This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.
A cookie ATM becomes a pop-up hit in Oakland, California. Welcome friends. What's up, everybody? Welcome to Side Hustle School day two of a brand new year. This is episode 2924.
That's right. We have been going for a while. This is our eighth year. But I'm always excited when a new year rolls around because it just kind of gives all of us some momentum, helps a lot of people think differently about what they want to do with their year and what their goals are, or maybe you just treat it like a fresh start, which I think is awesome as well. So here's what we're going to do.
This is a segment called Throwback Thursday. It's one of our most popular segments, so we are bringing it back. We're going to modify some other things, as I mentioned yesterday, and you'll hear a couple new segments coming up in a couple of days. But today, Throwback Thursday is where we take an in-depth look at someone whose story has evolved since we first featured them through the wealth of episodes, almost 3,000 now. So today, we're going to hear from two late-night bakers who created Oakland's first cookie ATM.
In fact, that's the update. They were doing some other stuff before. And here, one of them will share how the bold experiment evolved into a thriving pop-up and DIY cookie kit business. I love creativity. I so respect all the cool things that listeners and other folks out there are doing for everybody in our community and elsewhere that are just kind of making things happen.
So thank you for sharing your ideas with me, and thank you for being part of the show. Let's hear now from Ella. Ella is one half of the cookie-baking duo in California. I'll be back at the end with a few words of wrap-up. Hi, we're Ella and Sam, partners in life and baking.
And our side hustle started during the 2020 lockdowns in Oakland, California. It began as a simple idea, baking cookies late at night and selling them via Instagram DMs. People were stuck at home, craving comfort food, and the concept of fresh, warm cookies delivered to your door took off faster than we expected. Within a few months, we were baking six nights a week, fulfilling dozens of orders and dreaming about what could come next. That's when we decided to try something bold — a cookie ATM.
The idea for a cookie ATM machine came during one of our late-night brainstorm sessions. We wanted to grow without needing a storefront or a full-time staff. A pop-up vending machine seemed like the perfect way to serve fresh cookies 24/7 while testing the waters for a larger business. We found a refurbished vending machine on Craigslist, retrofitted it with heating elements to keep the cookies warm, and had it wrapped with branding we designed ourselves. The total investment was about $8,000, funded by savings and reinvesting profits from the Instagram business.
We set up the machine in a high-traffic area near downtown Oakland, stocked it with three of our most popular flavors — classic chocolate chip, oatmeal toffee, and double chocolate — and launched with a big social media campaign. In the first two weeks, we sold over 1,200 cookies at $5 each, bringing in $6,000 in revenue and covering most of the initial costs. But we quickly learned that while the cookie ATM was a fun concept, it wasn't sustainable long-term. The cookie ATM was fantastic for generating buzz, but the upkeep was a challenge — restocking, troubleshooting mechanical issues, and dealing with vandalism turned out to be more time-intensive than we'd anticipated. After six months, we decided to turn the ATM concept into a series of pop-up events instead.
By taking it on the road, we could combine the excitement of the cookie ATM with curated experiences at festivals, weddings, and company events. Each pop-up became an opportunity to connect directly with customers and test new products. At one event, we launched our new DIY cookie kits, which included pre-measured ingredients and instructions for baking our signature cookies at home. These kits were a hit, quickly outselling the on-site cookies and adding a new revenue stream. The cookie ATM experiment taught us a lot about scalability and customer demand.
While it didn't become our permanent model, it helped us expand our brand and identify what customers really wanted — fresh, nostalgic treats they could share and enjoy at home. We now focus on pop-ups and online sales, bringing in an average of $4,000 a month from cookies, DIY kits, and occasional catering gigs. One future idea is to open a micro bakery where customers can pick up fresh cookies and enjoy baking classes in person. The hustle has evolved, but the heart of it remains the same, delivering comfort and sweetness to as many people as possible. Hey, thanks so much to Ella for sharing those updates with us.
I love the idea of a cookie ATM. I would love to go and withdraw some cookies right now, so perhaps this idea will spread elsewhere. Listeners, let me know what you think, who you'd like to see featured, let me know what you're working on, what your goals are. Let's make it a great year. I want to support you as much as possible, so I'm so grateful for you.
If you have a question or an update about your hustle, sidehustleschool.com. There's also a notes page for every single episode. We're going to be making some updates to the website as well. But for now, new episode every day. That's right — seven days a week, always completely free.
The entire batch of archives is available for listening on the website, and you can subscribe for new episodes at Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you like to listen. With that, I will sign off for today. My name is Chris Guillebeau. You're listening to Side Hustle School.
