August 21, 2024 • 34 mins
Ever wondered how a platform can revolutionize the way home-based bakers and pop-up chefs operate? The new platform Hotplate is here to show us how. This episode uncovers how the challenges of COVID-19 led to a surge in home-based food businesses and how Hotplate evolved from a simple marketplace to an essential tool that automates orders, prep lists, and customer communication, helping thousands of chefs thrive.
We explore the new landscape of home-based baking and pop-up models and how more people are using this method for quick success. Rishi,one of the the co -founders of Hotplate, delves into the enhanced customer experience through Hotplate's SMS capabilities, ensuring timely notifications and personalized interactions that keep customers engaged and loyal.
In this episode, we will discuss valuable tips for planning and executing mobile or porch pickups and invite listeners to join our vibrant community group for further guidance. Tune in to this engaging episode and get ready to elevate your food business game!
Check out Hotplate by tapping here or copy and paste this link
https://www.hotplate.com?utm_source=referral&referral=chefschonberg
Two ways I help my students earn $2-10k monthly👇?
1.) Grow your home bakery business inside The Entrepreneur Community by clicking here
2.) Learn to sell digital products inside Digital Product Community by clicking here
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg.
I started my baking businesswith a bottle of DeSerono and
one Bundt cake pan.
Fast forward to today, fromnews to magazines, speaking on
national stages and more.
I can truly say that baking haschanged my life.
So now, as a bakery businesscoach, I get to help others have
the same success.
I've helped hundreds of mystudents across the world in my
(00:24):
global membership programsix-figure businesses, mainly
from home.
The Baking for Business podcastis an extension of that, from
actionable tips to valuabletools and resources that can
impact you as a business owner.
I truly believe y'all.
We would never have been givena gift if we couldn't profit and
prosper from it.
So come on, darling.
What are you waiting for?
(00:45):
Hey?
What's going on, you guys?
And welcome back to the Bakingfor Business podcast.
I'm super excited because wehave an amazing guest today.
So Rishi is actually one of theco-founders of Hotplate, and
(01:05):
Hotplate is a software company,an online ordering platform,
which is dedicated specificallyto helping those chefs and
bakers with pop-ups and onlineordering, and so, as we know,
right now, the porch pop-upmovement, or any pop-up in
general, is really booming,especially when it comes to
cottage food operators, cottagefood producers and just food
(01:28):
entrepreneurs in a whole.
So to find out more about howHot Plate can help us, I decided
to bring Rishi on.
So, rishi, thank you so muchfor being here.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much, Amanda, for having me Super
excited to chat.
This is gonna be great.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Absolutely, and so, for those who are a little
unfamiliar with hot plate, howdid this kick off?
Do you have a love for food, orwhat really inspired you guys
to start it off?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Great question.
I'm a huge foodie, so, like Ithink we both share that same
sentiment, I think anyonelistening to this podcast is
probably gonna be a huge foodie,I'd imagine.
Right, and no, I'd always beenobsessed with food.
Um, I come from like anincredible background of Indian
immigrants and my grandmother,you know, was like a personal
chef of mine for years rightlike cooked for a whole family
(02:14):
and I just got to experience thelove of her cooking and the
familiarity and the the familybonding that it created for a
whole family from both her andmy mother.
So so just come from a long,beautiful background of
incredible cooks and that levelof food really translate into
like the work I wanted to do.
So I was a student at UT Austinand that's actually where I met
(02:34):
my co-founders at the time, benand Andy, and we kind of just
you know we're all really intofood but and we're all like
tinkering around with differentideas but the actually first
version of hot plate actuallycame from my mom.
So my mom had this idea for amarketplace of home-cooked food
because she was actually tryingto find authentic gujarati
(02:54):
indian food.
I'm gujarati, by the way, I'mfrom gujarat, india and she was
trying to find authenticgujarati indian food where she
was getting treatment at thetime.
She's's totally fine now.
But when she came to me and shewas like you know, there's no
way to get authentic home-cookedIndian food, I was like that's
a really good point.
Like why isn't there an easyway to be able to access the
regional cuisine that I grew upeating?
(03:15):
Right?
So the first version of a hotplate was a way to solve that
problem for her and others likeher, and so, to test it, we
wanted to test the ability oflike can I just start a food
business out of, like, my houseand just start selling food?
We actually, like rented anapartment, like in West Campus
oh wow, ut Austin and juststarted selling food out of this
(03:36):
restaurant, and that we didthat, funny enough, in March of
2020, which, as you probablyknow, was like not the best time
to be, like, you know, startinga food business, because COVID
happened and totally, you know,decimated the restaurant
industry.
I think the effects of that are,you know, things that we're
(03:56):
still recovering from today tosome degree, and I think COVID
really exposed some of the flaws, like the brick and mortar
business model.
You know We've been servingfood this way for hundreds of
years, but there hasn't reallybeen a ton of innovation on it,
and I think when people stoppedcoming in person and started
buying food online, I thinkrestaurants were really hurt by
(04:17):
that.
They were forced to usethird-party delivery apps, for
example.
I mean, it just created areally broken system and
business model for selling food.
At the same time, there weretons of folks that were selling
food from home whether it wasbaked goods or other things and
just sharing them on Instagramand saying like, hey, dm me to
order, right.
And so we started talking to alot of those folks and realized
(04:39):
that, beyond the marketplacethat we were focusing on, there
was a real huge opportunity totap into that group of people
that were trying to unlock theirculinary creativity and just
kind of, like you know, sharetheir passion with the world.
So we pivoted Hotplay in late2020 and launched this version
of Hotplay that we are now inlate 2021, to enable anyone to
(05:02):
easily start, grow and manage afood business.
You know, we spoke to a lot ofthe folks that were using the
marketplace and they said,honestly, rishi, you're not
really driving any demand to us,like we're not getting any new
customers from you guys, but thebackend tools that you've built
to help take the orders,streamline the prep and packing
lists, automate the text messagereminders like all that saves
(05:23):
me hours of time and headache.
So we pivoted away from themarketplace to focusing on what
we call more of an onlineordering platform for pop-up
chefs and bakers, and since thenit's been two and a half three
years and we've grown to servingthousands of chefs across the
country and processing millionsof dollars of payments for
people, whether they're sellingone loaf of bread or they're
(05:45):
like a viral pop-up like PapaBagels in New York.
Absolutely, yeah, killing thegame.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That is so amazing because, even though a lot of
people who listen are cottagefood producers, there are a
small amount of storefrontowners also, and you said
something really unique.
You're right.
Normally, whenever people wantto pivot to that online ordering
system, they generally do gothrough third parties.
I actually used to sell onthird parties myself Waiter,
(06:14):
uber, eats, grubhub but you'relooking at anywhere between 20%
to 35% off of every single sale.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Totally, totally.
And again, I think thoseplatforms right, have their use,
have their benefit.
Especially, like before COVID,they were really marketing
themselves as like hey, we'regoing to help you with getting
incremental orders and help youwith marketing.
And then when the pandemichappened, you know people, there
was kind of the main platformthat people were using to get
orders right.
But even beyond that, rightwhen we spoke to a lot of food
(06:44):
owners we have customers, forexample, that have been
restaurant owners for 20 plusyears who've said that like,
since starting on Hotplate, it'sreally changed the way they
thought about starting a foodbusiness in general, because
most people have an idea for afood business, right, and the
first thing they think is okay.
So I got to spend like 100 grandon a lease, right, or like I
got to get, you know, spend like$6,000 a month in rent.
I got to get a space, I got toget staff, I got to staff it up
(07:08):
and then I got to go live, right, and the problem with that is
that restaurants have a reallyhigh failure rate, the really
high fixed costs, as we justsaid, and the really low in
profit margin.
Because of that, and when westarted talking to folks that
were like cottage food bakersselling out of their house.
They were like I don't evenneed to get a space, like I have
(07:28):
my house, you know, like peoplejust come and pick up for my
porch or pick up for me.
Personally, I can limit theamount of orders I want to sell.
I pre-sell all of it, so I knowexactly what I need to make for
each day and time, no issues.
And I actually am walking outof this making like 40, 50, 60%,
70% profit margin on my food,which is like the type of margin
(07:48):
you see in software, not evenlike in itself, and so like it
was kind of like game changingfor some people.
We have a user named Joan whoruns a pop called Mama Fish in
Seattle and she was telling us,you know, she started
restaurants for 20 years and hasbeen like a public speaker,
featured all over, and she saidlike I'm not going back Like
(08:08):
this.
This model is game changerbecause it gives me control.
It allows me to do what I want,which is focus on the food and
not have to deal with all thefixed costs or added labor that
comes with starting a brick andmortar business.
So I think beyond just thethird party delivery apps.
I think what Hot Plate hasshown is that you can actually
rethink the entire restaurantand food business model to be
(08:30):
chef first instead of customerfirst, and I think that's what
we're all about at Hot Plate isenabling anyone to easily start,
grow and manage a food business.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Absolutely, and that works in favor for so many women
also who I know want tocontribute to the household.
It used to be so many peoplewould always assume okay, well,
I bake from home first andthat's just what I do to start,
and then I get the storefront.
But I see now people arelooking at it like, no, wait a
minute, there's actually a hellof a lot more benefits to just
(09:03):
operating within this model, andso pop-ups literally I feel the
past decade have taken on awhole new thing, because now we
see so many micro influencersand people just making a thing
out of it.
You know like, hey, I'm goingto be here, I'm going to be
there and just really killing it, and it's kind of like this fun
vibe now.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, I was literally going to say the same thing.
It's turned into this wholelifestyle.
That's absolutely such a vibe,right, and people are really
crushing it.
We have tons of users who areable to make this their
full-time job take care of theirkids.
We have one user named Noelleand she runs El Bread Shop.
Right, just five kids and theincome from Hotplay enables her
(09:47):
to like spend more time withtheir kids, focus on just baking
.
You know, she can go to farmersmarkets for distribution, like
getting the word out there abouther business, but isn't
completely tied to them becauseshe has systems like hot play
just has the pre-order pickupmodel to be able to also, like
you know, be with her kids whileshe's doing pickups, for
example.
And something you said that Ilove is that that really does
(10:08):
enable a whole class of peoplewho typically don't, you know,
aren't able you know they haveto leave the house, they have to
go work, right, and aren't ableto really spend time with their
kids.
And I think that's we're allabout.
A hot plate is just increasingthe diversity and accessibility
of food Right, and I thinkthat's not just like just
(10:28):
getting like chefs fromrestaurants to use it right.
I think that's like enablingwhole groups of people, like my
mom, right, who previouslywouldn't have been able to start
.
My mom had never even conceivedof starting a food business,
right, but you know, withHotplate she was actually
talking to me about like hey,can I sell my rotis Like, can I
(10:49):
like sell to these?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And it's like kind of like unlocking her, like
creativity right, which is likewow, it's like so cool to see
all the different things thatpeople have been able to use hot
plate for.
I love that, I love that.
And so, speaking of hot plate,I'm pretty sure people have
questions and so I came up witha couple.
But let's just say, even thoughI know the answer, but let's
just say I know some baker outthere is listening and they're
going to say, okay, but chef,but Rishi, I'm not that big.
(11:11):
So what happens if I sign upfor hot plate?
And maybe I oversell and I putmyself in a jam, but with hot
plate that's actually notpossible.
So talk about what featuresenable a person to kind of have
that type of control.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, thank you so much .
We should get you as a salesman.
You really get it.
So Hot Plate is built to givethe chef control of their food
business.
So with Hot Plate what you cando is, instead of having like an
always on store, like withSquare and other systems, right,
that you kind of have to likeswap out, Hotplate lets you set
(11:46):
up events.
Let's say you're doing a porchpickup for the week.
With Hotplate you can create anevent called Weekly Porch
Pickup.
You can set when you want yourorders to open and close
automatically.
You're offering your customersa limited window, but instead of
having to publish and unpublishthe menu, the system just does
it for you automatically.
You can set specific dates,times and locations.
(12:08):
So let's say, for the weekyou're not just doing the porch
pickup but you're also doinglike a pickup at a farmer's
market, right?
Well, you don't have to createtwo separate menus for that or
anything.
You can just say like, hey,Wednesday from like five to nine
, I'm doing porch pickup at myhouse, and then Thursday, from
like seven to 10, I'm doing thefarmer's market, Right, and so
it gives you that super granularflexibility.
(12:28):
And lastly, you can set up yourmenu items, inventory and
restrictions to your point justfor that sale.
So if you want to say like, hey, I'm selling sourdough but I
want to limit it to like 20loaves of sourdough, Once you
sell that 20, it'll be sold out.
And the reason for that isbecause Hotplate actually
functions like Ticketmaster, notthe Taylor Swift version we're
a lot better than that butHotplate actually functions like
(12:53):
Ticketmaster.
When we add something to yourcart, the customer has a set
amount of time to check it outthat you can set.
What that ensures is thatyou're never getting to the
customers, never hitting the addto cart button or checking out
and then finding out thatsomeone else took that loaf that
they wanted to get.
They're always getting everysingle thing that they ordered
and they have a set amount oftime to check it out.
And it also ensures that Chefnever oversells.
(13:15):
If you set an inventory of 10,you're going to sell that 10,
and once you sell that 10, it'llstay sold out.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Wow, okay, so that is amazeballs.
I love that.
So I know you touched a littlebit on how it helps for those
who want to do porch pop-ups andI actually shared with you
offer a customized delivery andgo to our clients, and I believe
(13:47):
you guys have a SMS feature forpeople who want to take
advantage of that, which reallywill allow that business to have
a more branded experience.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So tell us about the text features that you guys have
with Hotplate so one of thegreatest things that hot plate
offers is that when you create ahot plate storefront, right,
customers can go to yourstorefront, put their phone
number in and they'll get a textwhen orders open.
And so what that does is it on.
It unshackles you frominstagram and like social media,
(14:19):
right, because a lot of peopleare really dependent and really
tied into social media for theirmarketing.
And the problem with that is,let's say, you go and you put up
a post on social media and noone sees it.
Then you're not getting orders.
But if people sign up to yourHotplate storefront, they get
that text.
Order is open and some folkssell out in less than 30 seconds
(14:40):
.
It's crazy.
So with Hotplate, you don'thave to worry about the customer
communication Again.
Every time you post a new sale,hot plate automatically sends
out that drop text lettingpeople know like hey, my orders
are opening, get them before,get them before it's gone, right
, and so you can focus less onlike wrangling your customer
communication or like lettingpeople know on Instagram and
(15:02):
more time actually focusing onthe food.
We actually have customers whosometimes they'll do a flash
sale and they won't even post onInstagram because they're like
I have my audience on Hotplate.
I just want to like sell viaHotplate and they sell out via
like 30 seconds.
It's absolutely bananas, right.
And for smaller chefs, right,like you mentioned earlier.
Like a good question which islike, let's say, I'm a small
(15:22):
baker, right, like what should Ido?
Right, what I always tell folksis like one crazy lesson I
actually learned from a programthat Hotplate went through when
we were starting out.
It's called do things thatdon't scale.
So funny enough, like we'retalking about all these like
super scalable features, right,but in the beginning of your
food business, you know, youalways just want to make sure
that you have an audience of afew people that really love what
(15:45):
you're making, right, and sowith hot plate, we actually
spent the first few years onlyworking with a solid group of
people to really make sure thatthe platform was like purpose
built for their way of sellingfood.
So that way, when we scale towhat we are now, we still have
that love and support fromeveryone, right, and what a lot
of people do is when they cometo us, they're like I need to
grow, I need to like focus onscaling, I need to like make a
(16:06):
ton of money Right, and I'm likea couple of things Like, do you
have a product people love?
Cause it's better to makesomething that, like 10 or a
hundred people love, likeabsolutely love, than something
like a thousand people kind oflike right, because if you make
something that 10 or a hundredpeople love, you're going to
generate that word of mouth.
Your friends are going to seethat you're buying.
Your friends or your customersare going to see that they're
(16:27):
buying your food, they're goingto sign up for your Hoplite
storefront and it's going togrow via word of mouth.
The businesses that I see thatgrow via word of mouth have
invested a lot of time intomaking a quality product and
really building their customerrelationships, and Hotplay is a
tool that amplifies that right.
But, like, I would say that,like you know, we don't help you
(16:49):
with the cooking right.
Like we don't help you makelike no online ordering
platforms that help you makegood bread right, but by like
really cultivating thoserelationships, hotplay allows
you to put the fuel on the firethat will really take your
business to the next level.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I love that.
So, rather than just an example, like most people do, making
something, taking a picture,posting it on social media,
hoping someone sends, thenhaving to build a separate email
, then emailing the people hey,this is what I have, and then
now we're already at twoplatforms, whereas if I listed
on Hotplate, you're saying withthe SMS service, they
(17:25):
automatically.
There's a way for them to get ablast and know the word exactly
so we don't have to show up anddance and twerk, we just get
right to.
This is what I got.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
It's ready to be purchased exactly, and the and
the thing is like email.
Email lists are super helpful.
Like I'm all about email, right, we kind of took a hard line in
the beginning as a startup.
You got to be really focused,right, and we really focus on
texting, just because, with anew day and age, everyone's on
their phones, right, everyone'slike always checking their texts
, right, and we just saw a muchhigher conversion rate from
(17:57):
people buying and clicking thelink via text and buying
compared to email.
We definitely have plans in thenear future to kind of
streamline the email experiencemore, but I think by starting
out with text, we actually areenabling our vendors to reach
more of their audience, right,and actually converting more of
those people to buyers asopposed to, like, you get that
(18:18):
email you might be buried inyour inbox Again.
It's kind of like social media.
How many newsletters iseveryone signed up for nowadays?
Right, like you just gotta makesure you're paying attention.
That being said, email's notgoing anywhere, but yeah, we're
really all about texting here atOplik.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
But I love that, because sometimes so many
newbies it takes time to start alist and to even learn the name
of the game.
With email, you're focusing onsubject lines and what do I
write, what do I say, and allthis.
And so, yeah, text is much moreeasier.
And you said it yourself,everyone always has their phone
in their hand or near them,exactly, exactly.
(18:54):
So for people who say well, Iknow I have a group of customers
who love to be on brand, youknow like, okay, well, hot plate
is your thing.
How does this seemingly buildinto my brand?
So what features do you have?
If a person wants to, can theymake it a certain color
customize?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, totally so, like our goal.
One of our things with hotplate is we want to streamline
your existing workflow, not addmore complexity, to like added
workflow right, so you justmentioned it yourself like
having like three differentsystems or having to like
wrangle, like email lists andlike this list, right, like
people do it on hot plate,totally.
But, um, our goal with hotplate is to kind of like
(19:37):
streamline a lot of the headachethat you're dealing with so you
can focus on the food, right.
And so what we do is we have areally simple way for people to
customize their hot platestorefront.
So you just go to settings um,you can add your colors, you can
add a little banner photo toyour website, you can add your
logo, your social media links.
A little about section takeslike less than five minutes to
(19:57):
build.
I always tell people I'll putpart of my friends.
No one is at all, but hot plateis definitely stupid proof.
Like it's not.
It's not like I'm not at allsaying anyone is dumb, but like
even me, like I come from like atech background and I'm clearly
a talker, as you can tell, andI'm not the most like the most
tech savvy person and I've beenusing.
I mean, I'm also biased, I'mone of the founders, but like
(20:20):
I've set up like thousands ofhotplate storefronts and I still
to this day it blows my mindhow easy it is to use the
platform.
And so the cool thing aboutHotplate is you can definitely
add your logos and colors andstuff, and if you have an
existing website, like on Squareor other platforms, you can
just add a button that links toyour Hotplate page and a lot of
folks don't even notice.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Absolutely.
And so what are some things?
If there's any feature that wehaven't touched on that you
think people should really knowabout or use more, is there a
cool feature that you thinkpeople tend to overlook?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So actually, that's a great question.
By the way, thank you so much.
You're nailing this.
You're so easy to talk to.
One of the best things we'vebuilt is actually the prep and
packing tab within Hotplate.
So Hotplate, when all theorders come in, actually
automatically generates a preplist that tells you exactly what
you need to make for each dayand time.
So it's actually the firstthing we built for Hotplate.
(21:25):
So when we pivoted to thisversion of selling food, where
we enabled people to like have astorefront as opposed to like
being a marketplace right, andpivoted to like this like more
e-commerce version of Hotplate,we actually started by
interviewing like two to 300chefs and bakers that were on
Instagram.
I'm a hustler.
I just want to really make sureI'm building stuff that people
(21:46):
need, and the thing we kepthearing over and over again is
I'm using spreadsheets a lot.
I'm having to export my ordersand I have to tally up.
So Samantha ordered two loavesof bread and Carl ordered six
loaves of bread.
Okay, so I got to make 15loaves of bread and we actually
talked to this one guy in SanFrancisco named Rise Up.
Sourdough Z is amazing.
(22:08):
He's like so awesome.
I'd highly recommend everyonechecking him out.
His story is also justincredible.
And Z was telling us that hehad to hire someone to like do
that job for him and that personquit because it was just so
like annoying to like have to gothrough all this data and
calculate the prep list.
That doesn't make any sense.
We can automate this in fiveminutes.
(22:30):
We started at Hotplate againdoing things on a scale.
We built, actually, a CSVuploader where people would send
us their spreadsheets.
We would upload it in theHotplate and give them the
totals of what they need to make.
From there we started solvingother problems for makers.
That was actually the first onewe built.
So one of the things I wouldhighly recommend is, if you're
wrangling spreadsheets or havingto deal with inefficiencies in
(22:54):
that regard, definitely give usa look, because that's one of
the things where you'lldefinitely save hours of time
and headache, especially ifyou're a bagel vendor, if you're
a pizza vendor.
And headache, right, um,especially like if you're like a
bagel vendor, if you're a pizzavendor, um, if you're selling
like ice cream baked goods, likegetting those orders and having
to be like okay, so I gottamake like 30 poppy and like 40,
(23:15):
you know whatever from like 20dozen bagels, that people.
It's just a nightmare.
It's a nightmare, so not havingto deal with that math and be
able to again just like focus onorders come in, I can go on
vacation, and then I just needto fulfill them and then I just
give them to the customer.
It just makes your life so mucheasier.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I love that.
I usually see bakers a lot ofthem playing tic-tac-toe, you
know, just with pen and paper.
It's like OK, I know so manychocolate chips, chips, I need
this many sticks of butter.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So yeah, there was literally a guy, one of the
first people we ever onboarded.
He was badly burger club inaustin, um, and he had a
notebook.
It's still on his instagram.
He had a notebook pre-hot plateof like just like when burgers
would come in.
He would just tally up likeokay, two, and he had just like
200 burgers.
So like how, what?
(24:06):
Like?
That is just absurd.
And so, yeah, he said, usingPopPlate felt like hiring, like
a second employee for him, whichwas like great.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
That's amazing, and so what future plans do you have
for Hot Plate?
What are?
If you can share any juicytidbits what are some things
that you guys are lookingforward to add in the future?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
totally.
I mean, like you know, there'sdefinitely features that we're
working on and building that Ithink will definitely make lives
a lot easier for folks likewe're launching two-way customer
communication so that way, likepeople can not only like send
these blasts on hot play, butalso get texts back if, like,
they have questions or issues.
So, again, eliminating the needfor folks like dm, you and
instagram, right, is one of ourbig goals, um, but beyond that
(24:51):
and like a few other liketactical features for just
helping people just kind of likestreamline their business, I
really think the the big thingfor hot plate is just growing
awareness of this business model.
Because, because, honestlyspeaking, like it kind of blows
my mind how many people, when wetalk to them, are like, well,
you know, I sell at farmer'smarkets.
Or like, oh, I sell baked goods, but like, I can never do this.
(25:13):
Or like, oh, like this wouldn'twork.
Or like, oh, this doesn't makesense.
And it kind of is crazy to mebecause I'm like people are on
Instagram, like people are onsocial media, like, instead of
going where they are in person,and like all the fixed costs
that come with that, just gowhere they all are online and
once you crack that game and youbuild hype around your business
(25:35):
and people come to you, youjust save so much time, money
and costs, right Like?
One of the examples I alwayslove highlighting is Sarah to
sourdough.
Uh, sarah is just like anamazing baker.
If you're a baker, give her afollow.
Her and little pearl breads aretwo people that I think are
like macy from little pearlbreads as well.
Those are two bakers that Ithink, even outside of just like
(25:57):
the porch, pick a model.
Just like, if you're a bakerwanting to learn more about like
baking and like getting moreresource on baking, they're
great people to follow.
They talk all the time abouthow like they don't even go to
farmer's markets anymore as muchbecause, like, again, you got
to stand out there.
It's really hot, right, andsometimes it rains, and then
(26:18):
you're just sitting therepotentially with unsold bread,
right.
And then I talk to folks.
They're like, but I'm at thefarmer's market, like, what are
you going to do about it?
I'm like, well, 100 like youcould still use hot plate to do
pickups at the farmer's market.
Take pre-orders and ensure thatyou've pre-sold some of your
inventory so that you, like youknow, sell out quick waste.
(26:38):
Yeah, reduce waste, you havemore consistent income, exactly,
right.
So that's like really thebiggest thing for hot plate is.
I think that, like.
So the pre-order pickup modelrepresents a paradigm shift in
how people think about food, butit's kind of crazy.
Like a really funny example I'llgive you is like there was a
(27:00):
pop-up that we worked with for awhile.
They're now a restaurant, right, and they were featured in the
New York Times by Pete Wells,who's like the food critic for
the New York Times, right, andif you read this article on him
talking about hot plate, like somuch love to Pete Wells, he's
been like absolutely Like I mean, I read all this stuff, like
I'm a huge fan, but it was crazy.
(27:20):
Like one of our first pressexperiences about hot plate was
just him being like this doesn'tmake sense, like I don't really
get this.
Like they're kind of arestaurant, they're kind of a
pop-up.
Like they're kind of arestaurant, they're kind of a
pop-up.
Like they're kind of like whatare they?
Like you're getting them,you're getting this stuff online
.
Like none of this really makesany sense, and I think it's just
people can't like wrap theirhead around it, right, you gotta
(27:41):
like try and experience it, andthat's something I think we're
really working on is figuringout how to like democratize this
model more, because I really dobelieve that, like you know,
hot plate again absolutely isgoing to replace restaurants.
I don't think farmer's marketsare going anywhere, I don't
think they should go anywhere,but I do think this online
pop-up model that you talk aboutthe mobile pop-up, the online
(28:03):
pop-up I think it's somethingthat, like, over time, more and
more people are going to adoptand I think it's just our job
and one of our focuses to likeeducate people on the model
Because, again, like anybody cando this, like my mom can figure
this out and that was one of mydreams with Hot Plate is that
(28:24):
someone like my mom can actuallysell the food they want to make
and not be at the whims of,like, the margins or the market
or, like you know, I just don'twant to see.
Like I grew, I every indian,every time we eat indian food,
you know you're gonna go andthey're gonna be like all right.
So what?
Like curry do you want?
Right?
Or, like you know, like, do youwant chicken tikka masala?
(28:44):
And I love chicken tikka masala,don't get me wrong, right, but
it's like if we can live in aworld where, like, everyone
could share, share and showcasethe cuisines that they grew up
eating.
It would just be such a betterworld.
By increasing the diversity andaccessibility of the food that
we all eat, we would just livein like a much more diverse
world.
Right, and I think food is likea vehicle for connection in
(29:05):
that regard and like, yeah,there's just so much promise and
so much potential that can comefrom shifting the way we think
about food from being likeconsumer first, like I got to
start a Punjabi Indianrestaurant that makes chicken to
masala so I can survive to likeI can start, I can sell
Gujarati food authentically, orI can sell Vietnamese food
that's authentic because I'm notworried about those constraints
(29:28):
.
And that's really what's themost exciting thing about hot
plate to me is the potential for, like what it can do for the
food industry and for the typeof food that we all eat.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Absolutely Well.
You summed it up beautifully.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday, for taking your time to
tell us more about the software,about how it can help and your
plans on serving so many morechefs and cottage food producers
and bakers, and it was justreally refreshing hearing what
(29:59):
all goes into this software butalso how people can utilize it
in their business.
And before I let you go, wehave to play a round of
lightning round.
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
All right, Rishi.
What is your favorite color?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Blue.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Blue Awesome sauce and who is your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Mila Kunis.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Okay, great answer.
What is one dessert you cannotlive without?
Cheesecake.
Cheesecake, oh okay.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I had that one so fast.
I love cheesecake.
Oh my God.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
All right, what is your favorite kitchen?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
utensil A fork.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That's the best answer we've had so far.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's just so versatile.
Like I don't even have ramen,you struggle a little bit, but
like it's worth it, you know allright, and what is your
favorite book?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
good to great that's a good one.
Yeah, it's great he didn't do agood job on that one.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Otherwise he would have not lived up to the title.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, from the bottom of
my little Southern heart.
Thank you so much for coming onand joining us today.
It really was a pleasure and Iloved hearing all about your
company.
Thank you so much Again.
I want to say a special thanksto Rishi from Hotplate and the
entire Hotplate team.
They're always so responsive,their content is always amazing
(31:41):
and it's just really, reallywonderful to see a software
company that comes out thatreally supports this movement.
You know, a lot of times when weget started, we always talk
about sales and too often peoplesay markets and pop ups and
festivals and those are great,but not everyone is in a
position that they can afford toget started with markets.
Some people, their markets arebooked, other people there are
(32:04):
markets that they just do nothave success in, and so it's
always just straight to hearthings from the horse's mouth,
aka you guys.
And Hot Plate does that becauseit literally cuts down on all
the noise.
It allows your consumers to, atthe top of a button, hear
automatically about your sales,and that's not something that
you get with social media.
(32:25):
Too often we post on socialmedia and it is a game.
It is a game of showing up, ofbeing consistent.
It is a game that you play inthe long haul, because when you
make a post, not everyone seesit, but with Hotplate, as you
collect subscribers, everyone isnotified about your posts, your
offerings, what you do.
With the push of a button,replay what I just said back in
(32:46):
your head, because that isreally one of the things that
makes the Hot plate software sopowerful.
You know, rishi was telling meabout someone who generated over
a million dollars in revenueselling ice cream on hot plate.
There was another young man inNew Orleans who did like $13,000
worth of sales in just sevenminutes on hot plate.
(33:07):
So many of you guys struggle tobuild your email list or you
struggle building your text list, and this is actually doing
both of those for you, becauseyou're collecting subscribers
that you can text while you postyour sales, all on one
particular software that is freeto get started, so you can
check the show notes and learnmore about Hotplate yourself.
(33:28):
All in all, I hope that today'sepisode helped you to think
differently, even if you decideto not look into it at the
current time, but to just thinkdifferently about what can you
be doing?
What porch pop ups can you bedoing?
How can you amplify your bakesales?
(33:48):
And one of the things I like toteach my students is is mobile
pop ups, their personalcampaigns, because not all the
time do you even want peoplecoming to your home.
So what ways can you amplifythose mobile pop-ups, those
pop-ups, whatever you have, sothat we can get the goodies that
you make directly to consumers?
That's what it's all about.
If you are in the entrepreneurcommunity, hop into the group,
(34:09):
ask me any questions.
I would love to help you plan,execute and promote your mobile
or porch pickup.
Again, check all of Hot Platesinformation in the show notes.
And thanks so much forlistening, you guys, as always,
to episode 90 of the Baking forBusiness podcast.
Take care and bye for now.
Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg.
I started my baking businesswith a bottle of DeSerono and
one Bundt cake pan.
Fast forward to today, fromnews to magazines, speaking on
national stages and more.
I can truly say that baking haschanged my life.
So now, as a bakery businesscoach, I get to help others have
the same success.
I've helped hundreds of mystudents across the world in my
(00:24):
global membership programsix-figure businesses, mainly
from home.
The Baking for Business podcastis an extension of that, from
actionable tips to valuabletools and resources that can
impact you as a business owner.
I truly believe y'all.
We would never have been givena gift if we couldn't profit and
prosper from it.
So come on, darling.
What are you waiting for?
(00:45):
Hey?
What's going on, you guys?
And welcome back to the Bakingfor Business podcast.
I'm super excited because wehave an amazing guest today.
So Rishi is actually one of theco-founders of Hotplate, and
(01:05):
Hotplate is a software company,an online ordering platform,
which is dedicated specificallyto helping those chefs and
bakers with pop-ups and onlineordering, and so, as we know,
right now, the porch pop-upmovement, or any pop-up in
general, is really booming,especially when it comes to
cottage food operators, cottagefood producers and just food
(01:28):
entrepreneurs in a whole.
So to find out more about howHot Plate can help us, I decided
to bring Rishi on.
So, rishi, thank you so muchfor being here.
Speaker 2 (01:37):
Thank you so much, Amanda, for having me Super
excited to chat.
This is gonna be great.
Speaker 1 (01:42):
Absolutely, and so, for those who are a little
unfamiliar with hot plate, howdid this kick off?
Do you have a love for food, orwhat really inspired you guys
to start it off?
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Great question.
I'm a huge foodie, so, like Ithink we both share that same
sentiment, I think anyonelistening to this podcast is
probably gonna be a huge foodie,I'd imagine.
Right, and no, I'd always beenobsessed with food.
Um, I come from like anincredible background of Indian
immigrants and my grandmother,you know, was like a personal
chef of mine for years rightlike cooked for a whole family
(02:14):
and I just got to experience thelove of her cooking and the
familiarity and the the familybonding that it created for a
whole family from both her andmy mother.
So so just come from a long,beautiful background of
incredible cooks and that levelof food really translate into
like the work I wanted to do.
So I was a student at UT Austinand that's actually where I met
(02:34):
my co-founders at the time, benand Andy, and we kind of just
you know we're all really intofood but and we're all like
tinkering around with differentideas but the actually first
version of hot plate actuallycame from my mom.
So my mom had this idea for amarketplace of home-cooked food
because she was actually tryingto find authentic gujarati
(02:54):
indian food.
I'm gujarati, by the way, I'mfrom gujarat, india and she was
trying to find authenticgujarati indian food where she
was getting treatment at thetime.
She's's totally fine now.
But when she came to me and shewas like you know, there's no
way to get authentic home-cookedIndian food, I was like that's
a really good point.
Like why isn't there an easyway to be able to access the
regional cuisine that I grew upeating?
(03:15):
Right?
So the first version of a hotplate was a way to solve that
problem for her and others likeher, and so, to test it, we
wanted to test the ability oflike can I just start a food
business out of, like, my houseand just start selling food?
We actually, like rented anapartment, like in West Campus
oh wow, ut Austin and juststarted selling food out of this
(03:36):
restaurant, and that we didthat, funny enough, in March of
2020, which, as you probablyknow, was like not the best time
to be, like, you know, startinga food business, because COVID
happened and totally, you know,decimated the restaurant
industry.
I think the effects of that are,you know, things that we're
(03:56):
still recovering from today tosome degree, and I think COVID
really exposed some of the flaws, like the brick and mortar
business model.
You know We've been servingfood this way for hundreds of
years, but there hasn't reallybeen a ton of innovation on it,
and I think when people stoppedcoming in person and started
buying food online, I thinkrestaurants were really hurt by
(04:17):
that.
They were forced to usethird-party delivery apps, for
example.
I mean, it just created areally broken system and
business model for selling food.
At the same time, there weretons of folks that were selling
food from home whether it wasbaked goods or other things and
just sharing them on Instagramand saying like, hey, dm me to
order, right.
And so we started talking to alot of those folks and realized
(04:39):
that, beyond the marketplacethat we were focusing on, there
was a real huge opportunity totap into that group of people
that were trying to unlock theirculinary creativity and just
kind of, like you know, sharetheir passion with the world.
So we pivoted Hotplay in late2020 and launched this version
of Hotplay that we are now inlate 2021, to enable anyone to
(05:02):
easily start, grow and manage afood business.
You know, we spoke to a lot ofthe folks that were using the
marketplace and they said,honestly, rishi, you're not
really driving any demand to us,like we're not getting any new
customers from you guys, but thebackend tools that you've built
to help take the orders,streamline the prep and packing
lists, automate the text messagereminders like all that saves
(05:23):
me hours of time and headache.
So we pivoted away from themarketplace to focusing on what
we call more of an onlineordering platform for pop-up
chefs and bakers, and since thenit's been two and a half three
years and we've grown to servingthousands of chefs across the
country and processing millionsof dollars of payments for
people, whether they're sellingone loaf of bread or they're
(05:45):
like a viral pop-up like PapaBagels in New York.
Absolutely, yeah, killing thegame.
Speaker 1 (05:53):
That is so amazing because, even though a lot of
people who listen are cottagefood producers, there are a
small amount of storefrontowners also, and you said
something really unique.
You're right.
Normally, whenever people wantto pivot to that online ordering
system, they generally do gothrough third parties.
I actually used to sell onthird parties myself Waiter,
(06:14):
uber, eats, grubhub but you'relooking at anywhere between 20%
to 35% off of every single sale.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Totally, totally.
And again, I think thoseplatforms right, have their use,
have their benefit.
Especially, like before COVID,they were really marketing
themselves as like hey, we'regoing to help you with getting
incremental orders and help youwith marketing.
And then when the pandemichappened, you know people, there
was kind of the main platformthat people were using to get
orders right.
But even beyond that, rightwhen we spoke to a lot of food
(06:44):
owners we have customers, forexample, that have been
restaurant owners for 20 plusyears who've said that like,
since starting on Hotplate, it'sreally changed the way they
thought about starting a foodbusiness in general, because
most people have an idea for afood business, right, and the
first thing they think is okay.
So I got to spend like 100 grandon a lease, right, or like I
got to get, you know, spend like$6,000 a month in rent.
I got to get a space, I got toget staff, I got to staff it up
(07:08):
and then I got to go live, right, and the problem with that is
that restaurants have a reallyhigh failure rate, the really
high fixed costs, as we justsaid, and the really low in
profit margin.
Because of that, and when westarted talking to folks that
were like cottage food bakersselling out of their house.
They were like I don't evenneed to get a space, like I have
(07:28):
my house, you know, like peoplejust come and pick up for my
porch or pick up for me.
Personally, I can limit theamount of orders I want to sell.
I pre-sell all of it, so I knowexactly what I need to make for
each day and time, no issues.
And I actually am walking outof this making like 40, 50, 60%,
70% profit margin on my food,which is like the type of margin
(07:48):
you see in software, not evenlike in itself, and so like it
was kind of like game changingfor some people.
We have a user named Joan whoruns a pop called Mama Fish in
Seattle and she was telling us,you know, she started
restaurants for 20 years and hasbeen like a public speaker,
featured all over, and she saidlike I'm not going back Like
(08:08):
this.
This model is game changerbecause it gives me control.
It allows me to do what I want,which is focus on the food and
not have to deal with all thefixed costs or added labor that
comes with starting a brick andmortar business.
So I think beyond just thethird party delivery apps.
I think what Hot Plate hasshown is that you can actually
rethink the entire restaurantand food business model to be
(08:30):
chef first instead of customerfirst, and I think that's what
we're all about at Hot Plate isenabling anyone to easily start,
grow and manage a food business.
Speaker 1 (08:38):
Absolutely, and that works in favor for so many women
also who I know want tocontribute to the household.
It used to be so many peoplewould always assume okay, well,
I bake from home first andthat's just what I do to start,
and then I get the storefront.
But I see now people arelooking at it like, no, wait a
minute, there's actually a hellof a lot more benefits to just
(09:03):
operating within this model, andso pop-ups literally I feel the
past decade have taken on awhole new thing, because now we
see so many micro influencersand people just making a thing
out of it.
You know like, hey, I'm goingto be here, I'm going to be
there and just really killing it, and it's kind of like this fun
vibe now.
Speaker 2 (09:24):
No, I was literally going to say the same thing.
It's turned into this wholelifestyle.
That's absolutely such a vibe,right, and people are really
crushing it.
We have tons of users who areable to make this their
full-time job take care of theirkids.
We have one user named Noelleand she runs El Bread Shop.
Right, just five kids and theincome from Hotplay enables her
(09:47):
to like spend more time withtheir kids, focus on just baking
.
You know, she can go to farmersmarkets for distribution, like
getting the word out there abouther business, but isn't
completely tied to them becauseshe has systems like hot play
just has the pre-order pickupmodel to be able to also, like
you know, be with her kids whileshe's doing pickups, for
example.
And something you said that Ilove is that that really does
(10:08):
enable a whole class of peoplewho typically don't, you know,
aren't able you know they haveto leave the house, they have to
go work, right, and aren't ableto really spend time with their
kids.
And I think that's we're allabout.
A hot plate is just increasingthe diversity and accessibility
of food Right, and I thinkthat's not just like just
(10:28):
getting like chefs fromrestaurants to use it right.
I think that's like enablingwhole groups of people, like my
mom, right, who previouslywouldn't have been able to start
.
My mom had never even conceivedof starting a food business,
right, but you know, withHotplate she was actually
talking to me about like hey,can I sell my rotis Like, can I
(10:49):
like sell to these?
Speaker 1 (10:49):
And it's like kind of like unlocking her, like
creativity right, which is likewow, it's like so cool to see
all the different things thatpeople have been able to use hot
plate for.
I love that, I love that.
And so, speaking of hot plate,I'm pretty sure people have
questions and so I came up witha couple.
But let's just say, even thoughI know the answer, but let's
just say I know some baker outthere is listening and they're
going to say, okay, but chef,but Rishi, I'm not that big.
(11:11):
So what happens if I sign upfor hot plate?
And maybe I oversell and I putmyself in a jam, but with hot
plate that's actually notpossible.
So talk about what featuresenable a person to kind of have
that type of control.
Speaker 2 (11:26):
Oh, thank you so much .
We should get you as a salesman.
You really get it.
So Hot Plate is built to givethe chef control of their food
business.
So with Hot Plate what you cando is, instead of having like an
always on store, like withSquare and other systems, right,
that you kind of have to likeswap out, Hotplate lets you set
(11:46):
up events.
Let's say you're doing a porchpickup for the week.
With Hotplate you can create anevent called Weekly Porch
Pickup.
You can set when you want yourorders to open and close
automatically.
You're offering your customersa limited window, but instead of
having to publish and unpublishthe menu, the system just does
it for you automatically.
You can set specific dates,times and locations.
(12:08):
So let's say, for the weekyou're not just doing the porch
pickup but you're also doinglike a pickup at a farmer's
market, right?
Well, you don't have to createtwo separate menus for that or
anything.
You can just say like, hey,Wednesday from like five to nine
, I'm doing porch pickup at myhouse, and then Thursday, from
like seven to 10, I'm doing thefarmer's market, Right, and so
it gives you that super granularflexibility.
(12:28):
And lastly, you can set up yourmenu items, inventory and
restrictions to your point justfor that sale.
So if you want to say like, hey, I'm selling sourdough but I
want to limit it to like 20loaves of sourdough, Once you
sell that 20, it'll be sold out.
And the reason for that isbecause Hotplate actually
functions like Ticketmaster, notthe Taylor Swift version we're
a lot better than that butHotplate actually functions like
(12:53):
Ticketmaster.
When we add something to yourcart, the customer has a set
amount of time to check it outthat you can set.
What that ensures is thatyou're never getting to the
customers, never hitting the addto cart button or checking out
and then finding out thatsomeone else took that loaf that
they wanted to get.
They're always getting everysingle thing that they ordered
and they have a set amount oftime to check it out.
And it also ensures that Chefnever oversells.
(13:15):
If you set an inventory of 10,you're going to sell that 10,
and once you sell that 10, it'llstay sold out.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Wow, okay, so that is amazeballs.
I love that.
So I know you touched a littlebit on how it helps for those
who want to do porch pop-ups andI actually shared with you
offer a customized delivery andgo to our clients, and I believe
(13:47):
you guys have a SMS feature forpeople who want to take
advantage of that, which reallywill allow that business to have
a more branded experience.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
So tell us about the text features that you guys have
with Hotplate so one of thegreatest things that hot plate
offers is that when you create ahot plate storefront, right,
customers can go to yourstorefront, put their phone
number in and they'll get a textwhen orders open.
And so what that does is it on.
It unshackles you frominstagram and like social media,
(14:19):
right, because a lot of peopleare really dependent and really
tied into social media for theirmarketing.
And the problem with that is,let's say, you go and you put up
a post on social media and noone sees it.
Then you're not getting orders.
But if people sign up to yourHotplate storefront, they get
that text.
Order is open and some folkssell out in less than 30 seconds
(14:40):
.
It's crazy.
So with Hotplate, you don'thave to worry about the customer
communication Again.
Every time you post a new sale,hot plate automatically sends
out that drop text lettingpeople know like hey, my orders
are opening, get them before,get them before it's gone, right
, and so you can focus less onlike wrangling your customer
communication or like lettingpeople know on Instagram and
(15:02):
more time actually focusing onthe food.
We actually have customers whosometimes they'll do a flash
sale and they won't even post onInstagram because they're like
I have my audience on Hotplate.
I just want to like sell viaHotplate and they sell out via
like 30 seconds.
It's absolutely bananas, right.
And for smaller chefs, right,like you mentioned earlier.
Like a good question which islike, let's say, I'm a small
(15:22):
baker, right, like what should Ido?
Right, what I always tell folksis like one crazy lesson I
actually learned from a programthat Hotplate went through when
we were starting out.
It's called do things thatdon't scale.
So funny enough, like we'retalking about all these like
super scalable features, right,but in the beginning of your
food business, you know, youalways just want to make sure
that you have an audience of afew people that really love what
(15:45):
you're making, right, and sowith hot plate, we actually
spent the first few years onlyworking with a solid group of
people to really make sure thatthe platform was like purpose
built for their way of sellingfood.
So that way, when we scale towhat we are now, we still have
that love and support fromeveryone, right, and what a lot
of people do is when they cometo us, they're like I need to
grow, I need to like focus onscaling, I need to like make a
(16:06):
ton of money Right, and I'm likea couple of things Like, do you
have a product people love?
Cause it's better to makesomething that, like 10 or a
hundred people love, likeabsolutely love, than something
like a thousand people kind oflike right, because if you make
something that 10 or a hundredpeople love, you're going to
generate that word of mouth.
Your friends are going to seethat you're buying.
Your friends or your customersare going to see that they're
(16:27):
buying your food, they're goingto sign up for your Hoplite
storefront and it's going togrow via word of mouth.
The businesses that I see thatgrow via word of mouth have
invested a lot of time intomaking a quality product and
really building their customerrelationships, and Hotplay is a
tool that amplifies that right.
But, like, I would say that,like you know, we don't help you
(16:49):
with the cooking right.
Like we don't help you makelike no online ordering
platforms that help you makegood bread right, but by like
really cultivating thoserelationships, hotplay allows
you to put the fuel on the firethat will really take your
business to the next level.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I love that.
So, rather than just an example, like most people do, making
something, taking a picture,posting it on social media,
hoping someone sends, thenhaving to build a separate email
, then emailing the people hey,this is what I have, and then
now we're already at twoplatforms, whereas if I listed
on Hotplate, you're saying withthe SMS service, they
(17:25):
automatically.
There's a way for them to get ablast and know the word exactly
so we don't have to show up anddance and twerk, we just get
right to.
This is what I got.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
It's ready to be purchased exactly, and the and
the thing is like email.
Email lists are super helpful.
Like I'm all about email, right, we kind of took a hard line in
the beginning as a startup.
You got to be really focused,right, and we really focus on
texting, just because, with anew day and age, everyone's on
their phones, right, everyone'slike always checking their texts
, right, and we just saw a muchhigher conversion rate from
(17:57):
people buying and clicking thelink via text and buying
compared to email.
We definitely have plans in thenear future to kind of
streamline the email experiencemore, but I think by starting
out with text, we actually areenabling our vendors to reach
more of their audience, right,and actually converting more of
those people to buyers asopposed to, like, you get that
(18:18):
email you might be buried inyour inbox Again.
It's kind of like social media.
How many newsletters iseveryone signed up for nowadays?
Right, like you just gotta makesure you're paying attention.
That being said, email's notgoing anywhere, but yeah, we're
really all about texting here atOplik.
Speaker 1 (18:33):
But I love that, because sometimes so many
newbies it takes time to start alist and to even learn the name
of the game.
With email, you're focusing onsubject lines and what do I
write, what do I say, and allthis.
And so, yeah, text is much moreeasier.
And you said it yourself,everyone always has their phone
in their hand or near them,exactly, exactly.
(18:54):
So for people who say well, Iknow I have a group of customers
who love to be on brand, youknow like, okay, well, hot plate
is your thing.
How does this seemingly buildinto my brand?
So what features do you have?
If a person wants to, can theymake it a certain color
customize?
Speaker 2 (19:15):
Yeah, totally so, like our goal.
One of our things with hotplate is we want to streamline
your existing workflow, not addmore complexity, to like added
workflow right, so you justmentioned it yourself like
having like three differentsystems or having to like
wrangle, like email lists andlike this list, right, like
people do it on hot plate,totally.
But, um, our goal with hotplate is to kind of like
(19:37):
streamline a lot of the headachethat you're dealing with so you
can focus on the food, right.
And so what we do is we have areally simple way for people to
customize their hot platestorefront.
So you just go to settings um,you can add your colors, you can
add a little banner photo toyour website, you can add your
logo, your social media links.
A little about section takeslike less than five minutes to
(19:57):
build.
I always tell people I'll putpart of my friends.
No one is at all, but hot plateis definitely stupid proof.
Like it's not.
It's not like I'm not at allsaying anyone is dumb, but like
even me, like I come from like atech background and I'm clearly
a talker, as you can tell, andI'm not the most like the most
tech savvy person and I've beenusing.
I mean, I'm also biased, I'mone of the founders, but like
(20:20):
I've set up like thousands ofhotplate storefronts and I still
to this day it blows my mindhow easy it is to use the
platform.
And so the cool thing aboutHotplate is you can definitely
add your logos and colors andstuff, and if you have an
existing website, like on Squareor other platforms, you can
just add a button that links toyour Hotplate page and a lot of
folks don't even notice.
No-transcript.
Speaker 1 (20:51):
Absolutely.
And so what are some things?
If there's any feature that wehaven't touched on that you
think people should really knowabout or use more, is there a
cool feature that you thinkpeople tend to overlook?
Speaker 2 (21:04):
So actually, that's a great question.
By the way, thank you so much.
You're nailing this.
You're so easy to talk to.
One of the best things we'vebuilt is actually the prep and
packing tab within Hotplate.
So Hotplate, when all theorders come in, actually
automatically generates a preplist that tells you exactly what
you need to make for each dayand time.
So it's actually the firstthing we built for Hotplate.
(21:25):
So when we pivoted to thisversion of selling food, where
we enabled people to like have astorefront as opposed to like
being a marketplace right, andpivoted to like this like more
e-commerce version of Hotplate,we actually started by
interviewing like two to 300chefs and bakers that were on
Instagram.
I'm a hustler.
I just want to really make sureI'm building stuff that people
(21:46):
need, and the thing we kepthearing over and over again is
I'm using spreadsheets a lot.
I'm having to export my ordersand I have to tally up.
So Samantha ordered two loavesof bread and Carl ordered six
loaves of bread.
Okay, so I got to make 15loaves of bread and we actually
talked to this one guy in SanFrancisco named Rise Up.
Sourdough Z is amazing.
(22:08):
He's like so awesome.
I'd highly recommend everyonechecking him out.
His story is also justincredible.
And Z was telling us that hehad to hire someone to like do
that job for him and that personquit because it was just so
like annoying to like have to gothrough all this data and
calculate the prep list.
That doesn't make any sense.
We can automate this in fiveminutes.
(22:30):
We started at Hotplate againdoing things on a scale.
We built, actually, a CSVuploader where people would send
us their spreadsheets.
We would upload it in theHotplate and give them the
totals of what they need to make.
From there we started solvingother problems for makers.
That was actually the first onewe built.
So one of the things I wouldhighly recommend is, if you're
wrangling spreadsheets or havingto deal with inefficiencies in
(22:54):
that regard, definitely give usa look, because that's one of
the things where you'lldefinitely save hours of time
and headache, especially ifyou're a bagel vendor, if you're
a pizza vendor.
And headache, right, um,especially like if you're like a
bagel vendor, if you're a pizzavendor, um, if you're selling
like ice cream baked goods, likegetting those orders and having
to be like okay, so I gottamake like 30 poppy and like 40,
(23:15):
you know whatever from like 20dozen bagels, that people.
It's just a nightmare.
It's a nightmare, so not havingto deal with that math and be
able to again just like focus onorders come in, I can go on
vacation, and then I just needto fulfill them and then I just
give them to the customer.
It just makes your life so mucheasier.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
I love that.
I usually see bakers a lot ofthem playing tic-tac-toe, you
know, just with pen and paper.
It's like OK, I know so manychocolate chips, chips, I need
this many sticks of butter.
Speaker 2 (23:44):
So yeah, there was literally a guy, one of the
first people we ever onboarded.
He was badly burger club inaustin, um, and he had a
notebook.
It's still on his instagram.
He had a notebook pre-hot plateof like just like when burgers
would come in.
He would just tally up likeokay, two, and he had just like
200 burgers.
So like how, what?
(24:06):
Like?
That is just absurd.
And so, yeah, he said, usingPopPlate felt like hiring, like
a second employee for him, whichwas like great.
Speaker 1 (24:16):
That's amazing, and so what future plans do you have
for Hot Plate?
What are?
If you can share any juicytidbits what are some things
that you guys are lookingforward to add in the future?
Speaker 2 (24:29):
totally.
I mean, like you know, there'sdefinitely features that we're
working on and building that Ithink will definitely make lives
a lot easier for folks likewe're launching two-way customer
communication so that way, likepeople can not only like send
these blasts on hot play, butalso get texts back if, like,
they have questions or issues.
So, again, eliminating the needfor folks like dm, you and
instagram, right, is one of ourbig goals, um, but beyond that
(24:51):
and like a few other liketactical features for just
helping people just kind of likestreamline their business, I
really think the the big thingfor hot plate is just growing
awareness of this business model.
Because, because, honestlyspeaking, like it kind of blows
my mind how many people, when wetalk to them, are like, well,
you know, I sell at farmer'smarkets.
Or like, oh, I sell baked goods, but like, I can never do this.
(25:13):
Or like, oh, like this wouldn'twork.
Or like, oh, this doesn't makesense.
And it kind of is crazy to mebecause I'm like people are on
Instagram, like people are onsocial media, like, instead of
going where they are in person,and like all the fixed costs
that come with that, just gowhere they all are online and
once you crack that game and youbuild hype around your business
(25:35):
and people come to you, youjust save so much time, money
and costs, right Like?
One of the examples I alwayslove highlighting is Sarah to
sourdough.
Uh, sarah is just like anamazing baker.
If you're a baker, give her afollow.
Her and little pearl breads aretwo people that I think are
like macy from little pearlbreads as well.
Those are two bakers that Ithink, even outside of just like
(25:57):
the porch, pick a model.
Just like, if you're a bakerwanting to learn more about like
baking and like getting moreresource on baking, they're
great people to follow.
They talk all the time abouthow like they don't even go to
farmer's markets anymore as muchbecause, like, again, you got
to stand out there.
It's really hot, right, andsometimes it rains, and then
(26:18):
you're just sitting therepotentially with unsold bread,
right.
And then I talk to folks.
They're like, but I'm at thefarmer's market, like, what are
you going to do about it?
I'm like, well, 100 like youcould still use hot plate to do
pickups at the farmer's market.
Take pre-orders and ensure thatyou've pre-sold some of your
inventory so that you, like youknow, sell out quick waste.
(26:38):
Yeah, reduce waste, you havemore consistent income, exactly,
right.
So that's like really thebiggest thing for hot plate is.
I think that, like.
So the pre-order pickup modelrepresents a paradigm shift in
how people think about food, butit's kind of crazy.
Like a really funny example I'llgive you is like there was a
(27:00):
pop-up that we worked with for awhile.
They're now a restaurant, right, and they were featured in the
New York Times by Pete Wells,who's like the food critic for
the New York Times, right, andif you read this article on him
talking about hot plate, like somuch love to Pete Wells, he's
been like absolutely Like I mean, I read all this stuff, like
I'm a huge fan, but it was crazy.
(27:20):
Like one of our first pressexperiences about hot plate was
just him being like this doesn'tmake sense, like I don't really
get this.
Like they're kind of arestaurant, they're kind of a
pop-up.
Like they're kind of arestaurant, they're kind of a
pop-up.
Like they're kind of like whatare they?
Like you're getting them,you're getting this stuff online
.
Like none of this really makesany sense, and I think it's just
people can't like wrap theirhead around it, right, you gotta
(27:41):
like try and experience it, andthat's something I think we're
really working on is figuringout how to like democratize this
model more, because I really dobelieve that, like you know,
hot plate again absolutely isgoing to replace restaurants.
I don't think farmer's marketsare going anywhere, I don't
think they should go anywhere,but I do think this online
pop-up model that you talk aboutthe mobile pop-up, the online
(28:03):
pop-up I think it's somethingthat, like, over time, more and
more people are going to adoptand I think it's just our job
and one of our focuses to likeeducate people on the model
Because, again, like anybody cando this, like my mom can figure
this out and that was one of mydreams with Hot Plate is that
(28:24):
someone like my mom can actuallysell the food they want to make
and not be at the whims of,like, the margins or the market
or, like you know, I just don'twant to see.
Like I grew, I every indian,every time we eat indian food,
you know you're gonna go andthey're gonna be like all right.
So what?
Like curry do you want?
Right?
Or, like you know, like, do youwant chicken tikka masala?
(28:44):
And I love chicken tikka masala,don't get me wrong, right, but
it's like if we can live in aworld where, like, everyone
could share, share and showcasethe cuisines that they grew up
eating.
It would just be such a betterworld.
By increasing the diversity andaccessibility of the food that
we all eat, we would just livein like a much more diverse
world.
Right, and I think food is likea vehicle for connection in
(29:05):
that regard and like, yeah,there's just so much promise and
so much potential that can comefrom shifting the way we think
about food from being likeconsumer first, like I got to
start a Punjabi Indianrestaurant that makes chicken to
masala so I can survive to likeI can start, I can sell
Gujarati food authentically, orI can sell Vietnamese food
that's authentic because I'm notworried about those constraints
(29:28):
.
And that's really what's themost exciting thing about hot
plate to me is the potential for, like what it can do for the
food industry and for the typeof food that we all eat.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
Absolutely Well.
You summed it up beautifully.
Thank you so much for coming ontoday, for taking your time to
tell us more about the software,about how it can help and your
plans on serving so many morechefs and cottage food producers
and bakers, and it was justreally refreshing hearing what
(29:59):
all goes into this software butalso how people can utilize it
in their business.
And before I let you go, wehave to play a round of
lightning round.
Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (30:10):
Let's do it.
Speaker 1 (30:11):
All right, Rishi.
What is your favorite color?
Speaker 2 (30:15):
Blue.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Blue Awesome sauce and who is your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2 (30:24):
Mila Kunis.
Speaker 1 (30:26):
Okay, great answer.
What is one dessert you cannotlive without?
Cheesecake.
Cheesecake, oh okay.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
I had that one so fast.
I love cheesecake.
Oh my God.
Speaker 1 (30:41):
All right, what is your favorite kitchen?
Speaker 2 (30:45):
utensil A fork.
Speaker 1 (30:49):
That's the best answer we've had so far.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
It's just so versatile.
Like I don't even have ramen,you struggle a little bit, but
like it's worth it, you know allright, and what is your
favorite book?
Speaker 1 (31:06):
good to great that's a good one.
Yeah, it's great he didn't do agood job on that one.
Speaker 2 (31:19):
Otherwise he would have not lived up to the title.
Speaker 1 (31:20):
Absolutely, absolutely, from the bottom of
my little Southern heart.
Thank you so much for coming onand joining us today.
It really was a pleasure and Iloved hearing all about your
company.
Thank you so much Again.
I want to say a special thanksto Rishi from Hotplate and the
entire Hotplate team.
They're always so responsive,their content is always amazing
(31:41):
and it's just really, reallywonderful to see a software
company that comes out thatreally supports this movement.
You know, a lot of times when weget started, we always talk
about sales and too often peoplesay markets and pop ups and
festivals and those are great,but not everyone is in a
position that they can afford toget started with markets.
Some people, their markets arebooked, other people there are
(32:04):
markets that they just do nothave success in, and so it's
always just straight to hearthings from the horse's mouth,
aka you guys.
And Hot Plate does that becauseit literally cuts down on all
the noise.
It allows your consumers to, atthe top of a button, hear
automatically about your sales,and that's not something that
you get with social media.
(32:25):
Too often we post on socialmedia and it is a game.
It is a game of showing up, ofbeing consistent.
It is a game that you play inthe long haul, because when you
make a post, not everyone seesit, but with Hotplate, as you
collect subscribers, everyone isnotified about your posts, your
offerings, what you do.
With the push of a button,replay what I just said back in
(32:46):
your head, because that isreally one of the things that
makes the Hot plate software sopowerful.
You know, rishi was telling meabout someone who generated over
a million dollars in revenueselling ice cream on hot plate.
There was another young man inNew Orleans who did like $13,000
worth of sales in just sevenminutes on hot plate.
(33:07):
So many of you guys struggle tobuild your email list or you
struggle building your text list, and this is actually doing
both of those for you, becauseyou're collecting subscribers
that you can text while you postyour sales, all on one
particular software that is freeto get started, so you can
check the show notes and learnmore about Hotplate yourself.
(33:28):
All in all, I hope that today'sepisode helped you to think
differently, even if you decideto not look into it at the
current time, but to just thinkdifferently about what can you
be doing?
What porch pop ups can you bedoing?
How can you amplify your bakesales?
(33:48):
And one of the things I like toteach my students is is mobile
pop ups, their personalcampaigns, because not all the
time do you even want peoplecoming to your home.
So what ways can you amplifythose mobile pop-ups, those
pop-ups, whatever you have, sothat we can get the goodies that
you make directly to consumers?
That's what it's all about.
If you are in the entrepreneurcommunity, hop into the group,
(34:09):
ask me any questions.
I would love to help you plan,execute and promote your mobile
or porch pickup.
Again, check all of Hot Platesinformation in the show notes.
And thanks so much forlistening, you guys, as always,
to episode 90 of the Baking forBusiness podcast.
Take care and bye for now.
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