251. How to Earn Your First $1M With Small Coffee Carts

0:00Christian Lynch:When Christian J. Lynch was eight years old, he ran a lemonade stand with his six-year-old brother. When he was 12, his dad forced him into mowing lawns. Hate at the time didn't see the point. Fast forward to college, which he hated so much he actually dropped out. Then COVID hit. Instead of retreating, he leaned in, scaling that same lawn business from 10 clients to 40 without a degree. Somewhere along the way, though, he fell in love with coffee. not because he planned to, because of a girl he was dating who was obsessed with it, which I think is so funny. But that relationship didn't last, but the passion for coffee did.

0:35Christian Lynch:He wanted to build a coffee business, but the math on brick and mortar terrified him. The overhead, the debt, the risk. So he asked a simple question. Why not run a coffee business the same way he ran that lemonade stand as a kid? That question became phase two coffee, a mobile coffee cart now pulling in over$20 ,000 a month with no storefront required. I'm Ryan Atkinson and you're listening to HealthFit Podcast where we interview entrepreneurs to hear their advice on how you can start a business too. I am so excited to welcome Christian to the podcast. He's someone I've been following on Instagram for like three or four months.

1:10Christian Lynch:So it's kind of like an honor to have Christian on here. So Christian, thank you so much for being here. Of course, man. I appreciate you guys. Appreciate you having me on. And I love that we get to share our passion of coffee, whether it's business or drinking too many cups a day. So it's been great. The coffee's starting to flow through my veins. So we'll flow through this combo. But cool, let's lay the foundation. I just kind of laid down what you do, but give it in Christian's words. What do you do and what do you do monthly? We run a private catering coffee cart business. A lot of times people ask that and it's like, well, what do you do?

1:38And we just like to say our slogan is we take events to the next phase. And so whether it's boring black coffee, we have high espresso lattes and it's more like hospitality experience, anywhere from like marketing, brand activations, corporate activations, the biggest brand of companies you see, anywhere down to like, you know, B2C, you know, private events, weddings, you know, birthday parties, graduations. And then at this point, we average around about 25 to$27 ,000 monthly in revenue at this point.

2:05Christian Lynch:Before you get into that story of like how someone else could start this business, let's kind of lay the foundation though. I mean, you did a lot of stuff growing up. You had a lemonade stand, you're doing lawnmowers. So it sounds like you were entrepreneur or kind of tell us about like your upbringing into entrepreneurship. Yeah, I was kind of forced into it, which I think is great because I don't even know if I'd be in entrepreneurship if it wasn't for that. I think I've been in this game maybe because it's like a lack of other options or it was more the force. But I mean, by force, my parents were always just pushing us, me and my younger brother, just to work really, really hard and just find ways to give back value.

2:37And one of the great ways is it happened to be entrepreneurship. You give something that someone wants and then they give you something in return, which is in this day of age in America or the world is money. And so I learned that from a lemonade stand, like cookies, lemonade, made Coke selling at a garage sale. I realized marketing, if you look really cute, people tend to give you more money. I was like, okay, that's probably why my mom and my grandma put us in the front of the garage sale. They were marketers because they're like, we have sold out people coming, but we're the first ones to come in.

3:04It's like, well, what's better marketing than an eight-year-old than a six-year-old little boy just trying to sell and make some money, which was really smart. And I text him from that. And then, yeah, at 12 years old, my dad started again buying business with us and just learned just knowing you're working hard, the boring problems, solving problems was something I tend to learn. And then fast forward and kind of push that into the, uh, the coffee cart model, I guess is the long story made short.

3:28Christian Lynch:So do you think like anyone can be an entrepreneur? You know, it's a great question. It's like the question of like nature versus nurture. You know, someone is the nature is more so when you define that someone was born with that, that is inside their nature, right? Like you look at like, if your people can relate to a football player, that was like, Chris, person was always talented or like my younger brother, that person can always sell, he was a salesman, right? And then you have nurture where you're not necessarily born that way. People don't put that label on you. But you saw them in middle school and next thing you go, 10 years later, like, Joe, that's Joe.

3:58I had no idea that Joe could play football like that now and it's the environment. So I don't necessarily know, Ryan, that's my honest answer. I feel like every single week, especially on social media, I see a lot of copycarts in certain people. It definitely surprised me. I would say that anyone can as far as the opportunity. It's never been easier, but not everyone is probably cut out for it long-term or they have the true willingness. And meaning people say they want to make money, people say they want to work hard, but when it comes down to the sacrifice, you put their calendar, nothing shows for that.

4:29And I think rather than saying that you're going to be an entrepreneur, just prove to me in your time and your money if you are going to be an entrepreneur. That's how I kind of define it.

4:36Christian Lynch:If people have the perception of being an entrepreneur is hard, there is no doubt about that. People have the perception like it is going to take a lot of time. But once you're actually in it, and like you look at your account, it's like, crap, I have seven hours of meetings today, and I have 12 hours of work to do like something's not math in here. I think once you're actually in, it's like a whole different ballgame. But speaking of nurture versus nature, nature versus nurture, let's talk about the coffee car business. How'd you fall into this? Was this natural for you to just be like, all right, let me go start a coffee car?

5:04Christian Lynch:How did you fall into it? The nature of like wanting to be ambitious was definitely within me when I was a young person, but like the nurture part of coffee, that definitely was, if you would have asked an eight-year-old kid, I would probably say I want to be like Justin Bieber singing songs on YouTube or something like that. And I quickly realized I don't have that talent to sing. So yeah, I think it was just the entrepreneurship. So really when at that time, like 18 to 20, when I was in the mowing business and kind of graduated high school and in college, I remember being in classes at an A plus program.

5:32And I was like, man, I'm making like two or 3k a month mowing at 1819 which is a lot of money back in 2020 2021 but like i'm making money i'm going in the college i'm like none of this really applies to like making money or i didn't see myself i'm like wait so i'm gonna go pay 30 40 000 after my associates what job am i gonna get maybe a physician assistant and so i kind of just like really scaled the mowing business my brother but i learned i wasn't as passionate about uh grass like cutting grass as much and so i really looked into like the coffee side and that's like the dating abroad at that time when it's like a really cool coffee shop beside Starbucks or Dunkin, no offense.

6:08There's a time and place for that. But I just really saw, I was intrigued by just the quality of coffee and the hospitality and the scenery and the love and the passion of just forming a good cup of coffee and having conversations and the art. Really cool coffee shop in Kansas City called Messenger. That's what it was. And it was just really cool. And I was like, well, man, maybe I can do a business. Business is business, right? But at that point, like 2021, I didn't have the capital at all. And so I just kind of went down like a rabbit hole, look at different models, coffee truck, just like someone probably listening to this is if they were intrigued by this podcast, copy cart, they've probably been through a rabbit hole, coffee truck, mobile, you know, there's a drive through, there's a copy cart, there's in-house baristas, all these different things.

6:46And so copy cart just kind of stood out to me because it was kind of a lower overhead. And at the same time, it's in that we kind of start up eventually kind of this test out. And so then I worked at a coffee shop for free for like two months, told the person not to pay me, I opened up, you know, every single day. And so I think a big lesson in that was like a lot of people want all the free advice or they want to be somewhere. I'm like, I'll just challenge yourself just to work for free for someone or learn to get paid even better. But I learned what not to do. And I probably saved myself like half a million dollars of mistakes.

7:15And so I think a lot of times I realized people were like, well, I only made this much, but it's like, you think like it's linear. Like there's so many other things that could have happened, but because you learn this one mistake probably could have sent you down this path like$20 ,000. So it's like, I just look, that's how I look at things. Like, how do I stack, you know, the ROI, whether in like the money I'm making or the money that I have not lost. And I found a person in California, did coffee cart named June. She has a coffee cart business called Welcome Coffee. She's like the grandmother of all the coffee carts.

7:45And she found the first one like doing mentorship. And so I invested, it's like a mentorship of like a build out and got on some calls. I just really believed in that. Cause I'm like, this girl's done it before me, I'm going to waste six, seven more months. Sorry, six, seven. But I'm going to waste those months when I can just pay this down. I can pay my ignorance debt down. And she's already done it before me. And so got into that, had a partner, a friend that was a barista. I was more the business person. I had complete ownership of it, but he taught me how to be going back to the nurture, taught me how to do shots and pour a lot they are.

8:16And what's the concept of espresso? And he knew nothing about business, but I was like, I can sell. I know how to market. I know how to like figure out prices and stuff. And so it was a really good partnership. And that's kind of like the story kind of, you know, cut together.

8:28Christian Lynch:Are you working a nine to five, but dream of entrepreneurial freedom? Look no further than the F-Lip Academy, the number one entrepreneurial platform with 20 plus step-by-step courses taught by active business owners, live workshops, hands-on skill training, a business idea database, and a thriving entrepreneur community to keep you accountable. Click the link in the description below to join the Uplup Academy today and make this the year you stopped dreaming and started building your business without guesswork. For someone listening now, like Christian, this sounds like incredible. Like I want to start my own coffee cart business.

9:04Christian Lynch:What's the upfront capital? What are some of the big things you need to do to invest in to actually like get started into this from a straight cart perspective? Yeah. I mean, you can go as low as like people starting at Rebels. You've probably seen it, Ryan, or, you know, people will have like a build your own cart. I mean, you can literally go as low as like$2 ,000 to a mid tier setup could be with a$2 ,000 special machine$500 grinder. Maybe you get like a Husky card or something,$4 ,000. And then our setups kind of, you know, if you're a higher premium kid, I mean, you could go anywhere from like not$8 ,000 to like$12 ,000 to$13 ,000 to$15 ,000.

9:39So there's a rough range. I know it's a terrible answer, but someone's like, what's the exact answer? Well, it's like, well, it depends on what you want to do and the setup that you have. I do think though, caveat on that, most people sometimes do overspend and focus so much on the equipment and the car, not enough on the business first principles of like the fundamentals of like sales, marketing, offer. What are you even selling? Why would someone buy your coffee? But not against the great setup. It definitely helps in a lot of ways.

10:09Christian Lynch:No, I like that. And that's what I wanted to hone in on is like the sales and marketing aspects. I see you post a lot of Alex Sermozzi inspiration. I absolutely love that. So the sales and marketing piece of this, how should someone think about crafting an offer to get people actually interested in their coffee cart? Take me through the anatomy of a really good coffee cart offer. One, everyone should just read$100 million offers by Alex Sermozzi. That would just give someone a really good introspection to what a business is. What are they even selling? right and then you'll go through that and so i think i have it here just like what is like an offer just in general and you kind of plug in but you basically it's like you know outcome and the perceived likelihood of achievement is going to be at the top and so you know what outcome are you trying to maximize what you're selling to but i think before even that is like the offer of like who are you selling to and so like a b2b buyer something to a business like you're selling to a business is going to be different than like a couple at a wedding and And so like you are the same coffee cart, you are the same owner, but the reason of why they want to buy is completely different.

11:10And so understanding, it's like dating. I tell people like this, like the way that you date someone, the more you can speak their language, the more that they're going to resonate with you. And the less likely you speak their language, the more that they're probably not going to want to go on a date with you. And they probably could apply to like your friends. There's different friends you talk about in the way that if you said, if I told you, do you want to go to a football game or do you want to go to the world's best coffee shop, Ryan, you might pick one of the best coffee shops someone else might pick.

11:36I don't care about a coffee shop. And so, which goes into you could even upsell really good offers. But to bring it back, it's just$100 million offers, read that, understand who you're trying to sell to, and then what's made of bigger business. And so to give some handles, it's like, you're going to probably make more money by selling the outcome of a coffee cart of the experience and the hospitality that someone can envision in their mind of when you get to their office, when you get to their wedding than trying to sell the single origin coffee beans or trying to sell why your house made surf is better.

12:05That makes up the offer, but that should not just be like your selling point. I like to sell the vacation, not sell the plain white. And so it's like sell like how they're going to feel and what it's going to do for them and the experience it's going to create for them or themselves. And everyone wants to feel important regardless if they say they want to or not. So make them feel important with that as far as this. And two things too is like, I believe in business. You're either in the pain business or pleasure business. Coffee carts, nine out of 10 times tend to be more in the pleasure business.

12:36We're selling pleasure and happiness rather than like a waste removal or like an insurance company that's just trying to solidify.

12:43Christian Lynch:So I want to ask, so we have two different markets there of like B2B, business to business. And we also have one. Those are definitely like two different personas. Walk us through a quick exercise guys, starting with the B2B on like how you would think about like going to market going after like B2B and what does that even look like? Let's start with B2B, then we're going to dive into weddings. I want to get both perspectives here for the audience. So let's start with B2B. What does that exactly look like from just a business perspective? And how would you create a quick 20 second offer for them?

13:09Yeah, B2B is going to be heavily on proof, right? And so these are probably mass companies, I'll just pick an avatar of like, so you're hiring Google wants to hire you, right? Big name, if they're hiring for like a company culture event, you really want to gear towards what would a company culture want from a coffee cart and will be all the bad things. This is easy. Why would they not hire you and write all those things down and just do the opposite? I just love that. And I think people just find reasons faster to why they can't hire someone versus why they would. You just get decision fatigue of like, well, maybe they'd hire me for this.

13:40Just like, what would all the sucky things be? I'm like, why they wouldn't hire you and do the opposite. And more so to get to the details of the B2B, it's going to be of like company culture. And so like writing in your offer of like, We help take company cultures to the next phase within an hour of your company. We help retention by 200 % based off of these company experiences or like a really good one could be like, you know, for under$2 ,000, we keep your employees happy, satisfied and still working there. And like you just do like a whole report and send them of like an average customer or an average employee costs$30 ,000 a year to re-onboard.

14:15And so it's like by investing, you know, four times a year, there's another added thing where we save you money. So would you spend 8 ,000 to keep a$30 ,000 cost? It's like the math.

14:26Christian Lynch:Okay. That's the B2B segment, the wedding segment of it. Let's talk about that. Let's just say, hey, I want to go after weddings. Christian, how the heck do I market to them? How do I create like a good offer? What do they care about? Yeah. Weddings are going to be way more budget sensitive to an extent. Weddings overall are going to sell more of the feeling and like kind of the guests and what they feel like. And even private, it's like birthday parties, graduations, you kind of put that in. It's going to be like, how am I going to feel more so? Is going to keep my kind of guests entertained, more happy?

14:55Is it going to create more of that vibe that I want to have? And they will be more budget sensitive because I hear all the time, why do B2C buyers so much harder? It's like, well, a company that has$10 million to spend versus a couple that has$10 ,000 to spend is a completely different budget. And it's not necessarily you as a business. It's more about the budget. And so you're going to have to really reinforce why their budget should go to you as far as the line item of what you're selling. And so adding on custom different elements and menus and signature drinks and lattes that make them feel will help with that.

15:30So with those offers, I like to tend to put more of the buzzwords of the Mrs. and Mrs. drink or we'll give a custom menu for free. And putting that offer more like the wedding tier packages. And also people doing a coffee card will probably tend to have better selling points or higher like close rates working with weddings that have wedding planners than not. And so I would actually, and what that just means is just because more than likely if a bride has not hired a wedding planner, they probably don't have a big of a budget. This is not like a judgment zone, just the reality, right? That's just business.

16:02And so we've realized our best B2C clients and farther wedding space have wedding planners. And so definitely just work your way in and actually instead of going after brides and grooms, it's actually a really good incentive to go after wedding planners and event planners that are in that world because they will sell their surfaces, you know, but maybe better than you. So.

16:22Christian Lynch:Okay. So then the big question here, we just covered B2B like weddings, birthdays, all of that. If you had to coach someone on, you need to just focus on one for the first three years of your business, which one would it be? Oh my goodness. I think it depends on the market. I'm just going to say probably corporate for sure. The first three years, I would probably break it down. And I would say the first year, it's probably going to be easier for most people to get into the B2C. You have more friends and family and stuff like that. But I think I'll just give you some real numbers. We look at our revs of our percentage of what we're selling to.

16:51And I think B2B is 93, 94 % of our revenue and 5 % of weddings, graduations, birthday parties is only 4.5 % total. I think it's around 100%. I'm trying to do the math there. But anyways, that was really good. And so we were just like, you know what? We're just going to pivot all to B2B. That's our customer. But I know people like in LA, they have massive budgets, big celebrities, B2C budgets are massive. And so we're in the Midwest. So that is a big thing. But overall, probably B2B, but you don't got to pay to play. You know, you got to be on your stuff for sure.

17:21Christian Lynch:Yeah, that's for sure. Like, that's what that's what I mean, I honestly kind of figured you're going to say that just like knowing the difference between like a business has a much bigger budget than a typical like wedding thing that can goes without saying. But if someone's like, okay, I'm going to go after B2B clients, you know, I might start of investment. Like how do I start like doing outreach to them? Like, how do I start targeting these people? Am I doing ads? Am I cold calling? Like how the heck do I land my first client in B2B? How do I get people just to know that I exist? I'm trying to make money off of them.

17:48Christian Lynch:How do I get people to pay me money? Yeah. For something that I love doing. Right. I think it's great. I learned this from Mermozzi, but there's like really only four ways to do outreach. And I think it's really great just because I think some people, Ryan, just have this overwhelming of like, there's like a million different things that I can do to like I have this coffee cart business and like people are promising me thousands of dollars and how do I get people to know I exist? It's like, well, there's only four ways. So just pick one, or you can pick a couple and it's, you know, the four ways of like paid ads, content, warm outreach, cold outreach.

18:17Well, paid ads cost money. So for most people in the beginning, unless they have like a trust fund or a parent or whatever, you know, nine to five that's filtering, that can be a great fast way to do it. Cold outreach can be a little harder. You got to be more nuanced and how you go about reaching out that, especially you don't have proof, right? And so like your conversion rates, or I say conversion to someone, it means like the odds of them reaching out to them and also paying you money is lower when you have less proof. And so I'm assuming this is someone in the beginning, like warm outreach and content is probably gonna be your best bet starting out.

18:50And so the one line that I really just love, because people don't wanna sound salesy when they go after their friends and their family, I did it because like, I just started a business. Now I'm overwhelmed because I don't wanna sound super salesy. is just say, hey, Susie. So say Susie is your friend. Hey, Susie, I just started a copycat business where we help take events the next phase. I'm putting my business in that one-liner. Do you know of anyone that could be like, that would find this useful or that would love to take a copycat to their event? And then you can tie a partnership break. Hey, I have like a 30 % partnership break that if whatever you give back or find someone will give 30 % off to them or you can kind of feel that structure.