Our  small food business pitch this week is from Cheescake Café, founded by Frank Tamara. Pitching your business is difficult so I have provided some helpful ideas as your read Pitching Cheesecake Café.

Cheesecake Café Business Pitch Critique

Raising capital, getting on the Retail Shelf or getting your customer to hit the "add to my cart" button, you have to start with developing your pitch.

Product Positioning

Before a business pitch is created or a marketing plan developed, the food entrepreneur needs to create product positioning and the Positioning Statement is the place to start.

Over the next several weeks I will be featuring several of my clients as they develop their product positioning and pitches. In fact several will be at the Own it Ventures Pitching Conference on March 20 in New York.

Positioning statements succinctly communicate everything about your brand that consumer needs to know. Too many of you waste money on web designers, people designing your packaging and your advertising without spending time on thinking about these critical marketing elements of your food product.

Although there was much information missing from the pitch to create a winning positioning statement, I took a shot at creating one to give you an idea on what to do for your artisan or specialty food brand.

Example "foodpreneur" Positioning Statement

To the shopper looking for mini piece of heaven, Cheesecake Café is the alternative to store bought desserts laden with fillers and artificial ingredients that just don't belong in a cheesecake! Cheesecake Café products appeal to those customers seeking "right-sized" desserts in a Gluten Free format. Our products use all natural vanilla and fun flavors like Baileys Irish Cream.

So what do you think?

A Candidate for Crowdfunding

Companies like Cheesecake Cafe will find it virtually impossible to raise capital either as equity or as a bank line of credit. So where this company should focus their efforts is Crowdfunding with platforms like ProHatch. Why? Capital needs are relatively small. The more intriguing component of crowdfunding is the social media "crowd" component.

When using crowdfunding, you are exposing your potential customers to your product prior to new product launch. So you get the benefit of creating awareness and the potential for raising capital. For food businesses seeking crowdfunding capital, you must provide a reward in return for the donated moeny to your company. And who would not want a supply of cheesecake in exchange for your small investment!

Would you like some help with your Product Positioning Statement?

Drop me a note to check yours out.

Look forward to seeing all of you at the Own it Ventures Business Pitch Conference!