How to Start a Vegan Business

Having your own business to pass on to generations is a special goal and takes serious dedication. To start your own vegan business, though, might be one of the smartest ideas with how rapidly the vegan lifestyle is growing. 

By Kaitlin Rosencranz

There’s this place a lot of us are familiar with that Mindset Mentor podcast host Rob Dial calls, “the place where dreams go to die,”— the Comfort Zone. 

Imagine having the next best business idea, nobody’s ever done it before. You think and dream and imagine a future for yourself. But that’s it. No research or plans because you think it might be too much or the process is too long. So you stay comfortable in the monotonous routine of life instead. 

Having your own business to pass on to generations is a special goal and takes serious dedication. To start your own vegan business, though, might be one of the smartest ideas with how rapidly the vegan lifestyle is growing. 

In one year, plant-based food brought in a staggering $3.3 billion dollars. From June 2017 to June 2018, plant-based food products earned 10 times more revenue than all other retail foods combined. Now is the time to get into the vegan industry.

Keep reading to learn a few steps you must know before transforming an idea into action.

Be passionate!

Anything in life is smoother and more pleasing to us if it’s something we’re passionate about, right? Have you ever heard the phrase, “If you love what you do, you won’t work a day in your life”? The first step to opening  your very own vegan business might not be as special to you if you’re not passionate about it. 

First things first, love what veganism can do for others, love what it has done for you and taught you and be ready and willing to share your knowledge and passion with your community near and far. 

Research

Market research may be the most tedious and annoying task required to start any business. It takes hours and hours of screen time and late nights and surveys and emails and… it’s just a lot, let’s be real. 

Let’s say you want to open a vegan smoothie parlor. You’ll need to check the radius and see how close the next one is, whether it’s vegan or not, maybe even where they source their produce and ingredients, if they’re organic or local. You can even look at how they advertise — are they popular on social media, do they run commercials on the radio, do they do a members’ discount club?

You have to do that with all the smoothie parlors in your county and surrounding cities and find out how to make yours better. You want your smoothies to stand out and you want your business to be even more inviting than the rest. You want to be so vibrant and brilliant that your customers will drive past your competition to your front door.

But it truly does make all the difference. You want your business to thrive, not be built in an unsustainable environment where people don’t actually want your services, or the competition is saturated. 

Some great tools you can use are Survey Monkey so you can survey nearby people, as well as focus groups and social media campaigns, to see exactly what people are looking for in the area so you know your business will stand tall in your environment. 

Next, you’ll obviously need a business plan. Grab a trusted friend or partner to help you out here; it always helps to have a second or third set of eyes and ears to work out a strategy. Knowing your end goal and where you want to see your business in five years will help drastically in planning the step-by-step process over the first few days, months and years for the growth you’re striving for.

Defining your vegan brand

Brainstorming brand names, store names, and Instagram handles—keep the brand you want in mind before settling on just any name! Get creative and have fun by trying to summarize your dream in just two to four easy-to-remember words. It can be tricky, and you may have more than one that you like, but once you find The One, it’s as if your dream is finally a reality. Time to lock down an email, social media handles, a domain, and the rest will come soon enough.

Be sure to use your social media channels to build trust in your target audience through connection and basic conversation. Like, comment and share relevant information to your business and talk back to people, don’t just post to fish for likes, post to engage and grow!

Social media is a great place to network, but it is not the only place. You can be printing business cards, utilizing platforms like Meetup and Eventbrite to see where to pass out those business cards and get your name out there! 

The Final Steps

Once you have a strategy, a name, and your socials are set up, now you want to make it really official with a website. Fortunately, there are professionals out there who live for budding business owners. Find a plethora of pros on places like Upwork and Fiverr who specialize in graphic design, web development, copywriting, and all sorts of creative, digital marketing services. Branding is important and first impressions can make or break you. You want to have something catchy, simple and directed to your business and there are people who will do it for cheap. If you’re not artistically inclined, finding help is a breeze nowadays.

Lastly, don’t be afraid to fundraise for your business. You can even find a mentor or coach who helps business owners, and that alone will bring your foot in the door with others and your name in a world of like-minded individuals who might be willing to help you get started. Find a vegan business coach or mentor specifically by searching for professionals on vKind!

Building a business is hard work, but it will be worth it, and your children and Planet Earth will thank you!

vKind is the U.S.’s largest fully-vegan search platform and listing app. Give our search tool a whirl and find any vegan product, service, or experience you desire.