Ide Bisnis Unik (Unique Business Ideas)

On a recent Tuesday morning, Lev Ekster paced around his future store front in Manhattan’s newly opened Limelight Marketplace. He adjusted the 1960s kitchen-kitsch inspired decor and awaited the delivery of a cupcake display case. It would be the first non-mobile location of Cupcake Stop, the gourmet cupcake truck he debuted on the New York streets last May. If you needed proof that people love cupcakes, let this be it. Ekster, 26, could be considered one lucky entrepreneur: He lives in what might be epicenter of the artisanfood movement – Brooklyn, New York – and found himself itching for ideas right as both the food truck phenomenon and the cupcake trend took off.

"It is a business you can open up in your own home. I mean, every baker starts like that," Leon says. Starting small, baking from home is one thing; financing a location in an urban area is another. Even the booming gourmet food truck movement has a fairly steep financial barrier to entry. A used step truck can be found in the $20,000 to $50,000 range, but retro fitting it to fit health inspections and work for vending will more than double that. "People think, Oh, start a truck, you'll make a million, but even after I had the truck, I had to rent a bakery and hire a staff," Ekster says. "I looked for store front spaces, but in the recession or not, I just could not afford it. "Selling cupcakes for $2.50 each at a couple of hundred per day (Cupcake Stop might sell just 100 on a rainy day, but might stock, and run out of, 500 on a busy, sunny, Saturday in SoHo), is sustainable as a business, but it isn't much to bank on.

"You can make more money selling cupcakes outside than at an event, only an event is guaranteed," Ekster says. "You sign a contract and rain or shine you get paid." He likes that his business is still small enough that he can retain control of quality assurance ("I personally taste and approve every kind of cupcake," he says) and even customer support. For today, Ekster's goals are to get his South Street Seaport truck up and running, complete staffing at his Limelight location, and ensure the store front at his New Jersey bakery is running smoothly. For tomorrow? "I'd like to be shipping 100 orders a day and selling 1,000 cupcakes a day," he says. "That will be great. Then I sleep."

Source: Inc