Alkhemy Khandy The Pop Up That Never Was…

I’ve had an interest in food trucks and pop up food businesses and got a silly idea in my head that maybe I could do this. San Francisco is a big place for foodies and since we don’t have two million people the big chefs won’t come here [a quote from Anthony Bourdain], but that gives the little guys a chance or so I thought.

Well the first thing I noticed was that if you’re going to start a pop up selling food products you have to have everything prepared like you’ve been in business for 20 years. You need to develop the logo, make t-shirts, print business cards, etc all before you actually figure out what you’re going to be selling so you can get money from people in a crowd funding start up site like Kickstarter.

I’m still kind of old school and I knew I had a thing for making candy and I was quite good at it, but the idea of making t-shirts and stickers before I even knew if I had a market was a bit much. I tend to be a bit of a mad scientist in the kitchen while at the same time there was always a certain art to what I did. I wanted something that I could turn over easily and that would transport easily and so I decided that out of my candy recipes I’d start with caramels. So I came up with a cool logo and phrase for the business. I could have done fudge or toffee, but those seemed kind of one dimensional to me. Fudge and Toffee are always just that they aren’t a base you can build on which caramels that are a basis of sugar, corn syrup and milk work very well with. I started with the fleur de sel caramels because they were the easiest to make then my mind started thinking outside the box and I came up with the following caramels:

1. Fleur de sel
2. Chocolate/Coconut caramels [vegan]
3. Bourbon & Black Pepper
4. Jolly Rogers [coconut and rum, but I needed a new name to avoid trademark issues]
5. Bacon & Maple syrup [yes, you read that right]

I made them all and they were great. The few people who sampled them loved them and wanted more and there is where the problem started. I did my homework while testing my recipes and found the best price to purchase the ingredients. I could even use agave nectar instead of sugar and corn syrup because it’s a natural invert sugar and would stay smooth and not grainy, but the key factor was in the kitchen and time.

I could crank out a batch in about an hour, but the problem was I could only crank out about 3lbs at a time and then I’d have to clean the pots while the caramels were setting so I could realistically only crank out about 12lbs a week given that I was making them at home and had to find time in between my daughter being at school, keeping the house clean and other things let alone going somewhere to sell them.

While I was thinking this I was looking at what other people were selling homemade caramels for and it was anywhere from $10-$25/pound. At this amount that would mean I would be able to earn between $120-$300/week if I sold them all. I also happened to run across an article about struggling pop up food businesses and one in particular caught me by surprise. It was a couple of women who where making homemade pies and selling them for $35 each. I don’t know about you, but that better be one really good pie for $35. I can get a decent pie for $6 and a pie for $10 that will have people asking for seconds, but what is going to make a $35 pie that special? Likewise, the only thing about my caramels that could justify say a $20/lb price would be what I was putting into them.

Then there was the fact that I’d have to sell that much every week to earn a below minimum wage income from it. In the end I’ve lived too long to earn that little, so I’ve had to put the idea of a candy pop up business on the side for now. That doesn’t mean I won’t be making my caramels anymore. I’ll still make some and have them around most of the time because you never know when someone is going to come by. They’ll also make nice end of the year gifts for the people who help us out because they’ll remember a pound of bourbon and black pepper caramels longer than a Starbucks gift card.

TaskRabbit Revisited

I had written an article on the company Task Rabbit that’s here in San Francisco several months ago. It sounded like a good idea, but I was skeptical. I tried it, but never got a task. Now that they’ve had some time to settle in things have changed and I felt I should revisit them.

When I first join the website as a task rabbit there was hardly anyone in the Sunset District that needed help. They’re name hadn’t gotten out across San Francisco I suppose so no one new about them. Then one day I saw that there was a woman who needed two bags of dog food picked up for her and she lived three blocks away from me. I figured since I could pick up the dog food within a couple of blocks I’d offer to do it for $10. BING! I got the task. I ran off and got the dog food and called her up and actually had to go to two different stores because each store only had one bag, but they were still close by. I called her up and dropped off the food and she even gave me a $5 tip because I had to go to two stores. When I got home my Task Rabbit account had the $10 in it. Entire time spent, 15 minutes.

Not to shabby, but then I realized that I couldn’t access the money until I had acquired at least $25. So back to bidding on tasks. I got a few more and I started to get hooked. I’ve made over $200 in the last week in less than two hours worth of my time. Many of the tasks that I’ve been performing have been virtual tasks that I could do at home like searching for the passenger side mirror for a 2002 MX-5 Miata or helping someone with their website. One task has actually led me to get some freelance work that is turning out to be very lucrative.

Task Rabbit works with a point system so that the more tasks you do and the more difficult tasks you do you get more points which raises you in level. At various levels you get perks such as a Task Rabbit t-shirt at level 5 and Task Rabbit business cards with your name on them at level 10. Once you pass level 15 you get access to the Task Rabbit VIP store where your level earning give you access to more free stuff.

In the beginning there were somewhat ridiculous tasks like, get me a 6 pack of beer. How much was that worth really? Fetch me a pint of Ben and Jerrys? Now the people placing tasks are getting more serious. I’ve got a task to hook up someone’s cable box to their home theater system. It turns out the guy who hired me did so because we had previously worked at the same company so it’s also useful for networking. After you’ve done a few tasks each month you get a free task for yourself as well. Task Rabbit calls the people who do the tasks micro-entrepreneurs and it is like freelance work, but you also have to sell yourself like you’re a start up. Some of the top people actually are making $5000 a month which isn’t something to sneeze at in this economy. I’ll be supplementing my income more with Task Rabbit, but I won’t quit my day job.

If you need a few bucks here and there and aren’t afraid to work for it check out Task Rabbit. You’ll be surprised at what people will give you money for doing. Oh and if you need a task done I’ve got a code that will give you $10 off your first task.

Sandbox Suites: A nice place to work, when you need it.

I received an email from a friend of mine about a meeting she wanted to set up with a few of us who work for a non-profit. I was told it was at the Sandbox Suites and first thought, “That’s a funny name for a hotel.” I looked it up on google maps and even looking at the street view I couldn’t see a hotel that might have conference rooms anywhere. Then after searching for it on the regular google I found out I was in for a surprise.

Sandbox Suites is aimed at start up tech companies. I used to work for one and I have to say it was great. I was working from home 5 days a week with a couple of hours on Monday’s spent in a meeting when we all got together. With everything now working off of the cloud you don’t really need a big office that costs you lots of money. Each person can work from their own virtual office space and then you either get together once a week or just use something like skype to have a free conference call.

This was a change that didn’t take much getting used to and the old place I worked would use a conference room at the place we’d have our meetings when they were making pitches to investors. Sandbox Suites was a bit different. Yes, there was free WiFi and you could print out up to 50 pages/hour, but it had something other places I’ve been at didn’t. It had amenities. Not just clean bathrooms, but they had a water cooler and coffee for free and there was a small dispenser that sold candy bars and chips that sat on the counter top. The best part was that it didn’t look like it was a carpeted echo-y room. It looked and felt like an actual workplace. The room we were in was about 12’x12′ and had a whiteboard, telephone and projector [big bonus!]

I believe this room cost around $25/hour and sat the four of us rather comfortably. There were smaller cubicles on the two floors and in the entrance area they had a couch and several plush chairs with tables you could use for small one on one meetings. Very nice.

For many people they need to get out of the house to actually get their work done and I know I was a bit like that at times. When I was working with a start up I’d get up and start working around 7:30 and sometimes not finish until 8pm at night with the day broken up by trips to the store and such. Sometimes you just want to be able to say I’m done with work for the day and with a place like this you can make it happen.

The place was busy with people who were renting cubicles, but it wasn’t the least bit noisy. Everyone there seemed very happy and at least looked like they were being productive. The receptionist was more of a concierge in that he was getting us everything we wanted and when we wanted it.

They have several locations around San Francisco in the SOMA and Union Square areas and also locations in Berkeley. You can rent conference rooms by the hour and each room has an electronic calendar outside that shows who has the room booked. You can rent cubicle space on a daily or monthly basis as you need it. We’ll probably we using this place again in the near future. It’s a short walk from a short metro trip and the environment is definitely worth it.

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