Donut Truck/New Perspective

mrivc211

mrivc211

Well-Known Member
Hey Everyone!

I was thinking since I always hear pilots mentioning that they want to own a business on the side, I figured if anyone was interested I would be willing to do a summary write up on my perspective of owning my business. I opened my donut shop in July of 2012, opened my second store in Sept 2013, and am in the midst of launching a Donut Truck.

Theres a lot of lessons, mistakes, fulfillment, tears, stress, you name it. As with anything, you get back as much as you put in. Anyway, my announcement to make it official is I'm launching my Donut Truck in Jan/Feb 2014! It's a 2014 Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van that will be converted into a Donut Truck. Donuts will not be produced on the truck. For those who are curious of what it will resemble, google: Sprinkles Mobile for a sneak peek.
 
Yea
mrivc211 said:
Hey Everyone!

I was thinking since I always hear pilots mentioning that they want to own a business on the side, I figured if anyone was interested I would be willing to do a summary write up on my perspective of owning my business. I opened my donut shop in July of 2012, opened my second store in Sept 2013, and am in the midst of launching a Donut Truck.

Theres a lot of lessons, mistakes, fulfillment, tears, stress, you name it. As with anything, you get back as much as you put in. Anyway, my announcement to make it official is I'm launching my Donut Truck in Jan/Feb 2014! It's a 2014 Mercedes Benz Sprinter Van that will be converted into a Donut Truck. Donuts will not be produced on the truck. For those who are curious of what it will resemble, google: Sprinkles Mobile for a sneak peek.
Click to expand...
Congrats on your success and the new store! Where are you located?
 
I think I missed the part where he posts the identifier of the "Donut Truck Fly-In" where pilots test donuts...
 
I would be interested in a write up. Sounds like a very busy business and I'd be curious about the specifics about how you manage your time between having to handle employees and customers as well as fly (didn't you start flying at a different company recently?). As well as the pros, cons, pitfalls, wish you would have knowns, etc to starting and owning a business.
 
Currently working on the write up. I'll post it in the investments section. It's probably more detailed than ya'll will want but it's better to learn from others mistakes than to make them yourself.
 
first marketing plan:

1. Show up at Oshkosh with a mini strip painted on the roof.
2. Have a cub land on it while you drive down the runway
3. Sell out of food and buy a second truck since your business just boomed 100000 fold


I'll take a 30% stake in the second truck
 
This bad boy went into the chop shop today. In 3-4 weeks it will look like a store on wheels.
 

Attachments

  • image.jpg
    image.jpg
    1.3 MB · Views: 189
Question: didn't you pick donuts because you were making mad donuts and home and often thought, 'I should sell these'.
Or were donuts targeted for pure business reasons?
 
JEP said:
Have Great Trusted people working for you.....Delegation......
Click to expand...
No such thing exists in metropolitan areas. 20% of a businesses losses are created thru employees. Whether thats theft or waste because they just don't care.
 
mrivc211 said:
No such thing exists in metropolitan areas. 20% of a businesses losses are created thru employees. Whether thats theft or waste because they just don't care.
Click to expand...

How will you grow if you don't get a few trusted managers?

Parallel question: how big do you want to be?
 
Excluding highly technically and heavily invested careers such as a M.D, Attorney, pilot etc, only 1 in 20 employees are worth retaining. After a few years in an industry, your network grows. My network has grown to where I have contacts in large scale companies as well as small private firms. The common denominator is the majority of employees cause/create tremendous amount of work/problems for businesses.


To answer your second question: before you grow you must set a good foundation of procedures, suppliers, employees, etc. there are so many factors that go into a business decision. I never thought of my business as how big I wanted it to be but rather how high of a margin can I create. You hear a lot of airline CEOs talks about not growing just for growths sake.
They want higher yields and maybe a smaller operation. If you grow for growths sake your possibly growing a monster that you won't be able to control. An out of control company has it's days number the minute it gets out if control. You then become a ship in the middle of the Atlantic that has too many leaks and not enough fingers to plug the leaks.

Case in point: I opened my second store not because my first store was making lots of money. I realized my operating costs in the second store would be 30-40% less, this yielding me higher profit margins. All the labor costs in the normally associate with a kitchen would be absorbed in the first store, saving me thousands in store 2.

For example:
store ones revenue is 15,000/mo and it's overhead is $12,000.
Store 2's revenue is $15,000/mo but overhead is $8,500 because store 1 pays the kitchen labor costs for both stores. Higher yield in store 2!

The yield gets even higher on the trucks operations. Normally a business leaves 10-20% of revenue as profit. This trucks costs are structures so that it leaves 50%.

There's so much to talk about and A LOT if lessons to be learned. One thing I've learned is if your making over. $100k/yr and working no more than 16 days per month, you've got a good gig going.

We as pilots are highly compensated at the major levels. We get complacent and forget how hard it is to be making that kind of money anywhere else.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Space Monkey
The "good" ol' days...
Replies
6
Views
2K
///AMG
///AMG
derg
The "John Ley" Update
Replies
4
Views
4K
Cruise
Cruise
derg
Did Boeing "blow" it?
2 3
Replies
48
Views
2K
Minuteman
Minuteman
Back
Top