we have something on a weekend
where we we need to take care of, go on
a quick surf trip or something, we can
call off the events,
make it happen. All right. Lastly, if
there was a movie about your lives, what
would the title of the movie be?
Uh, W Adventures.
Nice, dude.
Do you remember the first day that you
guys sold out? And if you did, what did
that make you feel like? What was going
through your mind?
So, our first time selling out, we were
outside of a nightclub one night, uh,
doing late night pretzels for, uh, you
know, just drunk people. Exactly. So, uh
we were doing that and we sold out and
we were just so stoked when we did cuz
it was one of our first times with the
trucks out and that was really when we
felt like the concept was proven
and uh we felt like we had something here.
here.
How many pretzels was it when you sold
out you think?
Uh around 100 I think around 100.
Yeah, around 100. And that was only our
like second event. So that was that was
that was right in the beginning. Yeah.
Yeah.
So you have two units now. You've got
the trailer that you started with.
You've got the minivan. At which point
did you upgrade? Did you get the second unit?
unit?
Um I'd say it was about fourth or fifth
month like right transitioning from the
fourth into the fifth. We had just done
a big music festival down in Jack's
Beach and we kind of realized we needed
something bigger to do those more
upscale things where you serving about
2,000 people, 3,000 people in a weekend.
So the kitchen just wasn't able to
sustain the trailer.
Yeah, the trailer wasn't it was just too
small. We didn't have enough room in
there to store all the pretzels. And
then so we got the van and built he
built that one out himself again and
then we just used that from there. And
what did the van cost like?
It cost us $18,000 to get the van and
then 4,000 for the wrap and then to
build it out I would say
around 2 3,000 over all the equipment
and everything.
25k basically. How did you guys finance
that then?
The wrap and everything we had enough
money for everything. It was only the
van. We had uh some of our family
members help us out and we're just
paying them back. Gotcha.
[clears throat] So, family loan essentially.
essentially. Exactly.
Exactly.
Not a bank or anything.
No, we tried, but we weren't we weren't
uh a year in business yet. So, it was it
was hard for us to get get any type of
loan or anything.
Gotcha. And what did that do to your
business as far as two two units now?
What are you able to do that you weren't before?
before?
So, we're able to do two events at the
same time. So, say uh we have one large
food movie night and a food truck
Friday, same day. We're able to do them
both at the same time. and we're able to
just basically make what we would just
double what we would usually make in one night.
night.
Blake, what do you think sets you and
Roman apart from most 20-year-olds?
You can have a little ego trip here.
It's fine. [laughter]
Um, I just say we're we're motivated.
You know, we're very self motivated. We
we like doing our own thing and um we
like having our own business and we just
want to grow it and we want to get it
big. Um we're willing to put the time
in. you know, we're not out late at
nights. You know, we're working on the
computers at night making pretzels
during the day. You name it. So,
you guys are the real deal entrepreneurs.
entrepreneurs.
Let's switch gears to the mentor who
helped you get going initially in the business.
business.
I'm sure that you've learned a lot from
him, but what other resources did you
utilize to learn the skills, knowledge,
and just anything necessary to get this going?
going?
So, so online, anything online, just as
much research as possible has been a
huge help. Uh really people are so
willing to help on Reddit. I'll make a
post of something I don't know about.
Post it up. Just people from all over
the country are so willing to help. It's
It really blew my mind how much help I
got on there. People just commenting
paragraphs and paragraphs of helpful
articles to refer me to. So Reddit was a
definitely a big one. And then the
upflip upflip videos I've been watching
for years.
We didn't tell them to say that. This is
just a fact, right?
Yeah. Yeah. I've been watching the
videos for years. Um, some of the other
food truck ones definitely got some good
advice advice on those.
How much do you guys charge for events?
So, you do private catering. So, give us
an understanding of the charges, how
that works, and the structure.
So, it's more of like a per pretzel
basis. Um, depending on the size of the
event, how many people we do um catering
such as we do little bites. We can do
trays of bites for like we've done Super
Bowl parties, we've done um graduation
parties, stuff like that. Well, we'll do
like a tray of our salted bites, a tray
of our cinnamon bites, or um we'll do
weddings. We've done a couple weddings.
We'll do um pretzel sticks. Um so, we
don't have our big uh Wshaped pretzels.
We'll kind of make it into sticks so we
can cater to a lot more people. So,
we'll have like 150 people come at one
time. We'll have them prepick what kind
of flavor pretzels they want. So, they
can choose like three or four different
flavors with a dip. And we'll charge per
stick and a dip per person. And we
charge around $4 um for a pretzel stick
and a pretzel uh dip.
Gotcha. Okay. So, that's pretty easy math.
math.
Yeah. So, uh when we're doing our
caterings, we don't have a set in place
kind of like travel fee or this kind of
fee or that kind of fee yet just cuz
we've been only doing this for 7 months
now. So, we haven't done it a super
abundance amount of catering really. Um
eventually we'll definitely have like
our set rules of this price, this price.
We just want to get people happy just so
we can get people stoked about our brand
and get eyes on us and do as many
caterings as possible.
Makes sense. Guys, what is the best
seller and why do you think so?
Obviously the salted with queso. Can't
go wrong. Love it. You know, everyone
that's thinking pretzel, they're
thinking a good old salted pretzel.
If you couldn't live without one, Blake,
would that be the one?
Personally, the pizza one.
The pizza one. Oh, I can't wait.
It's good cuz we do it fresh toppings.
We put marinara, mozzarella, and
pepperoni on top of the pretzel and then
bake it and then parmesan uh cheese to
top it off. It's It's really good.
Can't wait to try it cuz I've never in
my life tried a pretzel pizza essentially.
essentially.
Yeah. So, the day I'm with you on that.
Let's do it.
What are some dos and don'ts for when it
comes to customer service as a food
truck business? So, I would say
definitely some dos are be quick. Um
people are coming up to the food truck.
We want to be as quick as possible um
while still delivering quality product.
Um we have some beepers that we'll give
out with the orders. Um just so people
can walk away a little bit and it'll
beep them when it's ready. We were
calling names. It was it was a little
hard at first. I would definitely say um
that's one of the don'ts is don't don't
try to be shouting names and everything.
It gets it gets crazy especially when
you have like 20 orders that are coming
up. Um so the beepers definitely
definitely helped us out a lot. Okay.
Um, on the customer service side, I
[music] try to just make everyone feel
feel happy at home. Um,
how do you do that specifically? Give me
an example.
Um, so like yeah, offer them like a free
dip or something. If someone's being
like super cool with us and they're
super interested in our our business, we
have some free stickers. Um, and I'll
give as many stickers out as possible.
People love the stickers. Everyone gets
[music] super excited when they get a
free sticker like this or what?
Yeah. So, yeah, it's this logo. Um, or
it's actually another logo on the back
of our shirt. Um just like our full
[music] hotbox pretzels. It has our
website on there. Good for advertising,
too. Um people stick them everywhere.
I've seen cars, water bottles, stuff
like that. So sweet. Yeah.
Yeah.
So you two are the only full-time
employees for Hotbox Pretzels, right?
[music] You're still in school. Like why
not hire full-time employees?
Um so for the most part, we can kind of
handle everything that we get thrown
across our way. So, like these events,
like me and him can do it by ourselves
or we'll have one other person work the
register. We just haven't had a need for
the full-time employees yet, but with
the start of the second trailer, if we
can get more double events going, that's
when we'll start looking to hire more
full-time employees
here in the
I think it's also a little a little just
cuz we're Friday, Saturday, Sundays is
where we do most of our events. Um, we
do a couple weekday events, but we just
haven't had the most success um with the
weekday. So, we're trying to just more
focus on being [music] being ready for
the weekends and full capacity and ready
to go on the weekends. Um, so that's
where it gets a little difficult of
trying to hire a full-time. We just
don't have we don't have the hours to
give someone a full-time a full-time
role yet, but hopefully in the next
coming months we will.
So, do you have some kind of plan for
digital uh marketing or you just kind of
developing that still? Where are you at?
Uh, so we definitely have a relatively
low budget for the ads right now. We
still do some here and there. We like to
do giveaways instead of paying for the
advertisement. So giveaways just uh just
yesterday actually we did a giveaway for
two Jags tickets. So that's actually got
a lot of eyes on it. Had around almost
200 comments on the post.
The game from today.
Yep. From today. Yeah, that's going on
right now.
They're hraing right now.
Yeah. So the winner he's having a good
time right now for sure.
But yeah, so we do things like that that
uh don't necessarily cost us much, but
it gets gets our name out there. It gets
people tagged in our posts, you know.
Gotcha. What are you spending if
anything right now on social media?
I'd say we'd probably spend around 25 to
anywhere from 25 to 40 every 2 weeks on
ads. So only a couple posts every two
weeks. Yeah. All right.
All right.
Nothing crazy.
I'm sure that'll grow.
Yeah, of course. You know.
All right. If you could go back and do
it all over again, what would you do
differently? And what's your number one
advice to those looking to start a food
truck business as well?
I'd probably go back and focus a little
bit more on marketing. You know, your
name is everything. So, the more you get
your name out there to people's ears and
people's faces, the more they're going
to recognize you and recognize your
brand, and that's what it's all about.
And that's when people start reaching
out to you instead of you reaching out
to people to get events. Cuz once people
start reaching out to you to do the
events, then it all becomes easier cuz
it takes away time from going online and
searching for all these different
events. So,
making the calls, emails.
Exactly. So marketing helps out a lot
with that with just getting your name
out there in front of the people that matter.
matter.
But marketing costs money. I mean I
don't have a lot of it. What's my alternative?
alternative?
Um you can do Facebook ads and Instagram
ads for relatively cheap cost. Yeah. You
can promote them for about $5 to $10 per
post. Um which gets gets you in front of
about like 2 to 3,000 accounts. Um which
it makes a big difference to do that if
you're just doing five bucks a post.
It's not going to be anything crazy if
you're doing a couple posts a week. Yep.
Um, nothing too crazy.
What we've done as well is, uh, we've
had nights where we've been outside of
bars or anything, uh, something like
that. We'll have buddies go inside and
pass out flyers inside or like coupons
inside to get people to come out and try
the pretzels uh, when they're leaving.
What was the best day um, so far in the
last 12 months in terms of pretzel
amounts sold and what does that
transition to revenue?
So, it was actually super recently. It
was uh, last weekend. No way. Uh, yeah.
So, we did a music festival down at the
beaches. It was a super big event. They
had around I want to say like maybe
30,000 people there.
So it was just being the right place,
being at the right event, getting that
many and many people around us. Um
people are drinking there. People love
pretzels for sure. So
we're pretty busy. So we sold around 400
pretzels um in one day translate to
around like six $67,000. Um we also did
fresh squeeze lemonade. Um so we got
some souvenir cups with our logos
printed on it and we were selling those
lemonades um and the pretzels as well.
So, the lemonade's part of the 7,000?
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
What were you selling lemonades for?
Uh, the lemonades were 10 bucks. Um, it
was a big 32 oz 32 oz stadium cup um
with our logo printed on it. So, we sold
around I want to say around 150 cups of
lemonade and then around 400 pretzels.
Gotcha. Okay. Awesome. How much did that
event cost you guys?
Uh, it cost us 1,200 bucks to be there.
So, it was a little it was a little
pricey for sure. All these big events
are going to either take a percentage of
your sales or they're going to take that
upfront cost. True. How do you think
being a successful entrepreneur has
changed your the person you are? Whether
it's an attitude, confidence, anything
you want to highlight?
I'd say I definitely gained confidence
from it. I I think I gained more
security in myself knowing I can do all
these different things and uh keep a
keep a business on track obviously with
the help of Roman and everything. But it
was mainly just a confidence boost to
like, hey, you can do this like you're
doing it well. You're succeeding. You
know, it feels good and it it it makes
you carry yourself better each day, you
know. And
do you think you'll finish the degree,
Blake? Cuz what if what if this blows
up? I mean, it will at some point. You
guys are do taking all the right steps.
You're close.
I'm close. I got eight classes left, so
I'm going to make it. You know, got I
got I'm this far. Got to finish it out.
Not our principal.
Yeah, exactly.
How do you source ingredients? Help us
understand the process.
So, we get most of our ingredients from
Restaurant Depot. Since we're
like a one-stop shop.
Yeah, it's a one-stop shop. Um they have
mass amounts of everything there. We're
pretty simple. The pretzels don't take
too many ingredients. Um so we uh it's
about five ingredients, not including
well four that we have to buy cuz it's
water. Water is one of the ingredients.
So it's really it's really simple. Um
it's more in our process of how we make
the pretzels and the ingredients. We buy
the best ingredients from Restaurant
Depot. We use vegan butter. Um so all
our pretzels are vegan. When we started,
we weren't we had a lot of requests. Um
we tested some recipes. We just changed
the butter that we were using and it
didn't make a difference at all. We had
people test them out and couldn't tell a
difference between the butter. Yeah.
Yeah. The butter just kind of gives the
dough a little bit more texture. Um
makes it a little more stretchy, a
little more fluff. And we didn't really
notice a difference at all with the
butter. So, we get vegan butter from
there. And then we do some of our um
ingredients online um through Amazon.
Some of the more specialized stuff. The
actual like lie that we use um to give
the pretzels their browning color. They
don't sell it at Restaurant Depot. So,
we have to specially order that from Amazon.
Amazon.
All right. So tips, advice to others
watching that have sourcing questions
like what would you say? Just stay local
and certain things.
Um local and then there's like some
bigger websites. Webster is a good one.
Um they have tons of stuff on there.
Amazon, I mean they have like one day
shipping in most places for Amazon.
Yeah, you can't really beat it. So like
if we realize we're running low on
something, pretty much everything's
accessible on Amazon now. So we'll order
it. It'll be there the next day ready
for us to go make some pretzels.
What about your guilty pleasures? You
guys are making decent money for 21 year
olds early in a business,
but what's your guilty pleasure? What do
you go to on a day off?
Uh, both of us are surfing.
Yeah. Yeah. We're
That doesn't cost a lot of money.
It's not It's not a lot of money, but
we'll have to go check the waves.
Sometimes we'll have to make pretzels,
but let's go let's go surf for 2 hours
before try to try to sneak in a surf
session here and there. That's cool. Yeah,
Yeah,
dude. I wish I could do that, you know,
close a house and go surfing, but I'm
I'm in the Pacific Northwest. The waves
the waves are [laughter] a foot maybe on
a good day.
So for those watching you guys right now
and they find themselves in a very
similar situation, they're in a market
where they have nothing to go off of.
They're breaking the ice essentially.
What would you do different and
recommend to them with what you know now?
now?
Uh so the first thing I would say is if
you're doing something completely new
that not a lot of other people have
done, you need to basically have a proof
of concept before. So take whatever idea
you're doing it do try it on a small
scale and if it works it works and then
you kind of take it from there scale up
and then that's when you start deciding
okay I need this I need this to make uh
the pretzel better or whatever uh
product you're using. I would say if you
are going to start, I would give
yourself a good 3 to four month buffer
um before you're even ready to sell.
Um just because those licenses and
getting all that in place, like our
license took about 3 months um before we
were even ready to get inspected. So if
you are looking to take this journey, I
would definitely recommend have
something in place to get you through
those 3 to 4 months before you're ready
to actually start start selling on the
food truck. So, you're working on this
unique oven specifically tailored for
pretzels, right? You have no engineering background.
background.
No engineering. No.
How are you doing it? Give us the
secrets if you may.
So, I've kind of just used a couple like
mockup websites um to kind of get some
simple renderings and stuff like that.
And I ordered all like the parts and
stuff to kind of build it myself. I'm
going to get get it built up, make a
prototype, [music]
and then get that prototype, bring it to
a couple of like uh bowling alleys,
concession stands, and just kind of run
them through how it works and
everything. and see how much interest we
get from that. And then if the interest
is good from that, I'm going to go to
I've been doing some research on getting
like manufacturing over in China and
some of those other countries um to
where maybe I can get like 10 to 15 of
these ovens um manufactured with our
logos with everything connected just a
plug and play ready to go.
Why is what you're working on important
potentially? [music]
So our pretzels we do them fresh. Most
pretzels are sitting in a warmer for 30,
40 minutes before you eat them at these concept.
concept.
Already cooked but sitting in a warmer
and you're not getting them when they're
fresh. What I've designed is an oven
that will be able to heat these pretzels
within 30 seconds. So, we'll have the
thought out already um good to go
pretzels. You'll be able to take these
pretzels, throw them in the oven. It'll
heat up with in about 30 seconds. In the
bottom drawer, it'll have a um it'll
have melted butter and queso. Oh. Um, so
you'll be able to do a fresh um butter
on there. A a brush of butter. Yeah. Um
it'll have everything on the sides.
It'll have plates, um paper, it'll have
the cups. Um so it'll be a one one-stop
shop. Everything's right there ready to go.
go.
Basically you in a van but miniature on
a counter top on a counter top. Um
you'll be able brush it with the butter,
shake the salt on. Um get your own cup
of queso and and then these places can
just serve it out just like that.
Straight out of the oven, fresh.
That's awesome, dude.
I remember you mentioned watching one of
our episodes and learning a lot. Uh,
which one was it? What did you learn
specifically from?
It was the uh hen house food truck. Um,
so big. Yeah, a big thing I real or I
heard in their episode is they said
don't do everything you can. And we were
doing that at the start. We were doing
everything we could. We were out almost
7 days a week for a couple months there.
And we were just getting burnt out. It
was too much. We realized that instead
of going to all these places, making a
couple hundred bucks here and there, we
really wanted to try to focus on the
bigger music festivals and bigger events
on Fridays, Saturdays, and Sundays and
give us that time during the week to
reset. And dude, you know what's
interesting is I think people watch,
they hear the advice from those that
have traveled that path.
Did you feel like there was a struggle
between like, no, I know better. I'm
going to do my what I think is better,
or did you just kind of surrender trust
and like, you know what, I really
trusted them. They seemed like they knew
knew what was going on. They have a it
seemed like they have a really
successful food truck going and they've
been doing it for longer than us. Um so
and we were we were kind of I actually
watched that episode at almost like a
perfect time of right where we were kind
of talking about that like should we
really be doing this seven days a week?
Should we kind of pull it back a little
bit and really really focus on on the
bigger stuff on the weekends?
Nice. You guys, the episode he's talking
about, we'll make sure the link is in
the description below. So make sure to
check it out.
You guys, it's been absolutely my pleasure.
pleasure.
It's been really fun. I wish you well
and much success. We'll come back and
check in on you in like 2 years.
All right, sounds good.
Sounds great.
Well, that's a wrap. I hope you guys
enjoyed it. If you want to know more
about the food truck industry, check out
episode 26 with Jen, the owner of Boss
Mama's Kitchen, which made it to the
food truck of the year in a matter of
two years. Take a second to like,
subscribe, and we will [music] see you next
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