This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
[Music]
What's up, my friends? Welcome to a side hustle school. So glad you're here. I'm really excited to bring you another story. This is what I do every single day.
I'm telling a story of real people out there, perhaps people just like you or at least people that you can relate to who are finding a way to make some extra money, sometimes even transform their entire life through the freedom of an income generating project. So this is not participating in the gig economy. This is not just another part-time job. This is creating an asset for yourself using the skills you already have and without spending a ton of money. So in today's story, two guys in Los Angeles blend their heritage flavors to cook up tasty pop-up dinners centered around the shape of a rectangle.
What's that about? Well, I will tell you. Now, along the way they learn lessons in scale and asking forgiveness rather than permission, having started without a license before getting legal. So we'll talk about that in a little bit. But as a side note, let's talk about permission for a moment.
This has been coming up on book tours. I'm having different conversations with people. Man, I really feel like a lot of folks out there are just waiting for someone to come along and give them permission to say, "Hey, it's okay to go ahead and start this project, "pursue this idea, take this next step "towards something that you already know you believe in." And I would love to make it easy for you and say, "You know what, you have permission, go and do that." And the thing is that is empirically true in the sense that you have the permission, but it's not like I am granting you the permission. It's not like anybody needs to come along and grant you the permission. Like the best thing you can do is get started.
Like give yourself permission, help yourself. And in the long run, I think you'll find that more empowering, more validating, just more meaningful than looking for somebody else to kind of endorse your idea or provide mentorship or just kind of nudge you along. I hope this program will be a nudge. I hope other resources, other friends, et cetera are a nudge, but ultimately you need to do something for yourself, which is a message that I try to kind of put forward on a regular basis, a little bit of tough love, but it really is rooted in love. So give yourself permission.
And the story, "Long Time Friends Cook Tasty Food for Pop-Up Events" is coming right up. [Music]
Ralph and Marco have been friends for many years. After hitting it off in college, they became roommates and then coworkers at a digital media production company in Los Angeles. When they weren't working, they'd find themselves in the kitchen, cooking up various dishes to serve around the table. Friends would come over to enjoy potlucks with various dishes like burgers, pasta, tacos, and more.
Neither Ralph nor Marco were trained chefs. They were just two normal guys who enjoyed sharing food and good conversation with friends. A few months after hosting potlucks, they took a trip to Italy for a friend's wedding. It was on that trip that their eyes and stomachs were opened. While enjoying Italian food, they realized how fresh everything was and how much locals and foreigners alike enjoyed indulging in Italian heritage.
Gave them the inspiration to take their potluck dinners to the next level. What if they could tap into their own Filipino and Taiwanese heritage and explore more vibrant flavors to share with others? They immediately began to cook up new ideas and brainstorm ways to enhance those potlucks. This led them to a new concept for pop-up dinners focused on Filipino and Taiwanese dishes with an LA twist. Los Angeles has a mixture of lots of different cultures and flavors, and they wanted their pop-up dinners to be the same.
While talking it over, they also found the inspiration for their name, which was just rectangle. It's actually spelled R-C-T-N-G-L, rectangle. As Marco and Ralph mentioned on their website, a rectangle is the shape of many tables. To us, tables represent connection. Far more than just a flat surface upon which to eat, the table can be the heartbeat of a family.
It's a place to gather, talk, and to reconnect. Thus, their idea began to bake. When they started their pop-up dinners, they kept the concepts small and invited a few family and friends. They wanted to gain confidence in their amateur cooking skills and get more experience by trying various cuisines. They charged just a small price to cover the cost of food and equipment.
Now, as time went by, their pop-ups expanded from friends and family to friends of friends and beyond. More and more people wanted a taste of what Ralph and Marco had to offer. When perfect strangers began attending the dinners, they knew they were onto something. Their confidence was growing and they felt more comfortable charging more for each experience. They also felt inspired to try more concepts like traditional Filipino camaians, where you lay banana leaves across the table and set entrees on the leaves.
Everyone then gathers around and eats with their hands. The camaians became a huge hit among their guests and also across social media. As time sizzled on, they found themselves earning enough money through their pop-ups and catering gigs to take this to the next level. They decided it was time to go all in. They wanted to have more time to expand rectangle to include more catering events and dinners, but to their surprise, they didn't have to actually quit.
The company they were working for went under and they were let go from their jobs in October, 2018. It was a bit of a shock at first, but then they took it as a positive sign for their business. And the startup costs for this business were very low. They started small using the equipment they already had in their kitchen. As their confidence and menu prices began to rise, they were able to buy better equipment.
For pop-up dinner pricing, they typically charge $75 to $100 for a tasting menu and then around $45 for one of the combine events. Most of the challenges they've faced so far have been internal. Since they were not trained chefs, they had to practice cooking a variety of dishes. They used the internet to find recipes and spent lots of hours in the kitchen prepping and taste testing. They also took a risk in cooking out of their kitchen, at least at first, without the proper licenses in place.
They actually suggest that other people take the safer approach and follow the rules, but for them, they figure they would ask forgiveness rather than permission if it ever became an issue. They also recommend you say yes to as many opportunities as you can so that you can learn and adjust as you go. When they accepted their first catering job of 50 people, they were terrified. They'd never done anything like that before, but they wanted to learn and knew the only way to do it was to jump in and trust the process. Since going all in, Ralph and Marco have expanded their pop-up dinners to include several-day feasts and catering events.
Last month, they hosted a three-day sold-out event which fed about 60 people, and they catered their first wedding for more than 100 people. With expansion in the recipe, they now offer delivery services and have rented a space in a commercial kitchen. Their goal is to earn enough money to invest in their own brick-and-mortar restaurant. These two friends are growing up a new career, one that's both profitable and tasty. [Music]
All right, what can we take away from this story?
Well, you know, I often mention that the food business can be quite risky. It's not something I advise most people to go into unless it's what you're really passionate about and what you really want to do, but this sounds like the right way to do it at least. They begin with a concept. They start on a really low budget. They're actually not taking a lot of risk until they begin to see validation, until they begin to realize that they will have enough customer demand to be able to grow.
So that's great, and let's also talk about this moment of internal challenge that Ralph and Marcos that they dealt with. Their quote specifically is, we've been doing this for over two years now, but our first year and a half was riddled with complacency and doubt in our own skills. With no actual kitchen experience, we felt like we were the perfect example of imposter syndrome. Do people just eat our food because they feel bad for us? How are people actually letting us cook for them?
And in fact, is our food even that good? Well, it seems now that lots of strangers are enjoying eating their food, not just their friends. It seems like it is in fact good, and they have found a way to overcome it. And one of the ways that they found to overcome it, in addition to just kind of going for it and doing it, they said that they discovered the power of community. The quote is, when we put forth our best as authentically as possible, people resonate with that.
Help has come from places that we least suspected it, and all we try to do is keep paying it forward. So I feel like somebody out there needs to hear that today. If you're dealing with imposter syndrome, while these guys are starting a catering business, now they're actually going full time with it, and they never had kitchen experience, they kind of learned as they went along. They dealt with those internal challenges. I'm sure they still have them, just like I still have them, just like lots of people out there in the world, if you're human, you probably have those in one way or another.
But one of the ways out was through the power of community. And then just kind of trusting the process. Trust that process of validation, trust that process of feedback. If something is working, or it seems like it's gonna work, then do more of that thing. Don't worry about the things that don't work as well.
That is my encouragement for you today. Thank you so much for listening. As always, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. This is episode 907 of the program. So you can find the show notes at sidehustleschool.com/907.
I'll be back again tomorrow with another living example of the kind of freedom and security you can create for yourself when you choose to pursue the power of an idea. And I know that you have an idea. If you feel like you don't, we'll just keep listening. You're gonna have more ideas than you know what to do with. All right, I hope you have a wonderful day wherever you are in the world.
My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Side Hustle School." [Music]
From the "Onward Project."
