After almost 4 years home with my boys, I'm preparing to return to earning money for the family. I've been looking into a specialized type of food truck business for a couple years and have been following a SAHD who started a business like this in CT a couple years ago. He's encouraged me a little bit and I think I have a solid business plan and market. Met with a business adviser at the Chamber last week and it's still looking positive.

With both boys in preschool two half days right now and the strong possibility of putting the elder in for 5 half days next year (@almost 4.5) and his brother going 3 half days, I'll be halfway to having the boys in school full time. So the daycare concerns aren't as difficult as they were a year ago. I think we'll be looking for a teenager to watch the boys here at home a bit next summer to help transition.

Wish me luck. I'll try to keep the progress updated here.

Sounds exciting Ben! (and scary) Good luck!

I hope that you will post here often on this subject, Ben. I am keenly interested. The idea is solid and given your track record this thing is really promising. How much fun for the boys as well!

We just need to make sure that when this truck rolls for the first time, DadLabs is there to document the occasion.

That sounds exciting Ben. You know Austin is also one of the Food Tuck Capitals of the world so if you ever need sophisticated tasters our crew will fit the bill. You gonna be able to sell Belgian Triplets?

Thanks, guys.

I'll definitely let the DLWHQ know about the kickoff weekend. Indianapolis is also a food truck haven, although I don't think they've managed a cold season yet. I see a lot of the breweries making deals with trucks so they don't need to have a kitchen. It makes an eclectic menu through the week

Since I'm still getting the plan for phase 1 going, I'm trying not to think much about phase 2 which adds custom beer to the catering options. But, it is in there.

The Facebook page is now live.

I'm launching a Kickstarter project for training in a week or two. It's going to be a lively month, especially if I finally get finished with the first draft of the business plan.

Took longer than I wanted to get this filmed.

Cool Ben. I know you're "done" with this video, but the titles showing over your face are distracting... can you put those few at the bottom of the screen?

Good luck!

I know. I used Windows Movie Maker. The caption options are pretty sparce. When I moved them lower, they got worse and wouldn't go lower. And I can't raise them up at all. Truth be told, the captions are hiding splicesthat made me look like Max Headroom. A subtle dissolve transition and distracting caption put it right together.

Business Plan. Business Plan. Business Plan. My motorcycle for a Business Plan! (It hasn't run for a couple years anyway.)

I'm in a rut. I need to get the plan done so I can talk intelligently with the people who want to give me money. But I'm fighting this writer's block I have that was diagnosed as a learning disability in college. One week before graduation, no less. I got a look at plans done by a couple other people in different areas for the same sort of business and they're very obviously using an industry template with very little additional data. So that makes me feel better. I'm asking my consultant to tell me how much of what I have done is good enough and what I need to finish up. His template works for Internet Start-ups to concrete block manufacturers. I'm somewhere in the middle.

But the Kickstarter is up and running and some of you guys are involved, I'm happy to say. I need to make a real push to get my cards out to people this week and get the momentum going or else I won't get to spend your money on sending you a shirt. On the other hand, at least you won't have to pay anything.

But the test runs are going well. I'm really working on the recipe of the dough and the settings on the equipment I own than the finished product. The difference between a 500F Convection oven and a 900F Wood oven is more than just 400 degrees.

You can keep track of this stuff the following ways:
Kickstarter
Facebook
The Web Site

I hate writing business plans. The only thing worse is marketing copy. Which I've been doing a lot of lately. Set small goals -- one paragraph or section at a time can add up quickly. Steady as she goes. And when you pull it off -- I'm getting me some of that pie.

I wrote an update on the Kickstarter yesterday when I realized we'd made it to 10% of the goal. Then my mom kicked in and we hit 20%. But it's probably still going to fail... and that's okay.

Two pizza parties in the last week. Wednesday night we had a big party planned. So many people were out of town between the holidays we didn't have a lot of RSVPs but enough. Then all sorts of things kept folks from joining us including a crazy one where a family found out that their 19 year old still living at home had taken a refund on her tuition to buy clothes and was carrying on the charade by getting up early on class days and reading the books they bought her for classes in her "free time". They were in no mood for fun.

But we had a couple families over on Wednesday and we used the leftovers to make more pizza on New Year's Day with a family we're friends with. Their three girls overwhelmed our boys only by being older.

But the pizza was great. I've really got it down now. I can stretch dough fast and reliably. And I think all my recipes and combinations are working well. Even if we don't come close to the fundraising goal, I think I have a good start on getting this rolling.

First sizable setback today. My wife's mom told me that she wanted to invest in the business back in November. About 2 months ago. Well, after I gave her financials twice in the last six weeks, my wife gets out of her that she doesn't want to do it now. That's fine. Expected and probably a good thing. But she played along this whole time and I've been gearing my business plan to a family pitch. So now I need to rewrite parts to aim for majority bank loan funding. It's not too bad, but I need funding by the end of the month. So the clock is now ticking.

What makes it worse is that the MiL is throwing all sorts of "reasons" why she doesn't think it's a good idea to get involved. As if she thinks she'll lose all the money she puts in. This is just wrecking her unstable relationship with her daughter (my wife). She's saying that we don't follow up on things. Her examples include things that we were investigating and decided not to pursue. We spent our own money on research but nothing more. I call that due diligence. She's using examples of things we were going to do if we took the relocation offer to move to Chicago. I think it would make sense that I'm not going to a seminary in Chicago after moving another couple hours away.

It's hard not to return fire. It's harder to calm my wife down. Her mother is not just challenging me, but her daughter's choice in partners. I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't be called a screw up by any standard. I've had my 6 figure income years. I've built non-profit organizations that exist well past my involvement.

Everything will stay on schedule. I just need to move forward and get bank funding instead of a "for sure" investment. I need to order my oven by the end of the month to have it in time for the season to start. That means kicking the business plan into overdrive.

Damn that sucks Ben. If you don't want to invest fine... but how is it that people have no filter, even if they are family? If your kid is happy (not to mention a GROWN UP), stfu already. But even still, probably can't uninvite her to the kick off party huh?

(((peaceful vibes))) to Deb.

Good luck in the coming weeks Holmes!

Hey Ben - you might be better off looking at something like prosper.com or lendingclub.com for funding.

Banks will almost certainly steer you towards a home equity loan (if you have any equity in this crappy market). Personally, I have never gone down that road, because I would find it too hard to sleep at night. However, plenty of small business owners do take out home equity, with varying results. Naturally, you need a strong stomach if you go down that route.

Hi Ben. Fascinated by how this string has developed. I love pizza [native New Yorker], I've written & evaluated business plans [former economic development professional] & I love food trucks.

I get that operating a successful food truck is far more complicated that it would seem at first glance. And I get the fundraising challenges for your venture.

One option I could throw out to you--forgive me if you've been through this idea--is to sell 'community' shares. Let's say, for discussion's sake, that you need $100,000. You could make available 1,000 $100 'shares' to friends, family, or any incorporated entity. Secure a controlling interest yourself first, & limit the # of shares available to anyone else. Pitch the idea at the pizza parties, & provide full legal disclosure along with plates & napkins.

There may be a number of people eager to participate, but squeamish about investing an amount that might hurt.

And having several hundred community members with an 'ownership' interest might help build your WOM & customer base.

Take it for what it's worth; best of luck, & please continue to keep us posted!

Steven [MaineDad]

I like that model, Steven. A coffee shop we used to frequent in a small college town in Northern Indiana started that way after several others failed. It seemed to help them stay afloat and get established until they had their market set.

For this, my advisor seems to think that financing will be a slam dunk. The offer I made my mother-in-law would have returned her 40% on a 30% share of the company in one year. Pizza, especially Neapolitan-style, is just so cheap to make. By renting a space with the heavy equipment and being mobile, it has almost no overhead. So, I think that traditional financing may be my best bet. I need more than the group lending options would fund. And that's just the oven.

We actually have equity in the house, even though we bought it in July. We got that good a deal on it and the appraisal was evaluated as low by our neighbor, another appraiser. But we're going to keep it off the table. The bank that ran the town crashed in 2008 because of the secondary mortgage market. The trailer should work as collateral anyway. If we manage to get a loan for it, I'll be sure to go to them for a truck loan later this year.

Unless... I'm trying to decide how to introduce a marketing pitch to Cummins. One of the markets I'm doing is their private Farmers Market on Wednesdays at their HQ. Another is in the same location but is the city's public market on Saturdays. I want to talk someone into using me as a marketing "vehicle" so when they want to advertise their engines at the Louisville Truck Show or car shows or even just a car lot, they can send me with my sparkling Cummins-powered truck with hefty pizza wagon. They could probably hook me up with a demo model with manufacturer plates. If they like me a lot, anyway.

I have been so very happy for about 28 hours. Yesterday was the first positive cash flow day of my new business. We opened for business at 9am at the Columbus Farmers Market and were out of our two high visibility items by 10:30. We weren't alone. The Amish ladies next to us were out of bread and selling quilts by then. One of the wineries sold four times their average bottle count as last year. That's a lot of wine. He's concerned that they may not have any to sell at the winery tasting room.



That's my wife and our tent. Since we don't have the oven, I'm making stuff at home under Indiana's Home Based Vendor laws (Cottage Food Industry legislation). Our menu board had Focaccia, Graham Crackers, Pizza Crusts, and Sorbets. We sold all the focaccia I made, all the graham crackers and 23 pizza crusts. I think we sold and gave out 15 sorbet push-pops. As you can tell from our signage, we need to do better. The sorbet will go fast if we get those signs up off the ground (and keep them from blowing over).

It was a great day. In addition to being cash positive, we paid for our space for the entire season in that one day. I spent about 30 hours making things for market and getting the booth ready, so it's not near being a paycheck yet, but it's a huge step forward. (A distant cousin once said something like that a long distance from here some time a few decades ago.)

Here's a big photo of our market. It's a brand new location, the parking lot of the Cummins Corporate Headquarters. People found it just fine. Lots of people. For about 3 hours, this aisle was filled with people.


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It feels good to be able to relabel myself as a Work-at-Home-Dad. I've missed that far too much.

Congrats Ben! Great to see a strong demand for your product, very encouraging. Keep up the good work!

Steven

And here's the market's photos of the day.

They were taken by an employee of one of the vendors who is also a market manager. So they focus on their booth a lot. But you get an idea how gig it was. 70 vendors this year up from about 50 last year.

Awesome Ben! Stoked for you!

Congrats, Ben. This is really fun to watch unfold.

Or should we make bakers puns: Hope this continues to rise!

Make lots of dough and soon you'll be the upper crust.

Somebody stop me.

I'll tell you something. This is fun. I spent all day Wednesday, Thursday and Friday making things. Graham crackers on Wednesday. Pizza dough Wednesday night. Fococcia dough and cherry lambic sorbet on Thursday. By noon on Saturday I had only 2 focaccia, 5 boxes of crackers and 4 pizza crusts. Oh, and 10 pounds of dry ice and a fistful of bills. We sold out of sorbet (about 40 of them) in an hour and a half. Everything else we had about the right amount. I wanted to have some to send to the office with my wife. I probably could have sold the rest of the focaccia had I not pulled them.

I'm going to amp up sorbet production. I've hired a high school gal to help outing a few weeks. She seems thrilled making a lot more than she'd get waiting tables. I decided to pay $9/hr through the first 6 events and then $10 after that. That means it's time to start paying the accountants, too. Oh boy.

Wow. It's been a long road and it'll soon feel like a superhighway. The oven SHOULD be put on a truck tomorrow in Fort Collins, CO and start its journey to South Central (Indiana). We hope to have it Thursday or Friday so I can take it to the market on Saturday, just to show. The oven needs to cure, lest it explode, for five days. We're ditching the boys with my folks so I can get things ready. Making dough for 120 pizzas isn't a simple thing. I'll start doing that two or three times a week in a matter of weeks.

The pre-pizza market has been good. I finally experienced the dividend from my dedication to Facebook promotion. Despite the 105°F temperature, 113°F Heat Index, and the County Fair, I managed to sell out of several types of frozen push-pops. Nearly every sale was because we had nurtured a relationship with them at the market, on Facebook or with a friend or even many friends. Without that, we'd have lost a lot of money.

One couple bought a single push-pop. I tried to help them choose a flavor and had to figure out which one it was for. It was for their friend who they were visiting in the hospital. She had a baby on Friday and hasn't been out in the heat since the market opened 6 weeks ago. It's been brutal. But she's a FB fan and talks incessantly about wanting to visit me. (I did warn my wife that women are going to want to bear my children.) So they came to the market to get her a treat for the maternity prison. I threw in a freebie and an extra sack to insulate it. Should have tossed in some dry ice, too.

One of the market manager who is also a vendor told me that I am rocking the social media marketing and to keep it up. That meant a lot in the context of the day. I moved my operations to a commercial kitchen that costs me $15 an hour. To keep from spending too much time there, I hired a recent HS grad for $9 an hour. So, every hour I spend there costs me $24. I sell things for $4, so each hour I spend has to sell 6 items, just to pay for that space. It's hard to keep up that pace with these little side shows. I've been lucky and had a good head of steam from my initial weeks operating as a Home Vendor. I got a lot of customers and their loyalty. That keeps me happy and partly sane.

It's quite an adjustment from being a SAHD. In that role, every penny I was allowed, I savored and tried to milk until it was safe to buy something for myself. That may have happened three times in 4 years. I have had a tough time resisting the urge to "pay myself" with a splurge here or there on the good weeks. It's getting easier now that I have to pay people, businesses and the Gubbermint.

So, there you go. Maybe I'll have a better photo (even video) of the rig the next time I check in. For now, here's what it looked like on July 6th. The brickwork and stucco freshly done.


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Oh, yeah.

One little complication.

I walk too much.

I peeled peaches a few weeks ago... for three hours. A day later I had an infection in my thumbnail. It hurt and I got antibiotic. A big one. A side effect, weakened tendons, especially in the feet. Yep. Sprained both ankles and fought through it. It's now three weeks later and I have very painful ankles and probably planar fasciitis. But I'm walking 7,000-15,000 steps every single day, pretty much since the pain started. I got an appointment to see a podiatrist so we'll see how that goes. Could be an interesting July...