I am going to cover the 10 Tips for any food business to start a small business from scratch. no matter the type of food business you are starting these tips are pretty universal and apply to almost ANY food Business!
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How do I start a small food business
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Those 10 different tips for any food entrepreneur who wants to create any type of a food business. These 10 things are pretty universal and you definitely need to check them out before you actually dive into creating your own food, entrepreneurship journey. So, as I mentioned before, my name is Damien Roberto. And this channel is marketing food online. We're all about food entrepreneurship. And we have over a thousand videos to help you get your food business up and running our food trucks started creating the packaged food product and pretty much anything else that you can think of related to food. That is what we do. So we definitely want to subscribe and hit the bell notification. We have videos that we upload pretty much every single day. So let's dive into this list as always, I don't want to waste your time. We're going to get right to the point.
How do I start a small food business
Number one, you need to check the passion. You need to check your passion for what you're going to do. Now that may be like, well, Damien, that's kind of an odd tip. What does that mean? Exactly. So if you're looking to create a business, no matter what it is, you better be super excited and passionate about what you're going to create, do or make. If you're going to start a food truck, then you better be super excited to passionate about it because the energy that you have will dictate the level of success. Success, sorry about that success that you're going to have doing it because the one thing that I've learned 12 years ago, when I first started, I was putting in probably 12 to 13 hours a day, trying to get our business started and getting it off the, and of course we're a hundred percent e-commerce business.
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So that was creating websites, creating listings pretty much creating everything that we needed on the backend of our e-commerce experience, making that happen before we even had any sales. So I was super excited about the fact that I just started a business and that passion and excitement is what drove me to do what I do now, of course, fast forward, 12 years later, we really love what we do. And we've obviously excited about enough to create a YouTube channel and to teach you guys how to do it, but create that passion. You need to push yourself and motivate yourself in order to do any of the following things. I'm about to tell you. So, number two, you got to figure out what it is you're going to make. Are you going to make a packaged food product? Are you going to create a food truck?
Are you going to go all the way and start an entire bakery or retail bakery store front, a coffee shop. Are you going to do an e-commerce food business? Figure it out. As far as what it is specifically, you want to do, obviously you need to figure out the food product. That sounds great, but then how are you going to distribute it? How are you going to sell it? Is it going to be a packaged food product? Are you going to start a food truck and then make a product and sell it through the food truck? You need to figure out what it is exactly that you are wanting to do. Now, as far as the finances and the money don't let, if you don't have enough money to get it started up front, I'm going to go through the list. Is it like I just said, if you don't have enough money up front, don't let that stop you from starting.
How do I start a small food business
Okay. That doesn't mean the first day out as an entrepreneur, you need to come up with a hundred thousand dollars and have the answers to all the questions. Just get started with the understanding of what it is you're going to make. Okay. Number three, what is your budget? So you need to take a really hard solid look at your finances. And I just said, if you don't have enough upfront, don't let it stop you from starting. See what you could put into this entire endeavor for the first day. That means if you don't have money to get licenses and permits and all that just yet, you have a lot of questions. You know what? Spend a month or two Googling, finding out the information you need to find out while you put some money aside, or you can free up some money from either a savings account or even a credit card.
If you've got to use that personal loan, or maybe if it's something that you can get your family behind you, and they're going to help finance this endeavor, it's okay to spend a couple of months, obviously getting into asking questions, finding out what you need to have, how much money do you think you'll need to have in order for you to start. It's very unique to your situation and unique to the type of food business that you're going to start as to how much money do I need to start a business. It is a huge variable. Some people can start an online business for a few hundred dollars. Believe it or not. Some people can start with just a couple of thousand. Some people may need 50 or $60,000. Obviously you can't start a food truck business with a few hundred dollars. That's a big endeavor.
Can you start selling a product online or potentially even becoming an affiliate marketer for food products and start a small blog or a website and generate money from that and let it compound and grow. That is the next thing that you need to think about. So what your budget is and where you are in your finances, in your own personal life and your family situation. Take a look at your finances that does not have to stop. You start. Like I said, small, if you need a certain amount of money, two months later, you realize, wow, I'm going to need about $50,000. Then figure out how to make that $50,000. If you have to start small, then do that. My business started 12 years ago. I think we were selling like 20 or $30 a month actually on eBay. Believe it or not, but I didn't let that stop me or get discouraged.
How do I start a small food business
I got excited because I was actually selling anything. And that pushed me to create more listings, pushed me over to Etsy. Then I created two websites. Then the money started coming in and then little by little it grew. So this is going to be a long-term investment of your time and resources, but do not let it stop you if you don't have all the money upfront. So next up number four, figure it out. What permits licenses or certificates or whatever it may be that you're going to need for your specific type of venture. Okay? This again is the same across the board. No matter what type of business you read, if you have a food truck business, great, guess what? You may actually have to have a permit to sell in different counties. When you drive over a certain county, if you're working from home, guess what that's of?
So you may need a specific food handler's license, maybe a food handler's card. Maybe you don't need anything. Believe it or not. Some states don't even require a permit or license, but find out first what the endeavor is, what your budget is. And then what type of a license or permit will you need specifically for your business? So number five, next one, get insurance. And as I mentioned in the introduction, next insurance is the place for you to do it. I actually, again, like I said before, I use them, I actually use them for our canyons snack business. They are very fast, very easy to use. It's not complicated at all. Plus the fact that allows us to make monthly payments is another thing going all the way back to the first couple of things I mentioned about the budget. They allow you to make those payments.
So that is something that's going to save you a lot of money, just because you can make a payment every month of whatever that may be depending upon the type of policy you get, but you have the opportunity to not have to put out an entire year's worth of payments upfront. That is a huge plus, but again, across the board, no matter what type of food, business or business you're starting, you need to have insurance. So check out next insurance. And again, that description down below in the description section, I have a link for you. Well, next up number six, just to have an online presence, you need to have some type of online presence, no matter what type of food business you're going to start. Well, Damien, I'm going to have a food truck. So how does a website come in play? Doesn't make a difference.
How do I start a small food business
You should have a website for your food truck. Why? Because as you have people who are locally following you and love your food, they may want to go to your website because down the road, you may have a barbecue food truck, and you're going to create a product. It's going to be a barbecue sauce that you invented. Guess what? You could sell that on the website that creates another stream of revenue. So having a website, no matter the type of food business, obviously if you're e-commerce, you need to have a website. Even if you're cottage food and you're selling from home. A website is an informative way to let people know about new products that you have, and maybe even tell them where you're going to be at a certain farmer's market in your state, where you're going to be next weekend. Where are you going to be next week?
That can help you generate more buzz and understanding of who you are, what you make and where to actually buy your product. So have a website, even if you have a cottage food business. And of course, if you have a restaurant again, you obviously need a website because you can, you can create some type of order method and have local orders placed directly through your website and deliver it to people. Okay? So I have a website next up social media presence. Yes. Website is one thing. Social media presence is another. You need to be on all of these platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest, and maybe even LinkedIn to be, believe it or not. You need to have a Facebook. You need to have some type of social media presence on all of these platforms. Now, does that mean, do you need to update every single day when new content Damien that's overwhelming?
No, not necessarily. You could do a couple of posts throughout each week. You don't have to be on there every single day. Facebook, Twitter, and specifically, even LinkedIn is a great place to network with a lot of other people. If you're selling a packaged food product, if you're an e-commerce food business, guess what being on these platforms are a gold mine for you to reach new people and potential food buyers of your product. I have a food truck. Why would I want to be on LinkedIn? Well, you might want to be only done because again, as you roll out a product or you create a new, e-commerce a website and start selling products that you're creating on the food truck, people on LinkedIn, may, she got chefs, you have food buyers, you have food brokers, you have supermarket buyers. These are people who can potentially buy the product from you and then bring that into their stores.
But you would have never connected with them because you weren't only did you see how this works? So you want to have a presence online. So next up you want to market your website and market your food business and even market your food truck. Yes, Instagram and Twitter. These are great platforms for food trucks. They get instantaneous response. You can engage with the customers. You can use hashtags to get exposure for your food truck. People love to take images posted to Instagram, say, Hey, I was at Damien's food truck, check this out. They have barbecue, whatever it may be, but you need to be engaged on these different platforms. So using social media to market your different food, businesses is something that you need to do. Do you mean isn't that just like being on social media and creative, but no. Believe it or not.
There's a lot of people have a lot of clients I've done consultations with who actually creates social media presence. They have a great presence on there, but they don't do anything with it. You have to be active in marketing. So that's the whole purpose of it. So make sure that you market on those social platforms next up number nine is the bank account. You need to have a business bank account, not a personal bank account. Make sure that you have a business account where all of your business transactions are taking place. Again, no matter the type of food business that you are creating, you got to have a business bank account across the board. That's another one. That's the same. No matter what, having a business bank account also creates the oral history of business history for you. If you go to apply for a credit card, if you want to get a business loan, people are going to want to look at your transactions.
How much money are you making? How much is your profit? All of that can be summed up with a business bank account. Okay. So number 10 final one on our list. Now remember this list is not all inclusive. These 10 are the most important in my perspective, but there is many other things that you need to be doing, of course, for your own specific food business.
Number 10 E I N. You need to have that and employer identification number. This is for tax purposes, and this is what the IRS is going to want you to have. And if you were operating a legitimate business, you need to make sure that you have that BI in. Now, how do I get that? You can simply just fill one out and get one, either register through the IRS website. I believe it is. And you can fill that out there and get it, but you need to make sure that you're keeping track of that for tax purposes and your employer identification will be the number that identifies your business.
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