Baking For Business Podcast
The BFB podcast is a no fluff, no BS podcast dedicated to helping bakers, treat makers and cottage food entrepreneurs build and grow in business, life and everything in between. Chef Schonberg is devoted to sharing tips, resources and conversations tailored to those in the baking industry. With her tough love perspective and passion for marketing Chef Schonberg makes it her mission to uplift and educate those in the baking profession.
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Baking For Business Podcast
#Ep: 85 How The Software Company Hotplate Is Helping More Bakers Have Pop Up Success
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 https://www.hotplate.com/
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Hey, sweet friends, my name is Chef Schaumburg. I started my baking business with a bottle of DeSerono and one Bundt cake pan. Fast forward to today, from news to magazines, speaking on national stages and more. I can truly say that baking has changed my life. So now, as a bakery business coach, I get to help others have the same success. I've helped hundreds of my students across the world in my global membership program six-figure businesses, mainly from home.
Speaker 1:The Baking for Business podcast is an extension of that, from actionable tips to valuable tools and resources that can impact you as a business owner. I truly believe y'all. We would never have been given a gift if we couldn't profit and prosper from it. So come on, darling. What are you waiting for? Hey? What's going on, you guys? And welcome back to the Baking for Business podcast. I'm super excited because we have an amazing guest today. So Rishi is actually one of the co-founders of Hotplate, and Hotplate is a software company, an online ordering platform, which is dedicated specifically to helping those chefs and bakers with pop-ups and online ordering, and so, as we know, right now, the porch pop-up movement, or any pop-up in general, is really booming, especially when it comes to cottage food operators, cottage food producers and just food entrepreneurs in a whole. So to find out more about how Hot Plate can help us, I decided to bring Rishi on. So, rishi, thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, Amanda, for having me Super excited to chat. This is gonna be great.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and so, for those who are a little unfamiliar with hot plate, how did this kick off? Do you have a love for food, or what really inspired you guys to start it off?
Speaker 2:Great question. I'm a huge foodie, so, like I think we both share that same sentiment, I think anyone listening to this podcast is probably gonna be a huge foodie, I'd imagine. Right, and no, I'd always been obsessed with food. Um, I come from like an incredible background of Indian immigrants and my grandmother, you know, was like a personal chef of mine for years right like cooked for a whole family and I just got to experience the love of her cooking and the familiarity and the the family bonding that it created for a whole family from both her and my mother. So so just come from a long, beautiful background of incredible cooks and that level of food really translate into like the work I wanted to do.
Speaker 2:So I was a student at UT Austin and that's actually where I met my co-founders at the time, ben and Andy, and we kind of just you know we're all really into food but and we're all like tinkering around with different ideas but the actually first version of hot plate actually came from my mom. So my mom had this idea for a marketplace of home-cooked food because she was actually trying to find authentic gujarati indian food. I'm gujarati, by the way, I'm from gujarat, india and she was trying to find authentic gujarati indian food where she was getting treatment at the time. She's's totally fine now. But when she came to me and she was like you know, there's no way to get authentic home-cooked Indian food, I was like that's a really good point. Like why isn't there an easy way to be able to access the regional cuisine that I grew up eating? Right? So the first version of a hot plate was a way to solve that problem for her and others like her, and so, to test it, we wanted to test the ability of like can I just start a food business out of, like, my house and just start selling food? We actually, like rented an apartment, like in West Campus oh wow, ut Austin and just started selling food out of this restaurant, and that we did that, funny enough, in March of 2020, which, as you probably know, was like not the best time to be, like, you know, starting a food business, because COVID happened and totally, you know, decimated the restaurant industry.
Speaker 2:I think the effects of that are, you know, things that we're still recovering from today to some degree, and I think COVID really exposed some of the flaws, like the brick and mortar business model. You know We've been serving food this way for hundreds of years, but there hasn't really been a ton of innovation on it, and I think when people stopped coming in person and started buying food online, I think restaurants were really hurt by that. They were forced to use third-party delivery apps, for example. I mean, it just created a really broken system and business model for selling food. At the same time, there were tons of folks that were selling food from home whether it was baked goods or other things and just sharing them on Instagram and saying like, hey, dm me to order, right.
Speaker 2:And so we started talking to a lot of those folks and realized that, beyond the marketplace that we were focusing on, there was a real huge opportunity to tap into that group of people that were trying to unlock their culinary creativity and just kind of, like you know, share their passion with the world.
Speaker 2:So we pivoted Hotplay in late 2020 and launched this version of Hotplay that we are now in late 2021, to enable anyone to easily start, grow and manage a food business. You know, we spoke to a lot of the 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 the backend tools that you've built to help take the orders, streamline the prep and packing lists, automate the text message reminders like all that saves me hours of time and headache. So we pivoted away from the marketplace to focusing on what we call more of an online ordering platform for pop-up chefs and bakers, and since then it's been two and a half three years and we've grown to serving thousands of chefs across the country and processing millions of dollars of payments for people, whether they're selling one loaf of bread or they're like a viral pop-up like Papa Bagels in New York. Absolutely, yeah, killing the game.
Speaker 1:That is so amazing because, even though a lot of people who listen are cottage food producers, there are a small amount of storefront owners also, and you said something really unique. You're right. Normally, whenever people want to pivot to that online ordering system, they generally do go through third parties. I actually used to sell on third parties myself Waiter, uber, eats, grubhub but you're looking at anywhere between 20% to 35% off of every single sale.
Speaker 2:Totally, totally. And again, I think those platforms right, have their use, have their benefit. Especially, like before COVID, they were really marketing themselves as like hey, we're going to help you with getting incremental orders and help you with marketing. And then when the pandemic happened, you know people, there was kind of the main platform that people were using to get orders right. But even beyond that, right when we spoke to a lot of food owners we have customers, for example, that have been restaurant owners for 20 plus years who've said that like, since starting on Hotplate, it's really changed the way they thought about starting a food business in general, because most people have an idea for a food business, right, and the first thing they think is okay.
Speaker 2:So I got to spend like 100 grand on 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 to get staff, I got to staff it up and then I got to go live, right, and the problem with that is that restaurants have a really high failure rate, the really high fixed costs, as we just said, and the really low in profit margin. Because of that, and when we started talking to folks that were like cottage food bakers selling out of their house. They were like I don't even need to get a space, like I have my house, you know, like people just come and pick up for my porch or pick up for me. Personally, I can limit the amount of orders I want to sell. I pre-sell all of it, so I know exactly what I need to make for each day and time, no issues. And I actually am walking out of this making like 40, 50, 60%, 70% profit margin on my food, which is like the type of margin you see in software, not even like in itself, and so like it was kind of like game changing for some people.
Speaker 2:We have a user named Joan who runs a pop called Mama Fish in Seattle and she was telling us, you know, she started restaurants for 20 years and has been like a public speaker, featured all over, and she said like I'm not going back Like this. This model is game changer because 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 the fixed costs or added labor that comes with starting a brick and mortar business. So I think beyond just the third party delivery apps. I think what Hot Plate has shown is that you can actually rethink the entire restaurant and food business model to be chef first instead of customer first, and I think that's what we're all about at Hot Plate is enabling anyone to easily start, grow and manage a food business.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and that works in favor for so many women also who I know want to contribute to the household. It used to be so many people would always assume okay, well, I bake from home first and that's just what I do to start, and then I get the storefront. But I see now people are looking at it like, no, wait a minute, there's actually a hell of a lot more benefits to just operating within this model, and so pop-ups literally I feel the past decade have taken on a whole new thing, because now we see so many micro influencers and people just making a thing out of it. You know like, hey, I'm going to 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:No, I was literally going to say the same thing. It's turned into this whole lifestyle. That's absolutely such a vibe, right, and people are really crushing it. We have tons of users who are able to make this their full-time job take care of their kids. We have one user named Noelle and she runs El Bread Shop. Right, just five kids and the income from Hotplay enables her to like spend more time with their kids, focus on just baking. You know, she can go to farmers markets for distribution, like getting the word out there about her business, but isn't completely tied to them because she has systems like hot play just has the pre-order pickup model to be able to also, like you know, be with her kids while she's doing pickups, for example.
Speaker 2:And something you said that I love is that that really does enable a whole class of people who typically don't, you know, aren't able you know they have to leave the house, they have to go work, right, and aren't able to really spend time with their kids. And I think that's we're all about. A hot plate is just increasing the diversity and accessibility of food Right, and I think that's not just like just getting like chefs from restaurants to use it right. I think that's like enabling whole groups of people, like my mom, right, who previously wouldn't have been able to start. My mom had never even conceived of starting a food business, right, but you know, with Hotplate she was actually talking to me about like hey, can I sell my rotis Like, can I like sell to these?
Speaker 1:And it's like kind of like unlocking her, like creativity right, which is like wow, it's like so cool to see all the different things that people 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 with a couple. But let's just say, even though I know the answer, but let's just say I know some baker out there is listening and they're going to say, okay, but chef, but Rishi, I'm not that big. So what happens if I sign up for hot plate? And maybe I oversell and I put myself in a jam, but with hot plate that's actually not possible. So talk about what features enable a person to kind of have that type of control.
Speaker 2:Oh, thank you so much. We should get you as a salesman. You really get it. So Hot Plate is built to give the chef control of their food business. So with Hot Plate what you can do is, instead of having like an always on store, like with Square and other systems, right, that you kind of have to like swap out, Hotplate lets you set up events.
Speaker 2:Let's say you're doing a porch pickup for the week. With Hotplate you can create an event called Weekly Porch Pickup. You can set when you want your orders to open and close automatically. You're offering your customers a limited window, but instead of having to publish and unpublish the menu, the system just does it for you automatically. You can set specific dates, times and locations. So let's say, for the week you're not just doing the porch pickup but you're also doing like a pickup at a farmer's market, right? Well, you don't have to create two separate menus for that or anything. You can just say like, hey, Wednesday from like five to nine, I'm doing porch pickup at my house, and then Thursday, from like seven to 10, I'm doing the farmer's market, Right, and so it gives you that super granular flexibility.
Speaker 2:And lastly, you can set up your menu items, inventory and restrictions to your point just for that sale. So if you want to say like, hey, I'm selling sourdough but I want to limit it to like 20 loaves of sourdough, Once you sell that 20, it'll be sold out. And the reason for that is because Hotplate actually functions like Ticketmaster, not the Taylor Swift version we're a lot better than that but Hotplate actually functions like Ticketmaster. When we add something to your cart, the customer has a set amount of time to check it out that you can set. What that ensures is that you're never getting to the customers, never hitting the add to cart button or checking out and then finding out that someone else took that loaf that they wanted to get. They're always getting every single thing that they ordered and they have a set amount of time to check it out. And it also ensures that Chef never oversells. If you set an inventory of 10, you're going to sell that 10, and once you sell that 10, it'll stay sold out.
Speaker 1:Wow, okay, so that is amazeballs. I love that. So I know you touched a little bit on how it helps for those who want to do porch pop-ups and I actually shared with you offer a customized delivery and go to our clients, and I believe you guys have a SMS feature for people who want to take advantage of that, which really will allow that business to have a more branded experience.
Speaker 2:So tell us about the text features that you guys have with Hotplate so one of the greatest things that hot plate offers is that when you create a hot plate storefront, right, customers can go to your storefront, put their phone number in and they'll get a text when orders open. And so what that does is it on. It unshackles you from instagram and like social media, right, because a lot of people are really dependent and really tied into social media for their marketing. And the problem with that is, let's say, you go and you put up a post on social media and no one sees it. Then you're not getting orders. But if people sign up to your Hotplate storefront, they get that text. Order is open and some folks sell out in less than 30 seconds. It's crazy. So with Hotplate, you don't have to worry about the customer communication Again. Every time you post a new sale, hot plate automatically sends out that drop text letting people know like hey, my orders are opening, get them before, get them before it's gone, right, and so you can focus less on like wrangling your customer communication or like letting people know on Instagram and more time actually focusing on the food. We actually have customers who sometimes they'll do a flash sale and they won't even post on Instagram because they're like I have my audience on Hotplate. I just want to like sell via Hotplate and they sell out via like 30 seconds. It's absolutely bananas, right.
Speaker 2:And for smaller chefs, right, like you mentioned earlier. Like a good question which is like, let's say, I'm a small baker, right, like what should I do? Right, what I always tell folks is like one crazy lesson I actually learned from a program that Hotplate went through when we were starting out. It's called do things that don't scale. So funny enough, like we're talking about all these like super scalable features, right, but in the beginning of your food business, you know, you always just want to make sure that you have an audience of a few people that really love what you're making, right, and so with hot plate, we actually spent the first few years only working with a solid group of people to really make sure that the platform was like purpose built for their way of selling food.
Speaker 2:So that way, when we scale to what we are now, we still have that love and support from everyone, right, and what a lot of people do is when they come to us, they're like I need to grow, I need to like focus on scaling, I need to like make a ton of money Right, and I'm like a couple of things Like, do you have a product people love? Cause it's better to make something that, like 10 or a hundred people love, like absolutely love, than something like a thousand people kind of like right, because if you make something that 10 or a hundred people love, you're going to generate that word of mouth. Your friends are going to see that you're buying. Your friends or your customers are going to see that they're buying your food, they're going to sign up for your Hoplite storefront and it's going to grow via word of mouth.
Speaker 2:The businesses that I see that grow via word of mouth have invested a lot of time into making a quality product and really building their customer relationships, and Hotplay is a tool that amplifies that right. But, like, I would say that, like you know, we don't help you with the cooking right. Like we don't help you make like no online ordering platforms that help you make good bread right, but by like really cultivating those relationships, hotplay allows you to put the fuel on the fire that will really take your business to the next level.
Speaker 1: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, then having to build a separate email, then emailing the people hey, this is what I have, and then now we're already at two platforms, whereas if I listed on Hotplate, you're saying with the SMS service, they automatically. There's a way for them to get a blast and know the word exactly so we don't have to show up and dance and twerk, we just get right to. This is what I got.
Speaker 2: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 a new day and age, everyone's on their phones, right, everyone's like always checking their texts, right, and we just saw a much higher conversion rate from people buying and clicking the link via text and buying compared to email. We definitely have plans in the near future to kind of streamline the email experience more, but I think by starting out with text, we actually are enabling our vendors to reach more of their audience, right, and actually converting more of those people to buyers as opposed to, like, you get that email you might be buried in your inbox Again. It's kind of like social media. How many newsletters is everyone signed up for nowadays? Right, like you just gotta make sure you're paying attention. That being said, email's not going anywhere, but yeah, we're really all about texting here at Oplik.
Speaker 1:But I love that, because sometimes so many newbies it takes time to start a list and to even learn the name of the game. With email, you're focusing on subject lines and what do I write, what do I say, and all this. And so, yeah, text is much more easier. And you said it yourself, everyone always has their phone in their hand or near them, exactly, exactly. So for people who say well, I know I have a group of customers who love to be on brand, you know like, okay, well, hot plate is your thing. How does this seemingly build into my brand? So what features do you have? If a person wants to, can they make it a certain color customize?
Speaker 2:Yeah, totally so, like our goal. One of our things with hot plate is we want to streamline your existing workflow, not add more complexity, to like added workflow right, so you just mentioned it yourself like having like three different systems or having to like wrangle, like email lists and like this list, right, like people do it on hot plate, totally. But, um, our goal with hot plate is to kind of like streamline a lot of the headache that you're dealing with so you can focus on the food, right. And so what we do is we have a really simple way for people to customize their hot plate storefront. So you just go to settings um, you can add your colors, you can add a little banner photo to your website, you can add your logo, your social media links. A little about section takes like less than five minutes to build.
Speaker 2:I always tell people I'll put part of my friends. No one is at all, but hot plate is definitely stupid proof. Like it's not. It's not like I'm not at all saying anyone is dumb, but like even me, like I come from like a tech background and I'm clearly a talker, as you can tell, and I'm not the most like the most tech savvy person and I've been using. I mean, I'm also biased, I'm one of the founders, but like I've set up like thousands of hotplate storefronts and I still to this day it blows my mind how easy it is to use the platform. And so the cool thing about Hotplate is you can definitely add your logos and colors and stuff, and if you have an existing website, like on Square or other platforms, you can just add a button that links to your Hotplate page and a lot of folks don't even notice. No-transcript.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. And so what are some things? If there's any feature that we haven't touched on that you think people should really know about or use more, is there a cool feature that you think people tend to overlook?
Speaker 2: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've built is actually the prep and packing tab within Hotplate. So Hotplate, when all the orders come in, actually automatically generates a prep list that tells you exactly what you need to make for each day and time. So it's actually the first thing we built for Hotplate. So when we pivoted to this version of selling food, where we enabled people to like have a storefront as opposed to like being a marketplace right, and pivoted to like this like more e-commerce version of Hotplate, we actually started by interviewing like two to 300 chefs and bakers that were on Instagram.
Speaker 2:I'm a hustler. I just want to really make sure I'm building stuff that people need, and the thing we kept hearing over and over again is I'm using spreadsheets a lot. I'm having to export my orders and I have to tally up. So Samantha ordered two loaves of bread and Carl ordered six loaves of bread. Okay, so I got to make 15 loaves of bread and we actually talked to this one guy in San Francisco named Rise Up. Sourdough Z is amazing. He's like so awesome. I'd highly recommend everyone checking him out. His story is also just incredible. And Z was telling us that he had to hire someone to like do that job for him and that person quit because it was just so like annoying to like have to go through all this data and calculate the prep list. That doesn't make any sense. We can automate this in five minutes.
Speaker 2:We started at Hotplate again doing things on a scale. We built, actually, a CSV uploader where people would send us their spreadsheets. We would upload it in the Hotplate and give them the totals of what they need to make. From there we started solving other problems for makers. That was actually the first one we built.
Speaker 2:So one of the things I would highly recommend is, if you're wrangling spreadsheets or having to deal with inefficiencies in that regard, definitely give us a look, because that's one of the things where you'll definitely save hours of time and headache, especially if you'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 pizza vendor, um, if you're selling like ice cream baked goods, like getting those orders and having to be like okay, so I gotta make like 30 poppy and like 40, you know whatever from like 20 dozen bagels, that people. It's just a nightmare. It's a nightmare, so not having to deal with that math and be able to again just like focus on orders come in, I can go on vacation, and then I just need to fulfill them and then I just give them to the customer. It just makes your life so much easier.
Speaker 1:I love that. I usually see bakers a lot of them playing tic-tac-toe, you know, just with pen and paper. It's like OK, I know so many chocolate chips, chips, I need this many sticks of butter.
Speaker 2:So yeah, there was literally a guy, one of the first people we ever onboarded. He was badly burger club in austin, um, and he had a notebook. It's still on his instagram. He had a notebook pre-hot plate of like just like when burgers would come in. He would just tally up like okay, two, and he had just like 200 burgers. So like how, what? Like? That is just absurd. And so, yeah, he said, using PopPlate felt like hiring, like a second employee for him, which was like great.
Speaker 1:That's amazing, and so what future plans do you have for Hot Plate? What are? If you can share any juicy tidbits what are some things that you guys are looking forward to add in the future?
Speaker 2:totally. I mean, like you know, there's definitely features that we're working on and building that I think will definitely make lives a lot easier for folks like we're launching two-way customer communication so that way, like people can not only like send these blasts on hot play, but also get texts back if, like, they have questions or issues. So, again, eliminating the need for folks like dm, you and instagram, right, is one of our big goals, um, but beyond that and like a few other like tactical features for just helping people just kind of like streamline their business, I really think the the big thing for hot plate is just growing awareness of this business model. Because, because, honestly speaking, like it kind of blows my mind how many people, when we talk to them, are like, well, you know, I sell at farmer's markets. Or like, oh, I sell baked goods, but like, I can never do this. Or like, oh, like this wouldn't work. Or like, oh, this doesn't make sense. And it kind of is crazy to me because I'm like people are on Instagram, like people are on social media, like, instead of going where they are in person, and like all the fixed costs that come with that, just go where they all are online and once you crack that game and you build hype around your business and people come to you, you just save so much time, money and costs, right Like?
Speaker 2:One of the examples I always love highlighting is Sarah to sourdough. Uh, sarah is just like an amazing baker. If you're a baker, give her a follow. Her and little pearl breads are two people that I think are like macy from little pearl breads as well. Those are two bakers that I think, even outside of just like the porch, pick a model. Just like, if you're a baker wanting to learn more about like baking and like getting more resource on baking, they're great people to follow. They talk all the time about how like they don't even go to farmer's markets anymore as much because, like, again, you got to stand out there. It's really hot, right, and sometimes it rains, and then you're just sitting there potentially with unsold bread, right. And then I talk to folks. They're like, but I'm at the farmer's market, like, what are you going to do about it? I'm like, well, 100 like you could still use hot plate to do pickups at the farmer's market. Take pre-orders and ensure that you've pre-sold some of your inventory so that you, like you know, sell out quick waste. Yeah, reduce waste, you have more consistent income, exactly, right. So that's like really the biggest thing for hot plate is. I think that, like. So the pre-order pickup model represents a paradigm shift in how people think about food, but it's kind of crazy.
Speaker 2:Like a really funny example I'll give you is like there was a pop-up that we worked with for a while. 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, and if you read this article on him talking about hot plate, like so much 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. Like one of our first press experiences about hot plate was just him being like this doesn't make sense, like I don't really get this. Like they're kind of a restaurant, they're kind of a pop-up. Like they're kind of a restaurant, they're kind of a pop-up. Like they're kind of like what are they? Like you're getting them, you're getting this stuff online. Like none of this really makes any sense, and I think it's just people can't like wrap their head around it, right, you gotta like try and experience it, and that's something I think we're really working on is figuring out how to like democratize this model more, because I really do believe that, like you know, hot plate again absolutely is going to replace restaurants. I don't think farmer's markets are going anywhere, I don't think they should go anywhere, but I do think this online pop-up model that you talk about the mobile pop-up, the online pop-up I think it's something that, like, over time, more and more people are going to adopt and I think it's just our job and one of our focuses to like educate people on the model Because, again, like anybody can do this, like my mom can figure this out and that was one of my dreams with Hot Plate is that someone like my mom can actually sell 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't want to see.
Speaker 2:Like I grew, I every indian, every time we eat indian food, you know you're gonna go and they're gonna be like all right.
Speaker 2:So what?
Speaker 2:Like curry do you want?
Speaker 2:Right?
Speaker 2:Or, like you know, like, do you want chicken tikka masala?
Speaker 2:And I love chicken tikka masala, don't get me wrong, right, but it's like if we can live in a world where, like, everyone could share, share and showcase the cuisines that they grew up eating. It would just be such a better world. By increasing the diversity and accessibility of the food that we all eat, we would just live in like a much more diverse world. Right, and I think food is like a vehicle for connection in that regard and like, yeah, there's just so much promise and so much potential that can come from shifting the way we think about food from being like consumer first, like I got to start a Punjabi Indian restaurant that makes chicken to masala so I can survive to like I can start, I can sell Gujarati food authentically, or I can sell Vietnamese food that's authentic because I'm not worried about those constraints. And that's really what's the most exciting thing about hot plate to me is the potential for, like what it can do for the food industry and for the type of food that we all eat.
Speaker 1:Absolutely Well. You summed it up beautifully. Thank you so much for coming on today, for taking your time to tell us more about the software, about how it can help and your plans on serving so many more chefs and cottage food producers and bakers, and it was just really refreshing hearing what all goes into this software but also how people can utilize it in their business. And before I let you go, we have to play a round of lightning round. Are you ready?
Speaker 2:Let's do it.
Speaker 1:All right, Rishi. What is your favorite color?
Speaker 2:Blue.
Speaker 1:Blue Awesome sauce and who is your celebrity crush?
Speaker 2:Mila Kunis.
Speaker 1:Okay, great answer. What is one dessert you cannot live without? Cheesecake. Cheesecake, oh okay.
Speaker 2:I had that one so fast. I love cheesecake. Oh my God.
Speaker 1:All right, what is your favorite kitchen?
Speaker 2:utensil A fork.
Speaker 1:That's the best answer we've had so far.
Speaker 2: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 all right, and what is your favorite book?
Speaker 1:good to great that's a good one. Yeah, it's great he didn't do a good job on that one.
Speaker 2:Otherwise he would have not lived up to the title.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, absolutely, from the bottom of my little Southern heart. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us today. It really was a pleasure and I loved hearing all about your company. Thank you so much Again. I want to say a special thanks to Rishi from Hotplate and the entire Hotplate team. They're always so responsive, their content is always amazing and it's just really, really wonderful to see a software company that comes out that really supports this movement.
Speaker 1:You know, a lot of times when we get started, we always talk about sales and too often people say markets and pop ups and festivals and those are great, but not everyone is in a position that they can afford to get started with markets. Some people, their markets are booked, other people there are markets that they just do not have success in, and so it's always just straight to hear things from the horse's mouth, aka you guys. And Hot Plate does that because it literally cuts down on all the noise. It allows your consumers to, at the top of a button, hear automatically about your sales, and that's not something that you get with social media. Too often we post on social media and it is a game. It is a game of showing up, of being consistent. It is a game that you play in the long haul, because when you make a post, not everyone sees it, but with Hotplate, as you collect subscribers, everyone is notified about your posts, your offerings, what you do. With the push of a button, replay what I just said back in your head, because that is really one of the things that makes the Hot plate software so powerful. You know, rishi was telling me about someone who generated over a million dollars in revenue selling ice cream on hot plate. There was another young man in New Orleans who did like $13,000 worth of sales in just seven minutes on hot plate.
Speaker 1:So many of you guys struggle to build your email list or you struggle building your text list, and this is actually doing both of those for you, because you're collecting subscribers that you can text while you post your sales, all on one particular software that is free to get started, so you can check the show notes and learn more about Hotplate yourself. All in all, I hope that today's episode helped you to think differently, even if you decide to not look into it at the current time, but to just think differently about what can you be doing? What porch pop ups can you be doing? How can you amplify your bake sales?
Speaker 1:And one of the things I like to teach my students is is mobile pop ups, their personal campaigns, because not all the time do you even want people coming to your home. So what ways can you amplify those mobile pop-ups, those pop-ups, whatever you have, so that we can get the goodies that you make directly to consumers? That's what it's all about. If you are in the entrepreneur community, hop into the group, ask me any questions. I would love to help you plan, execute and promote your mobile or porch pickup. Again, check all of Hot Plates information in the show notes. And thanks so much for listening, you guys, as always, to episode 90 of the Baking for Business podcast. Take care and bye for now.