Zach Cramer makes over $100,000 a year chilling on a beautiful beach in Miami hanging out with Bitcoin billionaires serving up bike blended piña coladas. Does that sound too good to be true? Well, maybe it’s a bit of an exaggeration, but it is a part of his business: Blend Bike.
Zach at “work” on the beach
Based in Miami, Zach runs Blend Bike with a storage unit, a shared commercial kitchen, and a lot of sweat equity. He has two bike blenders from Rock the Bike. He’s ordering a third to expand his business. He started in New York during the initial Covid-19 lockdowns when he found himself out of a job as a bartender and had to figure out his life in a new Covid-19 reality where all the bars were closed per the NYC health department orders.
The cold weather was melting away in NYC and he remembered being on a trip traveling in Australia many years ago and seeing a guy serving blended drinks and smoothies at the beach. The guy had a bicycle hooked up to a blender and the idea stuck with him.
Zach’s Setup on his Yuba Mundo Cargo Bike
He did some research and found Rock the Bike (We’re the world’s preeminent manufacturer of top-of-the-line bike blenders ) and he ordered a Fender Blender Mundo edition. He got a Yuba Mundo cargo bicycle and painted it under a bridge in NYC in the rain (because he couldn’t do it in his apartment). He built a custom cabinet/bar that fits on the Mundo and he was in business.
Little did he know that this business would soon take him to Miami, Florida, and end up becoming a full-time business that would net him over $100,000 a year.
We interviewed Zach about all aspects of Bike Blend and we hope that it inspires you to take the leap, get a bike blender and start a business that spreads bike culture and makes you a lot of money!
You can watch the interview on our YouTube channel.
Please also check out our interview with Denisha Blake, founder, Pedal Powered Smoothie Bar:
If you’re interested in starting a bike blending business, please contact us at customerservice@rockthebike.com, 888-354-2453, or visit rockthebike.com
Connect with Zach and Blend Bike:
https://www.instagram.com/blendbike/
YouTube: @blendbike6118
Transcript from the interview:
Hello, my name is Joey Chang. I’m on the sales team at Rock the Bike. And today we have our founder Paul Freedman as well as Zack Kramer from Blend Bike. Welcome, Zach.
Zach
Thank you excited to be here and talk to you guys over at Rock the Bike.
Joey
Right on. So tell us a little bit about your story and how Blend Bike came to exist.
Zach
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ve been bartending for nearly 10 years by the time I started Blend Bike. And it was during the pandemic like a lot of people we had to kind of shuffle our feet and reinvent ourselves. I was bartending in New York City at the time, which had very strict COVID lockdown regulations like I’m sure you did in California. Being that way restaurants will shut down for a long time and I didn’t have any income and needed something to do. So I was brainstorming, thinking of like projects I could do what should I try to do to occupy my time at least that’s productive, if not like a financial business venture? In brainstorming, I literally wrote down a bunch of ideas. And one of them dates back all the way to like 2014. I was living in Australia at the time and I saw a guy making smoothies or cocktails (I don’t know what) on a bike and he was just doing it on the beach. It didn’t look like a commercial thing. It didn’t have any signage, but I felt like that is so cool. What if I tried to make that like a little side hustle or business and then I had forgotten about it for years and years and then when trying to come up with an idea for something that could at least occupy my time during COVID that came up and just got a lot of momentum from there and once the ball started rolling.
Joey
So did you just go online and type in bike blender or were you like trying to buy one or were you going to make one or?
Zach
Absolutely yeah, I was playing around with the idea of like, what to do how to do it. So I did a lot of research saw that there are some people especially like you and a few others out there that were doing this. And I had seen through an Instagram post of yours that I guy in Australia which kind of connected back to like, where it all originated for me was doing it in Melbourne I believe. And he was using a Yuba Mundo Cargo Bike so I kind of really liked the style of his. I like the ability that he could ride to the events and kind of was mobile so I wanted to kind of run off that and I thought that I could do some things on my own that would improve the concept.
Joey
Wow, cool. So that’s your bike in your background there. That’s a Yuba Mundo cargo bike.
Zach
That is a Yuba Mundo cargo bike that I modded. As you see it has cabinets and a table and an oversized front basket with a cooler and yeah, that thing rides around.
Paul
Was the original person that you saw in Australia, the same person that we had linked on Instagram or a different person?
Zach
It was definitely a different person. It is a very faint memory. It was just one of those things. I saw it in passing almost like at a beach. I can’t even remember exactly where but I don’t believe it was the same the same person.
Paul
So there are tests I think I know the person that we were linking to in Melbourne because it’s a personal connection. Okay, but that was not the person that initially gave you that nugget of
Zach
No, I saw it in Sydney, so wouldn’t have been the same person. Okay, cool.
Joey
So how long did it take for you to build that cart portion over the back of the Yuba bike?
Zach
Yeah, cart portion specifically was probably the most complicated because I hadn’t seen anyone do it and I was just trying to figure it out. So I’d say it took me, like, at least a month, almost two months, but that’s mostly due to ordering something finding out it didn’t work or going to a store buying something trying to put on a bike, didn’t like the way it looked and kind of going back and forth. If I had to do it again, I could do it in a week’s time.
Joey
And what was the materials cost on that?
Zach
Um, to mod the Yuba and everything. I’d say like $500.
Joey
Okay, so not too bad. Not too bad.
Zach
Not too bad. If I had to redo it again. I think I could do it for like $500. Yeah, I did take apart the whole bike sanded it down and put it back together, which was a little bit of a daunting task because I’ve worked on bikes a little bit but never took them one all the way apart. I wasn’t sure if I was going to be able to put it back together, but I did.
Paul
Nice What did you use for a kickstand when you blend
Zach
Originally I used plastic folding step stools and now I found a nicer version which is actually metal but it has a wood finish on the outside. Just sturdier and stronger, I can put people that are over 300 pounds on my bike and not be scared.
Paul
So you put them under the side racks of the Mundo?
Zach
Yeah, that’s right. So I mean my picture you can see here, right there is where the stools will go as people can use milk crates. But yeah, you have to lift for that bike to work you have to lift the back tire. I usually have just like a half inch of clearance like barely anything.
Paul
Did you custom paint?
Zach
Yeah, I did. I found a website, a company called spray bike or spray.bike.us or something? And they do powder coat finishes and some paint that’s designed to customize the bike do crazy patterns, but I just wanted to go with a straight color for this one.
Joey
It looks great.
Paul
They sent a supplies to you or did you have to bring them the bike?
Zach
I did it myself. I just ordered the paint and did it literally under a bridge in NYC. I had to go to an outdoor space that was nearby because I couldn’t do it in my apartment or I’d suffocate from the fumes. So I just took it under a bridge because it was kind of sprinkly the week that I was doing it. So spray painted it there.
Joey
Heck yeah, DIY. So moving on to talk about your marketing and your advertising. How do you get gigs?
Zach
So I first started getting gigs, doing marketing online, and I used a website called thumbtack. They’re a website where you can book services. When people find my services, they’ll either Google private event bartender or food or beverage cart for events or food trucks and then I come up as an option as a profile that they can see.
Joey
Okay, smart thumb tack. I’ve heard of that. I’ve used it. Yeah, um, so do you do like physical advertising as well? Or is it all digital?
Zach
Um, other than me physically being somewhere and people seeing me it’s all digital. I don’t have a billboard or posters up over town.
Joey
So word of mouth is super important to your business then, can you talk about how word of mouth plays out in your business?
Zach
Yeah, absolutely. Word of mouth is super important for my business and what I do, through working events, people will ask the host of a previous event like where do you find this guy? How can I get them and that’s great word of mouth. Another great word of mouth is when I’m at events, I try to network with other vendors, and say like, Oh, you do sushi. Like maybe I’ll get an event booking later on and they’ll ask me if I know a person that can do food, or so I try to be friendly with other local businesses too, and help each other out whenever possible. And that’s another great way to get bookings.
Joey
Very smart. So do you get a lot of inquiries direct through your website? And did you build the website before you started doing the gigs or did you think after you did gigs oh, I need a website.
Zach
Yeah, the website came a little bit later. It was something new for me and I didn’t want to like invest that time initially before I knew that I could even do it. Like being a vendor or drink vendor. So I got the website, probably four months into it. My wife actually is a photographer and she has her own photography website and she did it herself. So I saved a lot of costs by having her kind of hop on and do it for me. I think it’s ready for a revamp, but yeah, I got a pretty nice website.
Joey
Cool. So where do you do bike blending? You do private events, but you also do some public events, right?
Zach
We do private events through clients booking us and those are always in like a set package rate. Whether it’s cocktails or smoothies, we do a maximum # of savings or with cocktails it’s sometimes unlimited. And then with public events, there’s usually an organizer of a public event, whether it’s at a local festival or a farmers market, and we just do individual transactions there. There’s usually some type of vendor’s fee and we just go there and hope for the best.
Joey
Okay. So do you find that you get a lot of private clients by showing up at farmer’s markets and other events that are just for the public?
Zach
Yeah, definitely. I always try to market myself. I have business cards on our bar and when we’re doing farmers’ markets and whenever I have the spare moment to mention, I always say, “We do private events.” It’s great for kids’ parties for smoothies or a full-blown cocktail party by the pool.
Joey
Nice. So do you ever do pop-ups where you’re not necessarily invited? You just kind of like oh, there’s a big street fair happening. I’ll just show up and bring my stuff and see what happens.
Zach
At least where I live in Miami, they would not really enjoy me just showing up. So it’s definitely more of back and forth of seeing if they have space for me to set up and what kind of vendor fee is associated. So I never just pull up to something going on.
Paul
Can you talk about the way that you meet the health requirements? What are some of the steps that you’ve taken? How often do you have to actually apply for a health code permit for that event or series of events?
Zach
I’ve never had to apply for a health permit. I do have something called the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services FDACS. They and they gave me a license to be a food vendor at markets, flea markets, farmer’s markets and beyond. So have relicensing through them. I have a safety certificate which I needed. I also have a little commercial kitchen which is required for you to get the license from the Department of Agriculture services.
Paul
Does that mean that you go somewhere to prep your gigs?
Zach
Yeah, I do. I prep on-site when it’s possible, but really with using frozen ingredients, I usually prep at a commercial kitchen. And then to finish off the question, I also had to get like general liability insurance or liability and of course started LLC. There’s all these things that go into making your business legit and safe and legal before you go into business.
Joey
Did you do that when you were like for your very first before your very first gig or was this all for being at a farmers market?
Zach
I really did all this before I did anything. Oh, it was a big commitment, but I just had the time and had the momentum with building the bike and said if I’m going to do this, I’m going to do it right and legal. I don’t want to get a fine or have like a negative mark on my business before it’s even legit. So yeah, I did it all the right way right away.
Joey
And was that just like a matter of calling up your county and finding the right department and saying hey, what kind of licenses and certifications do I need?
Zach
Yeah, there’s definitely that and just the preliminary online research of how to do that. What step is this? And before I get this approval, what are the requirements I need to meet? Yes, just went from there and just kind of followed step by step and called Local Services whenever a question arose.
Joey
Nice. Do you have any special especially memorable gigs that you’ve done? Maybe there were celebrities or, you know, an epic location?
Zach
Yeah, definitely. It’s hard to just name one, but having the amazing privilege of being in Miami, Florida, the weather’s great year-round, so we do a lot of cool events whether it’s at a hotel or in someone’s backyard. We also often find ourselves in private events by a pool which is very fun and also some events that I’ve done at private residences, which have waterfront access as their backyard so I’m literally on the beach with the ocean behind me, serving drinks. And those are always really fun. Top three would be last year’s Halloween parties they were just crazy. And I just love people going overboard with the costumes and having fun and I dressed up myself. We did a huge mansion event for the Bitcoin side of Miami. And that was really like high-end. We were doing really amazing drinks. And it was just a great experience. And then the third would be bachelorette parties. They’re crazy.
Joey
Sounds like you have a lot of fun doing this job.
Zach
Yeah, I definitely do. It’s really cool. I pinch myself sometimes and say like, Is this really my job?
Joey
So on the note of doing the Bitcoin mansion, you said you were serving up some really amazing drinks. Do you want to talk a little bit about like your favorite smoothie recipes or your favorite alcoholic blended beverage?
Zach
All the recipes that we do for smoothies, I came up with myself. Pulling inspiration from other places and tweaking them as I felt needed. My favorite smoothie that we do is a coffee smoothie. It’s like a frappuccino smoothie hybrid. It’s got a cold brew coffee concentrate that we brew ourselves with almond milk, peanut butter, banana, cacao, nibs, and local honey and it’s so good. Like a smoothie Frappuccino hybrid, a little bit decadent. And it definitely packs a punch of caffeine which helps me go into the day. For cocktails. I’d like to always offer the option to do blended cocktails and nonblended cocktails. Because for certain events, especially where I’m the only bartender or bar service, I mean, then it’s nice to give people the option to have a nonblended cocktail too. My favorite one would probably be our spicy dragon fruit Margarita, which we use locally sourced red dragon fruit for it has this bright neon-like radioactive purple color, but it’s actually 100% natural, organic, and it tastes awesome.
Paul
Pitaya, Right? That doesn’t have a very doesn’t have a particularly strong taste. It kind of just has a blending taste. Is that true?
Zach
Yeah, I would say it’s a very light taste. I like that option to have that as a cocktail because it’s just nonoffensive. Like you barely taste the dragon fruit in it. So it’s still just a classic Margarita with a little bit of extra taste and a whole lot of color and you taste with your eyes sometimes.
Paul
I’ve used watermelon to do what you’re describing and basically adding some fruit to the margarita so it’s not just blending the ice, but some people like it. Some people don’t. some people prefer the traditional Margarita with no fruit.
Zach
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, when we do like strawberry margarita or strawberry daiquiri, we use whole frozen strawberries and just throw them in. And it definitely makes it so much better than using an artificial strawberry mix.
Paul
When you use pitaya, do you use fresh or frozen?
Zach
I use frozen, but I buy from a local farm, cut it, and freeze it myself.
Joey
Quick question: Do you put ice in your smoothies or do you just let the frozen fruit be the ice component?
Zach
Minimal ice is the answer. You do not want to use a ton of ice otherwise, you’ll have this kind of ice crystal texture to your drink, which just feels cheap and off and then as it melts, it feels diluted because you’re drinking water and not even ice at that point. So for certain recipes, I’ll use a little bit more ice but I would say less than 10%. In all of our smoothies some of these literally don’t use a single cube of ice.
Joey
What about superfoods or powders like protein powders or stuff like that? Do you avoid those or do you throw those in?
Zach
Yeah, I leave it as an option. It’s kind of an upcharge and a way for me to make a little bit more money on each smoothie. With the exception of one smoothie, we have a green smoothie, which is called The Vitamin C. It’s got spinach, kiwi, strawberry, banana, coconut water, and sea moss. And sea moss is definitely trending. You can say super food or supplement has naturally occurring collagen and it’s vegan which is hard to find and usually comes from animal products in terms of micronutrients. So that’s when it has it always.
Joey
So what are the considerations that you have to keep in mind for doing an alcoholic beverage service.
Zach
Just like in a normal bar you can’t over-serve people. You have to make sure everyone is of age to drink alcohol. And it is a case-to-case basis. As a general rule, the host has to provide the alcohol as we operate our business, whether that’s a hotel or at a private residence. We help aid them with a suggested shopping list. So the number of guests, number of hours, and drinks that are going to be on the menu that day and they have to provide it.
Joey
And do you find that you make more money doing the alcoholic beverage service or the smoothies?
Zach
It honestly depends. It would seem obvious that alcohol would be more but it’s really a case-to-case basis.
Joey
Wow. Okay. So talking about business. I’ve got a lot of questions for you here. I just kind of want to breeze through them. What was your what do you think your startup costs? For this business was roughly.
Zach
between 30 and $40,000.
Joey
Okay, so not crazy, but also a pretty good chunk of change to throw in to start this business.
Zach
When I started I didn’t know it’s going to be quite that much but it’s working out now.
Joey
Nice so how’s it going in terms of paying back on that initial investment and how’s the business going?
Zach
It’s going good. It took me six months of like really kind of breaking even which for a lot of other businesses, it’s not that fast. So I felt pretty good about that. I’m on my second year now, but the first year I really didn’t make too much money, but I was happy doing what I was doing. It was exciting times, I was learning and setting myself up for success for the next year. And this year, we’ve done $100,000 in profit, like $150,000 in sales right now, which is pretty epic. I’m pretty proud of myself for where it’s at and I hope to just keep seeing it growing.
Joey
Yeah, dang, you should give yourself a pat on the back for that. That’s amazing. Um, so you often talk about “we,” do you have employees? Do you have helpers? Do you have contractors? Is it a one man show?
Zach
Absolutely. So for the majority of our events, I really am a one-man show. I’ve over the last two years, I’ve gotten really efficient at handling small and medium-sized jobs by myself. I’ve learned that I can be all it takes. But of course, I can’t be everything for these huge events. So I contract other staff to jump on for these events. And as we grow, I hope to get more of a full-time employee lineup so we can expand, but to answer the question, it is mostly me, but for huge events, we have up to three additional staff on being a team of four for these large events. We’ve done huge, corporate events with like 600-700 smoothies and yeah, it gets to be a lot. We have two bikes now. That bike is our main baby, but we do have a bike just like the one behind you that we also use. It’s even green too. We have two bikes. So we’re able to do large events that require more bicycles, and bigger bar space. We have the set up for two booths.
And we can also do two simultaneous events.
Joey
Now that you have two bikes, where do you store all your stuff?
Zach
I have a storage unit. Nothing fancy.
Joey
Are there certain things that you love about your bike lending business?
And then are there certain challenges in running the business?
Zach
Yeah, I like the learning aspect that I’ve gotten to this far. I’ve learned a ton. Key point is I really love just bringing something new to people and just watching them smile.
Sometimes they’ll order a drink and then see that I invite them on the bike and are confused and they’re like, “What’s going on?” It’s so fun to watch people laugh and be surprised and be engaged in something that could be pretty mundane like ordering a drink and having this whole fun, interactive aspect of watching your family member or friend hop on a bike. It’s really rewarding to bring a smile to peoples’ faces.
As a bartender, I always cared about the experience of it. Your favorite bar or restaurant isn’t necessarily the place that has the best food and it’s really the place that gives you the best feeling and makes you leaving happy. And that’s what I try to do with my services. Give people an amazing experience while also providing top quality products.
Joey
So what’s challenging about running the business? Do you feel overwhelmed, you feel like “Ah! I’m in over my head!”
Zach
There are a lot of moving parts in doing certain events. There are a million things I need to bring in if one thing is off it’s kind of like, oh, I should’ve brought that! So I have a checklist and it helps to save the day a lot of times. And yeah, it’s cool. There are challenging parts to it. But you overcome them and just have to work hard and sacrifice a lot of weekends. And that’s when most events are for markets or private events. So if you value your weekends, maybe this isn’t the right job for you. If you’re happy to go hang out at a beach or a park on a Wednesday, or whatever, this is perfect.
Joey
Nice. So can you talk a little bit about how you think about pricing and what your strategy is around setting your prices?
Zach
Yeah. For private events, I have four factors basically, that combine to a sum of a cost, because everyone’s event is so different depending on their needs.
From the number of guests they have, the number of hours, the number of bikes, etc. So I have four factors, the first one being the bar rental, the second one being the staff, and number of hours combined. The third one would be any travel costs associated with it. I say within 25 miles of our home base is free and then it goes up from there. And then the fourth one is the drinks. With smoothies, I do have a set package. So it will be in increments of 50 and we also have three different sizes too: 5 oz, 10 oz and 17 oz. So these factors all come together, build a package and then the cocktails it’s more of an unlimited package. Standard or classic and then premium. Flower garnishes, water, juices, and stuff like that.
For individual transactions at farmer’s market for example. I have a background in bartending and cost of goods.
Joey
And that’s something like you charge three times or some multiple of whatever the cost of the ingredients is.
Zach
Yeah. I’ll keep my cost of goods a secret.
Joey
All right. Well, I’m sure that people that are watching this are just dying to know like, well, what kind of money can if I started my own bike blending business and I was able to get it up and running and it looked all professional and I did all that work. Like, what’s the range of a typical private event?
Zach
Yeah, I started I used to do events that were as low as $500. But I’ve learned to kind of value myself in my time more so now we have a minimum of $1,000 we do a little bit less for like, schools and nonprofits by booking case by case by case by booking, but yeah, like starting at $1,000. We’ve done events that are upwards of like $5,000 for one day of bicycle blending, which is pretty epic. It can range. I’m in Miami and it’s in an area where there are people with wealth and big corporations and I think that definitely aids to it. And I’m definitely a little spoiled with 365 of fairly warm weather. So it’s definitely advantageous for being a mobile often outdoor ice cold drink service to be somewhere with warm weather. For anyone that’s looking to do this in a slightly colder climate. I think it could be awesome for seasonal work, especially because those people are really excited to get out and do things in the warmer months because they can’t in the winter.
Joey
So how often do you travel to a gig by bicycle and how often do you use a motor vehicle?
Zach
I have never traveled to a gig by bicycle because I wanted to follow health safety regulations and that means I have a portable sink. It’s heavy, it has a self-contained clean and then grey water. And I was never able to quite figure out a way to bring that on the bike. So my dream was to be totally mobile and ride my bike around. But logistically and keeping things sanitary and healthy, especially when I started this business during COVID that was a very high concern for a lot of people. I’ve always driven to events and I have a big truck with cargo that I am able to put everything into so I drive every time.
Joey
All right, but at least when you’re at gigs, people are seeing a bike and it makes them think about that bike that’s gathering dust in their garage and maybe they should get it out and go for a ride.
Zach
Yeah, I really hope so. I often ask when was the last time you hopped on a bike before? Before people hop on mine and it’s always fun to hear people’s answers because some people will say 10 years some people will say last week.
But it definitely kind of gets people back in that motion of riding a bike and thinking this is fun. Why don’t I ride my bike more often? Or? Yeah, why don’t I invite that friend that I haven’t seen in a while you could go on a bike ride instead of going to a restaurant or something. It just puts that idea in people’s heads and definitely promotes like a fun, physical activity, get your heart rate up and yeah, just brings joy to people and honestly like in my opinion, like exercise is like one of the strongest medicines for mental health and of course physical health.
Joey
I totally agree. Well, wrapping up here would you recommend other people to get into this business? Are you concerned about competition? I mean, maybe in Miami, it’s a big enough city, but maybe there’s only room for one bike blender and what do you have to say to people that are intrigued by this concept? Do you recommend that they would start it up?
Zach
Yeah, go for it. A high tide raises all ships is a saying I like. Everyone goes up, it helps everyone. So I invite anyone to try even in Miami, hop on. It’s a fun job. It is work just like anything. There’s definitely a physical labor aspect to it and setting up a bar and a bike and hundreds of pounds of fruit and juices and ice and such. But in saying that it’s well worth it. I’ve never been a guy that wanted to have a desk job and this is absolutely not a desk job. So it’s really fun. And if you want to do it just write down some numbers see what could be and yeah, start smaller maybe, and just go from there and see how it’s happening. Also, if you wanted to like supplement this business, getting into like traditional bartending where you don’t have the bike, or just having a lemonade stand or something that like kind of supplements, the business where you can kind of do like two things. You’re feeding two different sides of the street and it helps a lot just by doing smoothies and cocktails.
Joey
Awesome. Well, I feel like we learned a ton. It was really great to be able to meet over video chat with you and learn all about your business.
Zach
Yeah, it’s awesome speaking to you guys, legends of bike peddaling Yeah, it’s awesome.
Paul
We were going to ask if you had any questions for us and then I add one or two more business questions for you.
Zach
Yeah, questions for you: the easiest one is like how do you get started? I googled you a little bit before I saw you used to rap on bicycles
Paul
For Bike Blending, it wasn’t me. It was a friend that I was sharing a workshop with and he was doing a similar business model to you kind of focused on festivals. It was called the Juice Peddler and it was my friend Nate Byerly. And then I was supporting him as a friend because when he would do a gig, you know how it is so we would need three or four people. And then he started getting the private inquiries for both the bikes and services. So we ended up taking over his business in 2008 because he wanted to do something else with his life at that point. Specifically, he and his girlfriend got pregnant and he wanted to get a more stable income, vs an entrepreneur’s income. So that was when we took over the bike blending business and made it our own. He was already calling it the Fender Blender. We started calling it the Fender Blender Pro. Because we had different models like the one that you have the Fender Blender Mundo. And then as for how it kind of integrated with the musical side because I was doing the street performing like you were mentioning, I would say a good example of that was when we were hosting our own nonprofit music festival in San Francisco, the Bicycle Music Festival and we would have as a fundraiser at the music festival we would have a smoothie stand. And that’s where we would be featuring the bike blenders while live music was happening that we were organizing. So that was kind of a cool way of bringing it all together. My question for you is on the business side, Zach is like, it seems like you would do these public events to get the word out and then at a certain point, you would have enough private inquiries that they sort of just continued through word of mouth to keep coming in. And my thinking is that those would be better from a business standpoint. But I was wondering if you could speak to that. Is it true that at a certain point, the private ones are just kind of where it’s at? Or do you feel like there’s an inherent advantage and sticking with your farmers market appearances, both revenue wise or to sustain a certain amount of incoming inquiries?
Zach
Yeah, so fortunately, the markets that I’m involved in are really flexible for me. I’m sure some markets are in certain areas are going to say you’re signing up for six months or you miss two weeks, you’re out something along this nature. But luckily, they allow me to kind of come and go as needed, which allows me to do private events as much as possible, and then supplement kind of like a safety net to do these markets to keep income coming in for a Saturday or Sunday. private events are definitely the way to go. If I could do only private events, that would be awesome. It would be better for my business. But it’s not the case of 52 weekends a year that have bookings and mentioning that I do get booked, more and more weekdays now which is great, mostly for health and wellness corporate events as well as a few other different things. But private events are where it’s at. It’s a little bit more of a gamble, but these bigger festivals can be amazing. But also it’s hard to gauge with private events, you know, how many people are gonna be there or roughly and how much materials to bring and how much to charge and even if something isn’t used you charged for it. So you’re walking out okay. But with these big festivals, it can be high risk, high reward where you could bring so much product and be ready for battle on the smoothie bikes selling a million smoothies, and then the expected turnout or the weather just isn’t in your favor. And vice versa. It can be incredible when you just have a huge line and all these people are waiting to get your drinks and you’re selling out even early in the day. Private events are where it’s at. I’m going to continue to try to market myself more in private events and hopefully drift further and further away from the farmers market but for someone that’s starting this business or looking into doing it, it’s the place where you can test out, get real-time feedback on how you’re doing learn from your mistakes. Because if you’re booking with a private client for $1,000 and something goes wrong or you’re not on your game, it’s gonna be way different than if you mess up one person’s smoothie at a public market. The question for you guys is how often are you personally running events and do you guys do many private events it seems that you guys are doing a lot of sales and rentals of the bikes, but how often are you getting booked for private events that are not your own run festivals?
Paul
It’s the majority of our event work. Personally, I will go and do bike blending five to 10 times a year. Okay, five times a year. Joey.
Joey
I’ve done a lot of events in the last few months. Mostly health and wellness fairs and company parties like Employee Appreciation Day where they go out to a park and have a barbecue and they bring us out. I don’t know probably about 10 events in the last three months or so.
Paul
We don’t put on public events like you’re describing where you go to market. Yeah, but the closest thing that we do would be we have a concert that we do every year that’s a block party here in Oakland. And they hire us to do a pedal-powered stage where there are 10 people powering the music and at that event because it’s going to be in the street in the sun. We always bring smoothie stuff to be giving away to continuously have goodwill in our space and make kids happy and families happy and if someone’s pedaling in the sun, we can offer them a cold smoothie. It just really takes things over the top in terms of creating a vibe of celebration, and gratitude and so we will end up giving away smoothies at an event where we’re being hired for music.
Zach
Nice. I like that a lot. One more question. I saw you have a bike that the entire frame lights up a little bit that and maybe a little bit more exciting new products that you guys are tinkering with and can give us a sneak preview of
Paul
Yeah, that illuminated bike blender is really good for margaritas because it’s the right color for margaritas and in a darkened space, it creates an electric moment when someone’s making the margarita. It puts them as the star of the show even more than what you’re used to with the bike blender. Everyone turns. The moment of anticipation as they’re blending. And we only have a single custom one of them. We’re entertaining trying to do a small run of them like five to 10 more and they would probably cost two to three times more than what we charge for the fender bender Pro. And because they’re going to be handmade for the time being. If you had the right event for it, like a really fancy pool party, we would potentially ship it to Miami for a rental.
Zach
Awesome I’ll keep it in mind. If a client ever asked me if I have any tricks up my sleeve I might bust that out.
Paul
Yeah, and then also you could do that with any fender bender pro by getting the off the wall wheel. So then that would be an electric fender bender pro because it would be bike blending with mechanical power and electrical generating with the Off the Wall wheel at the same time. Then you could use the Off the Wall wheel to power the light and make the ground glow underneath it with this new product that we have called Here We Glow. So as long as we’re talking about off-the-shelf options, you could have an off-the-shelf path to having a light that turns on only when someone’s making the margarita.
Zach
That’s pretty awesome. Right now with my Fender Blender Pro, I bought a light that hooks up along the rim on the outside of the rim. weave through the spokes. So when biking at nighttime, we have the front wheel illuminated. It’s pretty cool. I haven’t shared that with the world yet, but we’ve done it already.
Paul
Did you remove the wheel covers to do that?
Zach
Yes, the wheel cover has to be so wide open. So you can see through spokes.
Zach
Yeah, and another thing that we’re doing that’s exciting and I wanted to touch base on it’s something we’ve been working on is brand activations. I know you guys do the wheel cover hub. But I’ve found local printing companies that can do it on the fly, or even do it myself and with my Yuba Mundo we cover the whole signage with other companies’ brands and it creates a really great brand awareness. It’s great for booking and working with clients or corporations that want to get their product known or show that they are sponsoring the smoothie bike at the event. But yeah, so an exciting world. It’s so cool to talk to other like-minded heads. You guys have been doing this since you said 2008
Paul
Yep, that’s when we took over the bike blender business, but then we were actually supporting that since about 2005.
Zach
That’s incredible. It’s a legacy.
Joey
Yep. Right on. Well, thanks so much for your questions Zack and thanks so much for sharing all these details about your business. This has been amazing and can’t wait to share this with the community. Yeah, absolutely. I’m excited to talk about it. If anyone has any follow-up questions feel free to shoot me a DM @blendbike on Instagram.
Zach
And yes, absolutely a pleasure. Cool opportunity to connect with you guys. And for anyone out there that’s listening, I continue to buy Rock the Bike products to support my business and it’s a cool partnership that we have. And without you, I wouldn’t be in business. That’s the Yuba Mundo hookup that we have on the bike behind me. Powered by Rock the Bike.
Joey
Right on Blend Bike. So thank you so much you guys. Alright, thanks Zach. Thank you guys.
Transcribed by https://otter.ai and edited by Joey Chang