Six Saturdays counting foot traffic with a clipboard before I sign anything for the tea shop

Dev Patel· Specialty tea and coffee retail shop idea, scouting locations on weekends· Idea stage, Retail & Resale·Aug 13

I am still at my job and my validation method for the tea and coffee shop is embarrassingly analogue. Six Saturdays now, three candidate blocks, a clipboard and a phone timer. I count people walking past the actual door, nine to eleven and two to four, twenty minutes at a time, and I note whether they are carrying a cup already.

What I have learned so far is mostly about myself. Block A feels busy and is mostly cars. Block B has half the people but they are walking slowly, with dogs and kids, which I think is the difference between traffic and customers. Block C is dead until noon and then fine, which matters a lot for a morning drink.

The part I cannot get past is converting a headcount into a number. If four hundred people pass in a morning, what fraction of them ever come in? I have no honest basis for a guess and every number I put in the spreadsheet is just my mood that day.

The other thing I keep noticing is that there is a chain coffee place two blocks from Block B, and I genuinely cannot tell if that is a warning or a signal that the demand is already proven.

How did you validate a location without simply deciding you liked it?

3 replies

Greg Foster· Open·4w

Your clipboard is better than what I did, which was stand outside a space twice and then fall in love with the tin ceiling.

One thing I would add to the count. Note where they are going, not just that they passed. On my street the eleven o clock crowd is walking from the garage to the lunch places and they are not stopping for anything, and the four o clock crowd is ambling and will stop. Same headcount, completely different value. If your Block B people are walking dogs and kids at a slow pace, that is the group that actually stops, and I would weight them heavily.

Sofia Ramirez· Idea stage·4w

Bakery version of the same problem, and my answer was to sell first and rent later. I have been doing two farmers markets for about seven months, which is a rented crowd as Greg says, but it does tell me what people actually buy at eight in the morning versus what I thought they would.

Before you sign anything, could you sell tea at one of your candidate blocks for a few Saturdays? A table, a permit if your city needs one, and a real price. Four hundred people walking past turns into an actual number of humans who handed you money, and that number is worth more than any conversion rate you can borrow.

Dev Patel· Idea stage·4w

Selling on the block before renting the block is so much better than more counting, and it is uncomfortable in the way that tells me it is the right next step. I have been hiding inside research for four months.

I checked this afternoon and my city has a temporary vendor permit that is not expensive and takes about two weeks, and there is a small Saturday market that sets up four blocks from Block B. Same customers, roughly. I am going to do three Saturdays with a folding table and see whether anyone actually wants loose leaf tea from a stranger before I sign a five year anything.

Sign in to reply

Replying and upvoting need a free LaunchAdvisor account. Reading is open to everyone.