If you’ve never started a business before, it might seem like a daunting task to build a meal-prep company – or, that is, any company. But trust us, it’s actually a lot easier and quicker than you might think.
You don’t need any special expertise in the restaurant industry. You don’t need to be a chef, a nutritionist, or a seasoned entrepreneur. All you need is hustle.
But first, let’s get down to the mechanics – how this is actually going to work, and what the timeline will look like.
The Timeline
Day/Week 1: Find 10 customers, and get their contact info (name, number, email, address)
It’s not going to be hard to find 10 customers – family members, friends, or neighbors. We’re still in the midst of a pandemic, and people are struggling to prepare and cook 3 nutritious, cost-effective meals a day.
Still feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of finding 10 customers? Aim to find one or two new customers a day. Post in your town’s community facebook group, create a facebook status or Instagram, print out simple flyers. And perhaps easiest of all, call your friends, and ask them to ask their friends.
Day/Week 1 (simultaneously): Get your kitchen organized & start gathering recipes.
That’s right, you’re going to be working right out of your kitchen. Why spend money on a separate space when you have the ideal workspace right in front of you? If you can cook your meals in your kitchen, you can cook anyone’s meals there! And start sifting through your dusty old cookbooks for recipe ideas. Remember, it doesn’t have to be anything fancy! People aren’t looking for Michelin Star options – they just want simple recipes tailored to their likes and dislikes. And be patient, because finalizing your menu is going to be an ongoing process of trial-and-error: based on your sales, you’ll evaluate which meals are selling and which aren’t.
P.S. – if you’re in a recipe-brainstorming rut, we can help you out with that.
Week 2 (or, if you’re ambitious, as soon as Day 2!): Select one of Sprwt’s plans.
And here’s where we come in. As a meal-prep ERP, we automate everything a meal prep company needs to run their operations in one place, on one platform. So we take care of inventory management, customer orders, menus, cooking and fulfillment reports, sales & tax reports, and even marketing assistance.
But you might not want everything we have to offer all at once. We understand the stress associated with budgets, especially for small businesses just starting out. So, we offer a range of pricing for our plans. Just pick what works best for you.
Week 2 (simultaneously): Watch us make your temporary site in 15 minutes, and upload your recipes.
Once you’ve selected your plan, we create your temporary site in just 15 minutes. No need to stress about your web-development skills, or lack thereof – that’s our expertise. Now it’s up to you to upload those recipes you’ve been brainstorming and collecting over the past week. You’ve already done the hard work – now all you need is patience when it comes to inputting each ingredient and recipe-related information.
And finally…. Connect your site with Stripe, and get paid in minutes!
If you don’t already have a Stripe account – the payment processing software we use at Sprwt – it only takes 5 minutes to create one. Now, your customers can order from you and the money is sent to your bank account the next business day.
If you’ve found ten customers, you can charge $12 per meal, 10 meals a week, and start making $120 a week, and $5,000 a month.
So what’s the end result?
Now, picture this:
In just a few short weeks, you’ll be comfortable using the site that Sprwt designed to collect customer orders in an organized fashion with the click of a button.
You’ll shop – either firsthand or with help from other employees – for weekly inventory according to precise, automatically-generated ingredient lists (no, you’ll never have to estimate how much food you need for a given meal or day).
You’ll have a system that lets customers input their likes, dislikes, and allergens, and automatically incorporates this info when they order.
You’ll print out weekly sales reports to evaluate exactly where your revenue is coming from, and what can be improved.
And eventually, you’ll let us refine your marketing, enhancing your brand’s niche and maximizing brand awareness to acquire more and more customers, and more sales.
But above all, you’ll have a thriving meal-prep company with the Sprwt team eager to grow with you.
If you’re new to Sprwt, don’t hesitate to LEARN MORE about us by booking a demo with one of our agents. Or maybe you’re ready to update your Sprwt software to the next level. Click here https://calendly.com/sprwt/demo/?month=2021-01 to book a demo today!