How to start a mini cake donut business in 6 steps

How to start a mini cake donut business in 6 steps

Start a mini donut business

Entrepreneurs that are considering to start a mini donut business must realize there is more to the business than just selling donuts. When starting a new business of any kind It’s important to have the mindset to offer the best phenomenal products, services, and of course mini donuts. This will enable you – the entrepreneur to dominate the mini donut business all while taking the local market by storm.

You will have a significant amount of money on the line whether you implement the business utilizing a booth, donut truck, or trailer and of course, you will need a donut robot machine to implement any part of any business model.
People expect more from any new or existing donut business and yes, that includes the mini donut business.

Let’s face it, donut connoisseurs over the years honestly have been spoiled with gourmet donuts as we all know the donut has been reinvented into specialty, gourmet, theme-based, exotic, strange, deranged to include traditional, unique and lost-to-history donuts.

There are so many fluffy articles out there on the Internet offering very little actionable information. I am not going to bore you with telling you how important a business plan is (you know that ) or how to market your business and/or how to price your donuts. Instead, I will focus on a critical path to start your mini donut business with attention to time is of the essence.

Okay, that said: if I wanted to enter the mini donut business and have absolutely no experience.

Listed below is what I would do first and last and what I would consider in order to ensure a successful business. If it was my money on the line this is what I would do to start a mini donut business.

First, you must have confidence knowing that you can make a phenomenal line of cake donuts before investing possibly tens of thousands of dollars. I am happy to report that I have been testing and perfecting cake donut recipes now for three decades. I have tested my master cake donut recipe with donut making machines now for years.

Step 1.

Purchase my commercial cake donut recipe training series. You will discover the best cake donut recipe for making cake donuts and mini donuts with my tested and perfected 3-milk buttermilk vanilla cake donut aka the 3-milk. The 3- milk cake donut recipe is a base to make all other cake donut varieties. You can see the cake donut being made in action in a made-to-order (MTO) cake donut business found here. There is no reinventing the wheel here and that’s reassuring to you the entrepreneur because I have done all the hard work for you. Measures work

Step 2

Purchase a Mark II Belshaw donut robot

Test the donut robot. A beginner mistake is to add shortening, make a batch of the cake donut batter and begin to run a round of donuts through it. You will need first need to season the hopper and the plunger/donut depositor in 325° oil for approximately one hour before doing a test run. While performing the test run of donuts you are testing and observing for:


a. The Donut robot is maintaining a temperature of 355°
b. The cake donuts are dropping smoothly and consistently shortening before the donuts begin the journey of being fried.
c. The overall finished product. If the donuts are spreading then the shortening level is to low. If the donuts are balling up as to suggest not uniformed then the shortening level is too high.

Step 3.

Acquire a mobile donut concession truck, trailer, or kiosk

Most entrepreneurs who want to enter this business intend to purchase a van and then convert the van into a mini donut business. You will have approximately $8000 in equipment and small ware expenses before you even consider purchasing a van to convert. Honestly, if it was my money and I wanted to be in business as fast as possible I would negotiate a contract with a person that is selling an existing food concession truck.

A quick visit to Facebook and you will quickly discover there are many food concession vans for sale and these units for sale have been for sale for quite some time. I would consider negotiating a contract with the owner of the food concession unit for sale whereby you can operate the truck for a year before approaching a conventional loan. Financial institutions typically like to fund existing businesses. It is a win-win situation. You lease the truck on a month-to-month basis over a year and you make money and the owner of the concession food truck and/or van makes money. This will guarantee that you can finance your business and/or expand your business.

Step 4.

Upselling

I realize that you want to implement a line of mini donuts into your business model that may include specialty flavored drizzle’s and toppings etc.. But wouldn’t it be nice to offer a small line of gourmet regular-sized cake donuts and receive a gourmet price?


Moreover, upsell and cross-sell that gourmet donut with a gourmet cup of coffee for 3x valuation. I highly recommend offering a coffee donut that can be associated with a cup of coffee. Let’s take the mocha latte and the mocha donut as an example:


The mocha donut sells for $2.99 and when you add a $2.89 16-ounce cup of coffee to the mocha donut you had increase the value by nearly 3x.


The #1 mistake new entrepreneurs make is that they do not monetize donut and mini cake donuts with coffee drinks. Let’s take the Coffee bean cake donut or mocha doughnut as an example.


As an example: We can use the coffee bean crumble cake doughnut and cross-sell the doughnut with a mocha latte. We would then rebrand the two products as the mocha delight.

Selling coffee with donut's

Now imagine you have a vanilla cake doughnut that you cross-sell with a vanilla latte and rebrand the duo products as — The Vanilla Delight. The magic in this — the line of doughnuts can now be carried through to monetizing other related products. As I mentioned above “products that go together grow together”.

Step 5.

Offering Gourmet Mini Donuts

I highly recommend utilizing donut glazes in your mini donut business model.

Orange raise glazed doughnuts
Chocolate raise glazed donuts
Caramel glazed donuts

The wonderful thing about glazes is that you can make a lot of doughnuts in largess (Volumes) and is ideal for mass-producing specialty doughnuts that are gourmet (ish) and will retrieve a gourmet price. Although the donuts above are yeast doughnuts I wanted to show you the different assortment of glazes that can be utilized for your mini and regular-sized cake donuts.

I referenced above about offering gourmet donuts and cross-selling donuts with related products. I would like to introduce you to theme-based regular sized and mini donuts. In the donut business, it is critical to monetize the business by offering services along with theme based donuts. I realize space will be limited for donut production however integrating theme based cake donuts whereby customers can preorder specialty doughnuts is just another example on how you can monetize the mini donut business.

Step 6.

Offer Theme-based Mini Donuts

Listed below is my #1 Favorite way to monetize the doughnut business. Imagine being able to match doughnuts to any special event moreover to any theme or sports meet. I now would like to introduce you to fanatic doughnuts.
Utilizing 2“round printable fondants and edible ink you now can monetize holidays, birthdays, office parties and so much more. You only are limited to your imagination.

Edible round fondants
Theme based donuts
Theme based donuts

I highly recommend advertising and promoting birthday cake donuts, office party cake donuts and holiday theme based donuts. This donut line will complement your mini donut business because the donuts can be preordered.

Summary

However, you decide to approach the mini donut business approach it with the mindset to monetize the business and this will be a recipe for success.

A word about advertising

I highly recommend having a pamphlet with your specialty and gourmet and theme based donuts that can be preordered. I recommend creating a Facebook ad geo-targeting the area in which you intend to do business and promoting the products with attention to acquiring preorders.

If you have a set route and/or location leased. I then also recommend sending out postcards within a 5 mile radius to invite the public to taste your phenomenal donuts. I also would focus on creating an email list by offering customers the option to sign up for your customer appreciation card whereby the customer can opt into your email list to receive special offers and promotions.

In doing so you can make money on demand and again monetize the donut business.

Should you have any questions and/or concerns about entering any part of the donut business, to contact me anytime.

Recommended reading: => Donut Business Articles