We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Christopher Ingram a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Christopher, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Any thoughts about whether to ask friends and family to support your business. What’s okay in your view?
Starting any new business venture can be scary, especially as a first time entrepreneur, so support from friends and family can go a long way. In this social media era, support from friends & family can is as easy as a: share/like/repost . Having friends and family make purchases from you will help you tighten your process for new first time customers. A common mistake I see new business owners make is mistaking friend and family purchases for ” success.” Often times friends and family will make purchases/orders from you sheerly as a show of support not necessarily because they need/want your product. Success will come when you step outside of your comfort zone and branch out to the masses.
Christopher, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Chef Chris and Chef Kash met at Le Cordon Bleu University, many would think our story would begin right after graduation but that isn’t our story. It isn’t a secret that beginner chefs don’t make much money when first starting off, so Chef Kash and I pursued other careers after graduation. A year or so later we both realized cooking was our passion and teamed up to start Bando Verde. We began as a meal prep company, which led to catering, which led to event vending, which led to restaurant menu curation, which then led to wholesaling of sauce and we are hoping to turn into a food truck business. Being culinary school graduates our menu is vast. We are well versed in classical French cuisine, coupled with our southern upbringing and love for international foods which leads to very imaginative dishes. We try and change the narrative of the chefs, it is a wide misnomer that chefs are snobby and rude. We pride ourselves in being humble, personable, and able to solve our customers problem. Being humble and personable has taken us further than we could’ve realized, it even landed Chef Chris with 2 features on Food Network ( Guys Grocery Games & Big Bad Budget Battle)
Where do you think you get most of your clients from?
The best source of new clients for us have been client referrals and vending events.
Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?
The good thing about starting a meal prep business is that you don’t need much capital to start. Chef Kash and I pooled together funds from our job and hosted a menu tasting, where we sold tickets and invited people to come taste our proposed menu items and rate them using a chart. We took the money and knowledge from that event and launched the business.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.bandoverde.com
- Instagram: @bandoverdeatl
- Youtube: Bando Verde