| Thanks for your suggestions. We did Satays because it was a family recipe and customers loved our food back when I first started out as a solo guy selling on the streets. From there I expanded the menu around this. I do not know much about cooking to be honest and I think what we have, customers currently love. While I realize we could tangent off to other foods, thats not really our business or goal. We want to grow our current business to reach more customers. Those that have tried us have in the past re-ordered (but this was all through the catering agencies). We are now working to go direct. Our goal is not to become another catering agency. Our goal is to grow our business to cater to as many companies that will have us. I think its important to focus at what we're good at and I firmly believe in this model. We have considered selling Satays frozen and ship it but that isn't easy and there is a lot of issues around this. We can't ship cooked food due to lots of regulations and laws. Its an incredibly difficult path as we have considered in the past (before the current pivot) to be the Omaha Steaks of Satays or be in stores like Costco. I have explored both extensively and landed to the conclusion that the business we are doing now was the best for our future. We have had a few press coverage in the past to be honest but I don't know how much that has helped us as a whole. Especially since we have pivoted but I will reach out to them again soon. We did do festivals and events before and it was very hit or miss and the total revenue was actually less than what we were doing now. No race tracks nearby that I can think of. I am definitely going to do a meetup as well as reach out to current meetups soon. Not sure if there are many movie productions that are around here but we are definitely open to any business that would love catering. Our menu is tiny so we don't have an overly complex menu at the moment. We started on the street with just Satays and expanded the menu there before pivoting twice to the current model. Our customers have definitely been satisfied with our food, it really is more about reaching out I believe. I greatly appreciate you taking out the time to offer suggestions and will look at the other stuff mentioned. I am willing to try anything at this point and will think it over for future implementation if we survive long enough. Above all, I appreciate your kind words. Thank you. |
Another thought. Find your local SBDC chapter (Small Business Development Center) and SCORE (?? of Retired Executives). You might be able to connect with someone with deep knowledge of the food business who could help you figure it out. There might also be loans or grants that, along with advise, could help you get past this problem.