Streetwise Marketing, Street-side

A couple of weeks back, I got a call from a marketing manager of En Point Technologies- a tech company based in Southern California. They had heard about The Chai Cart and asked if they could sponsor it at an event. From what I understood, it seemed like they wanted me to set up the cart in a courtyard in front of the building at 150 Spear St., where I would hand the attendees a dinCloud branded commuter cup of chai as they walked in to go to their office. 

 Sounds simple, right? Except when I got there at 7:45am on Tuesday morning, I realized the courtyard was in fact in the next building, in front of 160 Spear St. To add clutter to the confusion, there was construction going on in front of 150 Spear St. One of En Point’s employees, Shirley, who lives in the Bay Area, had come out to help with the event. She too had the same information I did (she was roped in last minute to oversee this event) and was equally unaware of the logistics. 

 This was when I was told the back-story. En Point Tech. owns a Cloud Service Provider called dinCloud. Forrester Research was hosting this event on Cloud Sourcing, but En Point was not invited to be part of it. Handing out chai in dinCloud branded commuter cups was En Point’s way to make their presence felt at the event. So, clearly, we were not welcome to not crash the event and could not set up a table in the lobby or anywhere else in the building. 

 I had ~200 cups of chai and I didn’t want to throw it all out. Thinking quickly, I told Shirley that we could set up on the sidewalk in front of the building. We were giving stuff for free, who would object to that? She was game. At first, it seemed awkward, soliciting people to take free drinks, but soon Shirley became a pro at peddling street chai and cookies. We stood there for about an hour, like two street hawkers talking about Cloud Computing. 

 Would you think this was unusual? Well, yes, one person did and he happened to be an analyst at Forrester Research, @Staten7, who tweeted 

#dinCloud crashes #Forr sourcing workshop in SF. Providing free chai and cookies in front of our bldg. Nice guerilla mktg. 

Two days later, I was cc-ed on an email from En Pointe’s Senior Marketing Manager sent to their CEO and the rest of the Marketing staff talking about the tweet. The team was excited that they got noticed. I had a hearty laugh. To be quite honest, I was feeling a bit bad that En Point had wasted money on this event, as the logistics didn’t work out as planned. So, it amused me when I read that it actually worked in their favor! In all the years I spent as a technology Marketing professional, I must say, this was surely the most unconventional marketing tactic I’ve seen. Much kudos to the team at En Pointe for thinking out of the box and being bold to execute something not many companies would!

America's first (formal) Chai Cart coming soon!

Remember the days when I used to sell chai in the Mission out of a bicycle cart? So, it turned out, it wasn’t quite legal to do that. A lot has changed with The Chai Cart business since then. For the last year, the main focus of the business has been the production and distribution of the Chai Brews, which are being sold in stores around the Bay Area. 

 The question I get asked most often is “Where can we find the cart?”. Ever since my bicycle got stolen on Labor Day last year, there has been no chai cart. 

How can “The Chai Cart“ have no cart? This had to be fixed. After all, I have to be true to the name. Plus, I wanted to get back to my roots of selling hot cups of chai on the streets of San Francisco. But this time I want it to be legit. I want to get a Health Dept approved cart and all the permits necessary. 

 If you've been to India, you probably remember the little carts on the side of the road selling chai and other goodies. My vision of a chai cart is very similar to those carts. 

Ideally, I would have liked to brew the chai on-site. After speaking to SF Heath Dept, I realized I would need to add quite a few things (like a 3-compartment sink, ventilation, etc), which would turn the cart into a food truck. But I really wanted was a simple cart and that meant I had to change my plan. I now plan to brew the chai at the commissary, fill the Cambro containers, and use the cart as a point of sale. The people at the SF Health Dept were very cooperative. They agreed to approve this plan if I complied with a few simple regulations. 

 Also, I need permits to park the cart at a particular spot. My application for two spots (one in the Financial District and the other on Valencia St in the Mission) is currently being processed by Dept of Public Works. 

 To finance the cart and the permit fees, I have a fundraising campaign on Kickstarter. You can help by giving $10 or more and receive cool rewards like vouchers for cups of chai or a gift bag with many of our products. There are only 17 days to go and I still have a long way to go to meet the goal. I want people to feel invested in The Chai Cart and this is a great way to make that happen. I hope others will also see the value in this and help me reach my goal of $10,000.