Today we’d like to introduce you to Sean Jaehne.
Sean, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Before I begin, I realize I may provide more information than what was intended for the scope of interviewing Pop Shop Spaces, but I am all about having full context. I was hoping you could choose what you think best to publish, but for me, this is the only way I can tell my story.
In 2015, I started Food Truck Spaces LLC after witnessing that food trucks, or mobile food units as they like to be called, continuously asked me to find them work (events) wherever it could be found. I worked in the bar industry, mostly on Washington Ave, where food trucks regularly sought visits. I realized that it was relatively easy for me to open up opportunities for them with places to serve, where otherwise, they’d often struggle to convince properties to host them.
Eventually, I saw that a single online service could potentially communicate all the needs and expectations of the food trucks looking for places to serve and for locations looking for food trucks to serve them. In all, it was a booking site designed specifically for the food truck industry. I commonly spoke about it to be “the Airbnb of the food truck industry.”
From 2016-2017, I had tremendous success overall, utilizing foodtruckspaces.com as the online conduit for Houston-only food trucks to book at mostly office buildings, apartments, bars, and schools. Though there were several major challenges along the way, I was able to establish booking right to approximately 120 locations at its peak. Working solely, it became increasingly overwhelming the more successful I became.
I knew I needed help, but I made the biggest mistake of my business-life thus far when I partnered with two individuals I originally saw as like-minded, business savvy, and morally-grounded. Unfortunately, this husband and wife team had from the beginning the intent to steal everything I spent two years building previously on my own. By mid-2018, their hostile takeover was complete, as I released my equity share to be released from the binds of our (suppose to mutually beneficial) contract that prevented me from receiving an income from my own company I created.
Though to any outside perspective, I can understand one might think that there’s two sides to this story, And yes, that other side was just pure greed. As the facts are these; they created our entire partnership agreement with their lawyer that didn’t initially represent as a client (whose best interest every lawyer is meant to protect before signing binding contracts), their partnership agreement required me to “get their permission” for any new jobs or independent creation of new businesses, and most hurtful in the long run was our mutual agreement that no income was going to be derived from company earnings until their “investments” were paid off in full. However, nine months later and $70K “investment” into our website (which originally only cost me some $300-500 to build) I was starving for income.
With the income restriction stipulation, they were able to put me in a financially desperate situation. They, on the other hand, ran at least two other businesses, one an eyelash boutique chain that provided them very comfortable living in the heart of River Oaks. Additionally, I was slowly cut-off from email communications with both properties and locations, under the pretext given by them, “Sean is too busy to answer, only communicate to us.” If that isn’t immoral, I have been in the wrong ethics class.
So here forward, I am sure this is the more heart of the story you are originally after. I will explain what I did after leaving my hard-earned company of Food Truck Spaces LLC.
Before leaving my former company, but AFTER I realized I was intentionally starved out, I created Pop Shop Spaces. Essentially this was the same service, but for the industry of pop-up vendors. By creating this new service, which I was transparent about, my former partners tried to use our contract to pressure me into further concessions or to leave my equity eventually. I was in a precarious position, and ultimately I did go obviously. However, I then continued Pop Shop Spaces and revived my food truck scheduling services under the new name Chase The Food Trucks, using chasethefoodtrucks.com as my new online conduit.
Pop Shop Spaces I still considered a bit experimental, as I was much more familiar with the food truck industry. In many respects, it was much more difficult. Where food trucks are just a variety of cuisines, the pop-up vendors are both diverse foods and merchandisers. The art of both industries is making the vendor variety match the events/locations, so sales performance are sufficient enough to justify my service to charge a service fee.
Though I briefly became the Midtown Farmers Market manager, I truly only desired to bring pop-up vendors into office buildings. I feel that those contexts are the most valuable opportunities for vendors to make sales, or at least receive customer exposure for future purchases. Some luxury apartments have also been good contexts, for which we have serviced just like the food trucks.
However, I recently decided to evolve Pop Shop Spaces to a whole new style of service. Up to this point, I attended and managed all expectations of each event. This was part of my learning experience I needed to better under this industry.
Now I wish to keep my services all online (without the need of my presence at events). The service will allow locations/events to shop through the site and procure any of the profiled vendors listed on our directory. Additionally, they can post their events where they can directly invite vendors to attend. All mentioned services to events/locations are completely free.
Vendors can make a profile and be added to the order master list for event hosts to find. If they so choose, vendors can upload all their products onto our online shop for customers to find and request orders for. For now, it won’t allow sales transactions over the service, but vendors receive customer orders with their contact information for them to make transactions between themselves. This is essentially Etsy, but more financially-friendly by not charging vendors for any other this service. Additionally, the service will list all known (active) markets in each city, and eventually tie in where vendors will be for customers to find them in-person.
Where I intend the service to generate revenue, is providing vendors the options of having their website and social media created and integrated. I found this to be a commonality among the pop-ups, where I estimate some 80-90% don’t have a business website, and some 60-70% don’t adequately use social media to promote their business. I hope to fill that niche while being price competitive on the fore mentioned attributes.
Sorry for the long, and I hope I didn’t come off as too ranting when describing my former partnership. To clarify, my legal business name now is The Vendor Sender LLC. Both Chase The Food Trucks and Pop Shop Spaces are my subsidiaries for the two different industries I serve.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I pretty much covered it all in the last section, but in summary here:
– Being a solo business operator.
– The partnership breaks up.
– Restarting everything,
– Profiling the immense diversity of food and merchandise to 1) convey to events/locations what each provides 2) avoid the attendance of similar competing vendors given the nuances of merchandising.
– Managing the expectations of pop-up vendors.
– Managing the expectations of events/locations.
Please tell us about The Vendor Sender LLC.
In regards to both my services, I provide:
1) Relieving food trucks and pop-ups from taking out time to scouting quality events/locations to attend.
2) Representation of food trucks and pop-ups to the events/locations for potential acceptance to give each a fair and equal chance.
3) Opportunities (no guarantees) for food trucks and pop-ups to interact with new customers for potential selling.
4) providing locations/events the discovery of all their local food trucks or pop-ups with profiled information that helps further decision-making
5) a brand taking liability and/or credibility overall listed food trucks or pop-ups
6) the ease of providing the service all event detail needs/requirements so to have the service promote and directly procure food trucks or pop-ups to attend event dates
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
Perhaps the 2000 new years eve lock-in at our church, where my friends and I played the original Halo until 4-5 am. Some four consoles and teams battling each other all night, when winning on a team in that game meant so much to me at the time.
Contact Info:
- Website: thevendorsender.com
- Phone: 281-658-9593
- Email: sjaehne@icloud.com
- Instagram: @chasethefoodtrucks -or- @popshopspaces
- Facebook: same as above
Image Credit:
all photos I took personally except last one, Azucar food truck in Dallas who I work with.
Suggest a story: VoyageHouston is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you or someone you know deserves recognition please let us know here.
