Happy Thursday!

Before I dive in, I get this question all the time: “How do I actually make money with all these AI tools?” Thats why I built Playmakers: my AI agency program where I teach you how to charge local businesses $500-$5,000 a month to set up and manage AI for them. You get three live calls a week, plug-and-play automation templates you can deploy for clients on day one, a 5 Day First Client Challenge, and my personal lead lists with businesses in your area ready to connect.120+ people are already in the community building agencies right now. Go to playmakersai.com and check it out.

Okay, let’s get into it.

This newsletter is a little different from what I usually send you. Most weeks I’m breaking down a business built around an AI tool, overstock reselling, or a hustle using a piece of heavy equipment. This week it’s a 20-year-old with a wooden cart on her parents’ front porch, and it’s a goldmine.

Angela runs Little Bit Bakery out of her parents’ kitchen- about 20 minutes from my house. Every Saturday she rolls a cart onto the porch at 8 a.m., and she’s been doing $2,000 to $2,100 in sales. Her walk-up inventory has been selling out by 9. On a good morning the line runs 80 to 100 people deep, and roughly 800 more people are trying to get in on her weekly pre-orders. She launched the porch cart seven months ago with no real audience, and she has sold out every single week since October.

If this interests you, watch or listen to the full walk-through on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and by the end, you will have everything you need to start bringing in real money with your own front porch shop!

Not a baker? I’ve also seen people sell local trinkets, BBQ, handmade goods, fresh veggies, iced coffee, and flower bouquets right off their driveways. After sitting down with Angela, I think a lot of us have been underestimating what one well-run front porch booth can do.

The Numbers: Angela’s hard costs run about $500 a week, mostly ingredients and packaging. That leaves around $1,500 from a single Saturday morning. She pays herself about $800 of that and puts the rest back into growing the business.

What she charges:

She recently raised her sourdough from $11 to $12 and made the loaves a little bigger. Nobody said a word. She also sells her sourdough starter for $5 in a small cup with an instruction card. That’s free money.

At $2,000 to $3,000 a week, she could gross over $100,000 this year. She’s 20, working from home, and she hasn’t spent a dime on marketing for the cart.

This is real work, though. Angela estimates around 60 hours a week once you add up baking, prepping, labeling, and packaging, and she’s up between 2:30 and 3 a.m. every Saturday. She loves it, and she’s also watching herself closely for burnout.

Step 1: Look Up Your State’s Cottage Food Laws

Every state has cottage food laws, and they vary a lot. In Texas, Angela needs proper labeling, everything has to be prepackaged, and she needs either a food handler’s or food manager’s certificate. That certificate cost her about $20 and a short test, and it lasts around three years. Texas also requires someone to be present at the stand, so she can’t fully walk away. Plenty of other states let you set up and go back inside, while some require inspections. Spend an afternoon on your state’s rules before you bake anything.

Step 2: Nail One Product First

I asked Angela whether a beginner should perfect one recipe or launch with four. She said nail one. Bread is the move because people need it every week. When she did custom cakes, she was waiting on birthdays and weddings. She pulls recipes from highly rated bloggers and tweaks them over time. If you go the sourdough route, practice until your routine is locked in before you sell a single loaf.

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Step 3: Test It on Friends and Family

Give your early batches away, get honest feedback, and adjust. Once you’re confident in the product, start charging and ask those same people to share it. Word of mouth from family and friends spreads further than most people expect.

Step 4: Start With a Folding Table

You don’t need a custom cart. The video that inspired Angela showed a woman with a plastic table and one little mat. Angela’s cart came later, built with her parents from a $15 Etsy plan and materials from Home Depot, with display pieces from Hobby Lobby at half off. Start with a six-foot table and a sign, and upgrade once the line shows up.

For payments, Venmo is her most popular option, followed by Zelle and then cash. If you take the standard one-to-three-day transfer instead of instant, there are no fees. Pre-orders run through a site called Hot Plate, which a lot of home bakers use.

Step 5: Post Everything

Angela’s first real traction came from Nextdoor, which is built around the people in your immediate neighborhood. Then in her second week, she had three customers all day and was pretty discouraged. She posted a 20-second TikTok walking up to the cart with the caption “POV: you found a porch bakery in Frisco” and went to bed. It got 100,000 views, almost all local. When she reopened Sunday to sell her leftovers, people kept showing up saying they saw her on TikTok. She didn’t even know the video had done well.

Her advice is to film the whole process, from building the cart to testing recipes to setting up on Saturday morning. People want to feel like they’re part of the story, and when they do, they show up.

Step 6: Add Pre-Orders Once People Come Back

As soon as you see repeat customers, open pre-orders. Angela says it takes the guesswork out of how much to bake, and it protects you from weather. If the forecast shows a 90% chance of rain early in the week, she moves the stand to Sunday, and pre-order customers can still pick up their bags inside. She buys ingredients in bulk from Sam’s to keep costs down.

Why I Love This: Angela’s neighborhood has about 250 homes. Most of her customers drive 15 to 20 minutes, and some come from 40 minutes out. She tried a farmers market once, paid a $180 fee, and her best day there was $550. On her porch, she lines up back stock right inside her front door and pays nothing to set up.

When I lived in Houston, my neighborhood had 6,000 homes. I got really into barbecue and ran the math one day. If 5% of those homes bought barbecue from me once a month, that’s a six-figure business. I never did it, and most people never even run that math.

Again- this model works for far more than baked goods. Angela mentioned a woman selling flower bouquets from her backyard garden on pre-order, and she’s seeing coffee carts pop up too. I’ve seen the same thing work with veggies, handmade goods, and trinkets, and I’ve talked to people doing pizza, barbecue, prepackaged meals, cedar garden planters, and garage shelves for their neighbors. The closer people live to you, the more loyal they get, and loyal neighbors will pay more than they would at a farmers market across town.

If this front yard sales hustle interests you, listen to the full walk-through on YouTube, Spotify and Apple Podcasts, and by the end, you will have everything you need to start bringing in real money with your own front porch shop.

Lastly, I'm always looking for cool, unique businesses to share on my podcasts. If you have one and are comfortable sharing your journey, drop your info here!

Have a great week!

Chris

P.S. I share deep dives on business ideas and complete playbooks three times a week on YouTube and every podcast platform.