Episode 77: How to Start a Virtual Restaurant with Cassie Hirtle

Acquania Escarne 0:03

You are listening to The Purpose of Money Podcast, a podcast where we talk about ways to build wealth and create more freedom in your life today. I am your host, Acquania Escarne.

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Hey guys, welcome back to The Purpose of Money Podcast. I'm super excited today to have Cassie Hirtle. She is an entrepreneur, a mother, a traveler and a side hustle aficionado. As the creator and owner of Home Base Classes, Cassie's background includes a bachelor's degree in education, which gave her the foundation she needed to be an effective and understandable online course creator. She enjoys helping entrepreneurs setup virtual kitchen businesses, and swapping stories of success. Cassie's inspiration for home-based classes came while working for family grab. An online meal marketplace that offers families affordable meals from local eateries. She was able to hear success stories from those in virtual kitchen industry, and gain insight that allowed her to create a streamlined process for operating them. Cassie is happily married to her college sweetheart and together they have two busy toddlers. Her mission is to help individuals and families create wealth for themselves in a way that does not detract from the quality of life. Hey, welcome to the show. So glad to have you.

Cassie Hirtle 2:34

I'm so happy to be here. Thank you for having me.

Acquania Escarne 2:37

Of course, of course. So I had to have you on the show because when I read the blog that you put on my site about virtual restaurants, I was super intrigued on how could that possibly be the next greatest side hustle? So tell us a little bit more about that? What is a virtual restaurant? And why do you think it's the next greatest side hustle?

Cassie Hirtle 3:01

All right. So virtual restaurants are. So they operate without a storefront. So a lot of big chains are actually opening these now. But individuals can also open them. And in my work, I was able to talk with a lot of people who already own them and are very successful. So what it is basically, and how our class teaches people to run them is you rent a kitchen, which is very easy to find commercial kitchens. So you rent a commercial kitchen, and you come up with a few meals that you want to rotate through generally that will feed a family, maybe four people, and you can sell them for $20. So you can list these on family grab. And sorry, I should have done a lot better. So you can let these on family grab and then they do the your advertising for you. And really it kind of brings your community to you because there are so many people in the community that are looking for an easy meal and affordable meal. And why don't they don't have to take the time to cook themselves. And as delicious as pizza is, as the most affordable fast meal really, that'll feed a family. It's not something that you want to have all the time and people just don't have the time to cook as much anymore. So virtual restaurants or virtual kitchens have really exploded in the last few years. And the industry I believe is set to double in the next five to seven years along with the growth of the food delivery industry, which is also almost doubling in the next five to seven years. So it really is just a great time to jump on this train and really make some good profits from it.

Acquania Escarne 4:59

So Though you know, my next question is do you have any virtual restaurants? I know home-based classes teaches you how to open a home, a virtual restaurant in, what a day you can take the class and be operational in one business day. But do you currently run any virtual kitchens yourself?

Cassie Hirtle 5:19

I personally do not. Those that I've talked with, and the students that we've we've have had do and I'm not going to say their names, because I haven't asked him if I could, if I could. But, yeah, so there's the one in particular, I'm thinking of when we approached her, and we said, hey, we want to feature you on our online course, she actually told us, she said, I think this is a great idea, and I love running it. But I want to be careful, because I don't need to attract any more business, I'm actually really busy right now. And if I attract much more business, I'm gonna have to either start turning people down, or I'm gonna have to hire someone or something. Because she's she's just found so much success in her community on her own. And so that was just really another inspiration for how, how well, this model works.

Acquania Escarne 6:13

I love it. And I always talk about repeating things that work. That's why franchise models are so popular, because it's a blueprint that tells you how to create a business. And it gives you a lot of the tools that you need to get started because they've gone through the trials and the challenges and they figured out the solutions. So in your case, you're teaching a course that helps someone start their virtual business. But what else do you provide? As someone who's giving the course? Do you provide any additional coaching? Or hands on support following the purchase of the course?

Cassie Hirtle 6:52

Oh, definitely, definitely. So we have the course which you have lifetime access to and including any updates we make to it, which we aren't we do make sure we keep up to date on things. We also have a Facebook community, and a Facebook group that is also called home-based classes. And so we have a 48-hour answer guarantee that we will get back to you if you have any questions, ask them on that community, or you can send us an email. But the Facebook community that we're building is also really important, because that includes people that have already taken the class or running businesses, and can answer your questions, including us, our experts, and course creators. We will all be there for you. I'll be there for each other, hear your questions and your successes and be excited for you.

Acquania Escarne 7:46

That's awesome. So you know, I want to ask this, because I'm sure my listeners are thinking it, too. Do you have to be a chef to have a virtual kitchen?

Cassie Hirtle 7:55

Oh my gosh, no. Um, so really, even just to start out with, if you can find one good recipe that your family members like at least, we do recommend testing it out with at least a couple of people, not just yourself. But um, no, you do not have to be a chef. Just anyone who often cooks dinner for themselves or their family can do this, you can make it you can have a virtual kitchen with casseroles, pasta dishes, whatever it is that you might want for dinner, you can sell to people for dinner.

Acquania Escarne 8:34

That's really good. So tell me a little bit more of how it works. Like, yes, I can go rent a kitchen pretty easily. I'm sure I can Google those in my neighborhood. But what other things do I need to get started.

Cassie Hirtle 8:48

So the very basics of what you need, you need a business license. And but a lot of those you can get those for $20. And a lot of places like that's not a huge investment, which is something we really try and emphasize in our courses that this is not a huge investment to start a giant business and you need a loan and no, so you need a business license. You need a food handler's permit, which the links on our class they're like $10 to get very cost effective as well. And you need a recipe you need to ask grandma for her recipe that you liked when you were growing up or you know your mom or dad or whoever. And you need even just one recipe to start to get your first customers build up a few recipes to rotate through so if you have weekly customers, you know you have at least a few recipes that you're rotating through but really that's it and you in most places you need a commercial kitchen to cook in. California is actually starting to get away from that where you can actually cook temperature-controlled meals in your home. You But that's just for California. But still the commercial kitchens are everywhere, and not hard to come across.

Acquania Escarne 10:08

That's really good advice. So I have a question like, do you recommend that people build a client list of weekly or, you know, frequent customers? And also incorporate email campaigns and advertising? Like, How much work do you have to do to really make this a successful venture?

Cassie Hirtle 10:28

Um, that's such a great question. Um, so building a client base will come and your first customers are probably going to be a couple of neighbors and a couple of friends. But word of mouth is one thing that's really, really strong. And that is going to get you customers. In our class, we talked about using family grab, because I worked with them, we do have a special deal with them, where they will give extra advertising dollars through their platform, and making ads just for you. Again, through their platform, so you don't need to take out ads or spend money on advertising yourself, because we have that deal with them that they will do it for you. And so you can spend money on ads and stuff if you want, but you really don't need to. And that's just another layer of how this is a cost-effective side hustles small business to start it, it doesn't take money down really.

Acquania Escarne 11:30

I really liked this idea. And I'm really curious on where it originally came from. But that might be another discussion for another day. So how do you personally feel about your journey? How did you discover this was it literally just by working in the industry and then taking it off from there? Or was there anyone else you knew who was doing it before you started to promote a course about it?

Cassie Hirtle 11:59

I'm really, so working in the industry. A lot of restaurant owners just have, I mean, if you're gonna go sit down in a restaurant, especially if you're going to bring a family, if you have a family of four getting out of a restaurant for $40, $45 is like a steal. Because it's just expensive. And restaurants are awesome and super great, and you know, love a good sit down restaurant. But that's not something that people who are busy and don't want to cook every every night can do every day. And so you know, are you going to do fast food, or are you going to do pizza every night or so it kind of limits the options. But um, so with the higher cost and, and sit down restaurants, we kind of just stumbled across these virtual restaurants that are kind of scattered all over. And we were able to kind of build a little relationship with them and talk with them and see why they're so successful. And it really seems like this, the need and the want of people for more convenience for food. And then the much much much lower overhead costs of running a virtual kitchen or virtual restaurant. It just really streamlines all of the profit that gets a lot of that gets wasted in a traditional style restaurant.

Acquania Escarne 13:18

I love it. So what's next for home-based classes? Do you only offer a course on virtual restaurants? So do you have more things on the website that listeners could benefit from?

Cassie Hirtle 13:31

Um, so right now we have the online course. And we are working on making sure that is completely comprehensive. And that we are we're constantly adding if there's anything new, any, anything that a student may be brings up that wasn't on there, it gets added on there really fast. And for right, right now, that's what we have on the website, and that in our Facebook community, and we're just growing that and learning how we can support our students more because we really, really, really want everyone to be as successful as possible. Whether you want this to be a full-time business, and you're like, Yeah, I want to build this and build profits. And I want to eventually, you know, be able to build it into a restaurant without having to get into debt. Or if you're just if you only have four hours a week, you can do this and make a profit if you're a college student, or just you know, I really wish I had known about this in college because I totally would have done it. I totally could have cranked out 20 or 30 meals and made two or $300 off of it. And I would have loved to have done that. So yeah, we're just really working on expanding and making sure we're meeting the needs of everyone so everyone can be just totally successful.

Acquania Escarne 14:52

I love that great mission. Great story. So the name of the podcast is called The Purpose of Money Podcast so I asked all my guest this question, what is your purpose for money?

Cassie Hirtle 15:05

Okay, so, um, I have been at the point where I was a broke college student were, and I was married, and I had a baby when I was a broke college student. And at that point in my life, money was a hindrance. And it was something that held me back from doing the things that I wanted to do. And as I'm learning about this business, this industry and trying to help people, I'm trying to build generational wealth and assets and learn how to make money that helped me and make it in my control, instead of it controlling me so that I can just enjoy my life more and enjoy my time with family and friends, and get the most out of it.

Acquania Escarne 16:00

I love it, Cassie, that's a great answer one of my favorites so far. So please let my listeners know, how can they find you drop your website and wherever you are on social media.

Cassie Hirtle 16:15

Yeah, so homebasedclasses.com is where you can find more information about the class and the course itself. And then we have a Facebook group called homeBased classes. We also have an Instagram @homebasedclasses. And then we have if you want to send us an email customerservice@homebasedclasses, so and we really want to respond to everyone as fast as we can and and help people.

Acquania Escarne 16:46

so you heard it folks check out home based classes.com and the show notes where I will include all the links so you can connect with Cassie Hirtle and her business. Also if you are interested in launching a virtual restaurant, check out her class, let me know what you think. Feel free to leave a review wherever you are listening to this podcast episode, and share with anyone who you think would enjoy the new gossip tips and money entrepreneurship guidance. Until next time, guys keep building generational wealth one dollar at a time.

Thank you for listening to The Purpose of Money Podcast. For more resources and information, check out my website thepurposeofmoney.com and while you're there, please sign up for our newsletter so you have the latest information on new episodes and blog posts. Until next time, keep creating freedom in your life today.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai