Many years ago when I worked in restaurants I would apply for jobs around 2pm on a Tues or Wed because that's their slow time so they actually look at your resume. I'd suggest the same applies to food trucks, go to the area where they do business and hang out until the lines start to dwindle, then go chat up the owner/operator and ask if you can have 10 minutes of their time when they're free. Start with the trucks that have more than 1 person; 1 can be left working while the other chats with you. Food trucks are a niche that talk to each other a lot so if you create a good idea they'll likely tell each other.
On a related note, a lot of major cities have a "food truck area" where the trucks seem to gather.
[Local plug] New Westminster (Vancouver) has a food truck festival, which claims to be the biggest in North America.
I wouldn’t sell directly to this segment because IMO they are usually very money conscious simply because it’s a small business to target. Instead, I’d figure out a way to partner up with them and sell to their customers, unless the SaaS that you are offering will really help them make more money.
This is definitely something I was worried about. The SaaS that I'm creating is something small with minimal setup and also relatively low-cost ($5/month for all plans), that if successful, will help the food trucks generate more revenue. It's definitely a risk targeting a market that only has 25,000 food truck operators in the US and ~2000 in Canada, but I think it's an underserved niche. I'm okay with taking this risk though as I'm still a student and I want to learn by putting something out there, yet not biting off more than I can chew.
Create a co-op inventory/supplies ordering service. Use cooperative ordering and purchase in bulk to get better rates for the operators. To reduce waste, you can trade between trucks that use the same supplies.
Many years ago when I worked in restaurants I would apply for jobs around 2pm on a Tues or Wed because that's their slow time so they actually look at your resume. I'd suggest the same applies to food trucks, go to the area where they do business and hang out until the lines start to dwindle, then go chat up the owner/operator and ask if you can have 10 minutes of their time when they're free. Start with the trucks that have more than 1 person; 1 can be left working while the other chats with you. Food trucks are a niche that talk to each other a lot so if you create a good idea they'll likely tell each other.
On a related note, a lot of major cities have a "food truck area" where the trucks seem to gather.
[Local plug] New Westminster (Vancouver) has a food truck festival, which claims to be the biggest in North America.
Thank you so much for that insight about 2pm on Tuesday/Wednesday! I appreciate that.
I wouldn’t sell directly to this segment because IMO they are usually very money conscious simply because it’s a small business to target. Instead, I’d figure out a way to partner up with them and sell to their customers, unless the SaaS that you are offering will really help them make more money.
This is definitely something I was worried about. The SaaS that I'm creating is something small with minimal setup and also relatively low-cost ($5/month for all plans), that if successful, will help the food trucks generate more revenue. It's definitely a risk targeting a market that only has 25,000 food truck operators in the US and ~2000 in Canada, but I think it's an underserved niche. I'm okay with taking this risk though as I'm still a student and I want to learn by putting something out there, yet not biting off more than I can chew.
Create a co-op inventory/supplies ordering service. Use cooperative ordering and purchase in bulk to get better rates for the operators. To reduce waste, you can trade between trucks that use the same supplies.
Hi, I recall that Patt Flynn talked about this on his podcast where he created a blog to help food truck people. I also saw a podcast dedciaed to this too: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/foodtruckr-school-how-to-start-run-grow-successful/id778731204