conservativechristian
New member
About 18 months ago I purchased a local coffee brand from people I knew in my local business community through networking. The business was 3 years old at the time.
I believed I could repackage the product with better design (design is my “day job” as a full-time entrepreneur specializing in service marketing rather than e-commerce) and build a systemized online platform to sell the product, and when combined with a good product I could eventually scale the business. So for ~$8,000 I bought the name, any packaging they had, and a couple pieces of small equipment. Also a list of ~50 previous customers.
I have a very tasty single-origin coffee product in whole beans and, mostly, 100% recyclable K-Cups. The roast is not too dark, not too light, and when fresh roasted & ground smells absolutely amazing. It’s been my daily coffee for over a year (yes, consuming my own merchandise… someone has to, plus it is great not buying coffee to fuel my day job). Unfortunately, I had to also invest in fresh inventory so buying green coffee beans, having them roasted, having some of them turned into k-cups, and buying additional packaging + website + some ad spend.
I’ve had a handful of customers. A couple repeat buyers, only one of which is from the list of previous customers. But I’ve invested around $10,000 in the business to date and monthly revenues average around $30-$60/MONTH. No one bought my Black Friday promotions, I’ve gained no new customers since July. There’s about $2,500 of inventory left to sell and the season is coming up where I could buy fresh beans if demand increases to even as little as $500/month steadily.
I know I could cut my losses and shut it down, just drink the rest of the product for a couple years and write it off as a hard-bought lesson.
But I would like to open the floor to recommendations. I’m back in bootstrapping mode, I’m out of capital and hoping for an EIDL loan advance.
Can you think of any creative ways to pull this business up by its bootstraps and scale out of the $10,000 hole?
I believed I could repackage the product with better design (design is my “day job” as a full-time entrepreneur specializing in service marketing rather than e-commerce) and build a systemized online platform to sell the product, and when combined with a good product I could eventually scale the business. So for ~$8,000 I bought the name, any packaging they had, and a couple pieces of small equipment. Also a list of ~50 previous customers.
I have a very tasty single-origin coffee product in whole beans and, mostly, 100% recyclable K-Cups. The roast is not too dark, not too light, and when fresh roasted & ground smells absolutely amazing. It’s been my daily coffee for over a year (yes, consuming my own merchandise… someone has to, plus it is great not buying coffee to fuel my day job). Unfortunately, I had to also invest in fresh inventory so buying green coffee beans, having them roasted, having some of them turned into k-cups, and buying additional packaging + website + some ad spend.
I’ve had a handful of customers. A couple repeat buyers, only one of which is from the list of previous customers. But I’ve invested around $10,000 in the business to date and monthly revenues average around $30-$60/MONTH. No one bought my Black Friday promotions, I’ve gained no new customers since July. There’s about $2,500 of inventory left to sell and the season is coming up where I could buy fresh beans if demand increases to even as little as $500/month steadily.
I know I could cut my losses and shut it down, just drink the rest of the product for a couple years and write it off as a hard-bought lesson.
But I would like to open the floor to recommendations. I’m back in bootstrapping mode, I’m out of capital and hoping for an EIDL loan advance.
Can you think of any creative ways to pull this business up by its bootstraps and scale out of the $10,000 hole?