Sushi Delivery Pivot

Shaan tells a story about starting and then abandoning a profitable sushi delivery business at age 21.

"We started a sushi restaurant chain in Denver. Instead of signing a 10-year lease and building out a physical location for $500,000, we used a cloud kitchen model. We rented a commissary kitchen for $19 an hour.

We went floor to floor in skyscrapers to get customers. I'd find the front desk person, who was like a local influencer in the office, and ask if they ever did office catering. If they said yes, I'd offer to bring a free sample tray for them and their colleagues to try. If they liked it, we'd leave a menu.

We were profitable month one - made $13 the first month. By month three we were doing maybe $30,000 in revenue. But we were completely worn out. We were waking up at 4 AM, going to the fish market, staying until 11 PM doing private caterings, and washing dishes. We didn't know we should hire people - we just did everything ourselves.

We had a realization - the genius wasn't the sushi, it was the delivery part. People only ate sushi every couple weeks max. We thought 'we should just deliver whatever they actually want - sandwiches, burritos.' Instead of pivoting, we decided to quit entirely. We were young, hadn't committed to anyone, and figured our first business idea probably wasn't our best one."