Entrepreneur documents business scaling journeyfrom @bad.hambres

Transcript

I'm Rank, and twelve months ago, I quit my nine to five job to start a frozen bean and cheese burrito company with my wife, Sam. We sold a 116,000 burritos in our first year, crushed our projections, and we're still broke. We poured everything into this, took it from our home kitchen to a team in an old Taco Bell delivering our burritos Arizona wide. But here's the catch. We haven't paid ourselves once, and our savings are almost gone. So we're betting big on national shipping. The demand is there, but it turns out this Taco Bell can barely keep up with Arizona, let alone the country. To keep this best dream alive, we need more room. We have to scale. So we have two options. Number one, build our own facility with cash and years we don't have. That's how. Or two, find a manufacturing partner. The problem is manufacturers go after big money, safe better, and worst either. And even if one said yes, could they do it our way? Quality is our thing. That's what keeps me up at night, but it's our best shot to scale and start paying ourselves. So we pitched 14 manufacturers. Most ghosted us. A few bailed as soon as they heard about our bean cooking process. Too intense. That left three contenders. So I got on a plane, met the teams, walked the kitchens. Search nationwide, but only one felt right. And by some miracle, they're twenty minutes down the road and already our customers. That's when I realized Oh my god. This could work. Our burritos would stay Arizona made, and we'd be there to keep the quality perfect. But I know what you're thinking. What about our team? The crew's not going anywhere. We're turning our Taco Bell into a test kitchen for new flavors and collabs. But here's the thing, we still haven't signed with the manufacturer. It all comes down to the first test run. If they can nail our burrito, we're going national. If not, we're back to square one. We're bad hombres. Follow along to see how far this best dream goes.