Mochi-Making Empire Produces Profits and Delight

This transcript was generated from the episode audio and may contain minor errors.

[Music]

It is days like today that remind me just how broad the world of money-making projects is. Because I just realized as I'm working on this episode, I don't think we have ever talked about Airbnb experiences. Now, if you have used Airbnb, you might be familiar with this already from the perspective of being a guest. Because when you make a reservation somewhere, especially if it's in a city or another popular area, you might see options to book all sorts of activities. They're like, okay, now you got your place to stay.

What do you wanna do when you go and visit New York City or Toronto or Melbourne, Australia, or wherever it is? Doesn't have to be big cities, it could be smaller places too. Now, these are called Airbnb experiences. And they're described as one-of-a-kind activities hosted by locals. So these activities aren't produced by Airbnb, they're essentially the middleman.

And the activities can range from a magic show to a history tour, to hot air ballooning, surfing, yoga, meditation, all kinds of stuff. That's just a few examples. It's a really smart idea for them and a great way to have a ready-made trip complete with unique experiences as a traveler. So all very interesting, but how does it work on the other side? What about those locals who host those one-of-a-kind activities?

How does that work? Well, today you'll hear about one of them. I'm calling it Mochi Making Empire Produces Prophets and Delight. Because in this story, an English teacher draws on her Japanese heritage to offer Mochi and Ramen classes in San Francisco using Airbnb experiences. She's built this into quite a successful enterprise and now runs the operation full-time.

At the end of the episode, I'll give you some tips if you would like to explore the world of hosted activities. I bet this could be a good idea for at least some of our listeners. So stay tuned. That whole story is coming right up. [Music]

Growing up, Kaori Becker was surrounded by Japanese cooking.

Her mother is Japanese and her grandmother owned a ramen shop in Japan. Kaori drove deep into these roots and became skilled at making ramen from scratch. While in college studying to be an English teacher, Kaori started teaching her mad ramen skills at a local cooking school. Soon she expanded to offer other forms of Asian cuisine. And she loved it.

Even though she wasn't formally trained, she had a knack for communicating culinary concepts and her classes were popular. What she learned in her education degree ended up being helpful for her time in cooking classes. So she eventually left her high school teaching career to focus on them. Now here's where the mochi comes in. She moved to the Bay area and formally started her business which she called Kaori's Kitchen.

She knew her credibility came from her heritage as being half Japanese. Her mom had been making mochi for local festivals for many years and taught Kaori. Mochi is from Japan and is made to celebrate the new year. It's so iconic to Japanese new year that mochi is likened to a Christmas tree or a Star of David in terms of symbolism. With the success of her ramen classes in mind, Kaori developed a mochi making class.

Mochi ice cream was gaining popularity among ice cream lovers, but there wasn't anyone in the Bay area teaching it. In the class she designed, Kaori, and sometimes her mom too, teaches how to make mochi five different ways. The class begins with mochi in traditional soup. Participants then learn to make sweet mochi three ways with many topping options. And to finish, everyone gets to fry and glaze a mochi donut.

But of course, Kaori needed a way to get people to her classes. She first found a platform called Verlocal. Verlocal is a booking platform for experiences such as cooking, hiking, and painting. And Kaori focused on team building classes for companies or organizations. Word soon got out that her mochi classes were incredible.

She began to receive direct booking emails from companies in San Francisco and Silicon Valley. Kaori's Kitchen was taking off. Another established platform Kaori signed up for was Airbnb Experiences. Within two months, her Saturday mochi classes were full and they have been ever since. In the beginning, she charged a lowly $35 per person.

But with experience, reputation, and over 200 positive reviews, she was able to increase her price to $75 a person. And currently these classes are booked through Airbnb Experiences, Verlocal, and her own website, kauriskitchen.com. And here's an interesting lesson. In the beginning, Kaori thought she should try teaching anything and everything she could. She offered classes that included dishes from not only Japan, but also China, Thailand, and India.

And it became too much. She found the classes that were the most successful were the ones from her own Japanese heritage. So these days, Kaori's Kitchen features mochi and ramen. It's all Japan all the time. The business is bringing in more than $90,000 a year in revenue, $24,000 of which comes from Airbnb Experiences, making it a key partner.

Kaori estimates that each class has an average 75% profit margin because her costs are low. She runs most of them out of her home kitchen, or she travels to the business that's hosting a team building event. Plus the ingredients are reasonable. The main ingredient in mochi is rice. She says one of her favorite parts about all of this is getting to be an expert in something.

She considers sharing her knowledge with others her contribution to making the world a better place because mochi making classes spread joy. When she first quit her teaching job, she felt a lot of uncertainty. Business was slower as she developed the website and found her niche, moving from teaching about a lot of Asian cuisine to just focusing on mochi and ramen. Not having a steady paycheck and benefits was nerve wracking, but she kept at it, and soon she had a thriving experience-based business that supports her and her daughter. In addition to the team building experiences and cooking classes, Kaori does mochi pop-ups at a local coffee shop.

She uses the cafe kitchen to prep and advertises to her email list and on social media. Both businesses, hers and the coffee shop, benefit from connecting to each other's established base. So it's a true win-win. She is now writing a book about starting an experience-based side hustle. She believes everyone is passionate about something.

Hey, I believe that too. Everyone is passionate about something. So why not make money doing what you love? A lot of millennials and others too, put a higher value on experiences than things. So the market is ready for these kinds of experience-based projects.

Kaori intends to self-publish her book this November. And in addition, a publisher asked her to write a mochi cookbook. That one is in the works and should come out in 2020. By focusing on her core expertise and connecting with the right platforms that reach active travelers, Kaori is building security while sharing her knowledge. [Music]

All right, so I wanted to focus this episode on Airbnb experiences specifically, just because we haven't looked at it before.

And because lots of people have good ideas for activities or tours or classes, something just like what Kaori is doing, but don't have a way to connect with enough customers. So they've got the experience design, they know how to teach, they know how to build a curriculum, they know all kinds of stuff, but they don't have a way to reach a large enough market. And this is one of the biggest benefits of partnering with Airbnb or Verilocal, that other platform I mentioned. I was taking a look at Airbnb's website, specifically where they have a section for potential hosts. And I'm gonna link all this up in the show notes.

And there they mentioned this explicitly. They say, one of the main benefits of doing this is our huge audience. By partnering with Airbnb, you can now reach millions of potential guests in the largest worldwide community of travelers and locals. Now, why does Airbnb do this? Is it because they are kindhearted?

No, they also charge a 20% fee. And so I know that some people are gonna be like, for 20%, that's like so much, they're charging 20% to do nothing. But actually they're doing something quite significant, which is bringing you customers. I think they call them participants, but bringing you people that are signing up for your classes. And if you do a good job and cultivate good reviews, then it's just gonna continue and continue, right?

So 20% is honestly not that much for bringing you this active base of customers on a regular basis. And I also spent some time looking through the requirements to apply, and it really doesn't look that complicated or strict. And basically, again, if you can design a good experience, if it seems like you can put together something that is valuable, that would be attractive to travelers who are booking through Airbnb, you can probably at least get on a platform. And then as I said, once you have a few people, you get some good reviews, then you can raise your price like Cowrie did. So I know this can work for a lot of people.

It's a really great example of combining your expertise, your knowledge, et cetera, with a technological platform that reaches a lot of people. So I hope this is interesting to somebody out there. Let me know if you design your own Airbnb experience or something similar. And for everyone, inspiration is good, but inspiration with action is better. Today's show notes, including links to everything I mentioned, including Cowrie's kitchen.

By the way, next time you're in San Francisco, you know, if you wanna go check out a mochi making class, now you know where to go. Sounds really fun. Those notes are at, let's see, where are they? Oh, they're at sattasleschool.com/976, episode 976. Thanks so much for listening, my friends.

I'll be back again tomorrow, and I hope you'll join me. My name is Chris Guillebeau. This is "Sattasle School." [Music]

- From the Onward Project.