Backyard pop-up to national brand: Scale your small business in 5 steps

PopUp Bagels started as a pandemic hobby, with founder Adam Goldberg making bagels in his kitchen and selling them out of a backyard pick-up window. Today it’s a flourishing brand with 10 locations across the East Coast, known for selling its “crunchy outside, warm and soft inside” bagels by the bag.

How do you transition from a great business idea to a scalable brand? According to Adam, it takes a village. His dedicated team, passionate regulars, and an impressive slate of investors were all crucial parts of the PopUp Bagels journey, helping him evolve the brand step by step.

“The jump from one to five, to ten, to twenty—you can’t do it yourself,” Adam said. “You want to build a brand and a community, not just stores. That was important for us. We treat everyone as part of our bagel-loving family. Opening a store is opening a store, but we’re trying to do more than that.”

Below, Adam shares five key steps in his brand-building journey, from securing fundraising to achieving viral fame.

1. Stay small and scrappy until you’re profitable   

As a fledgling brand, Adam found many creative solutions to test-run his business idea and make sure it was viable beyond his backyard: First, he operated out of a Mexican restaurant, and when the operation outgrew the space, he struck a deal with a local commissary (or a rentable commercial kitchen). Instead of rent, PopUp Bagels gave the restaurant the cream cheese sales. 

Even in those early days, all signs pointed toward expansion. Two months into the commissary, PopUp Bagels was regularly selling out with 3,000 bagels a weekend and $20,000 in cream cheese sales a month. It was only after the business achieved this level of profitability that Adam started looking for investors and making bigger commitments, such as taking on a lease.

“For me, it was just smart business to not get in over your head. I think a lot of young entrepreneurs and people early in businesses get in over their heads before they realize that they can make a profit,” he said.

2. Ensure your business is scalable before fundraising

Adam’s next step was ensuring scalability. The transition from pop-up to a storefront required new equipment, new processes, and even new recipes. For example, the team had been making dough the morning of, but in order to operate at higher capacity, they had to learn how to prepare it one or two days before, while still preserving the quality.

“[I tell new entrepreneurs]: Before you raise too much money, find out if it’s scaling,” Adam said. “[In our first round of fundraising,] we raised a couple hundred thousand dollars. In my view, the worst case scenario was, if we don’t scale beyond this, we’ll make our money back in a year, and I’ll be able to pay my investors back.”

With that first infusion of cash, Adam was able to open two storefronts, which became his proof of concept for future fundraising. He even hired a “dough coach” to help figure out how to preserve the same fluffy dough and satisfying crust while working in advance, which also brought down morning labor costs—reducing staffing needs from 10 bakers to four.

3. To meet the right investors, go to the right places

With two storefronts up and running, Adam finally had a way to demonstrate his vision to investors. “That allowed us to raise the next pool of capital, which was $2 million, just shy of a year later,” he said. “When we did that capital raise, we brought in a lot of Hollywood heavyweights and a lot of sports people and really smart business people.”

How did a small pop-up from Connecticut reach investors in Hollywood? According to Adam, remaining mobile and flexible helped him make crucial connections: “I made it a point to make sure that every week we popped up in a different location so that we could spread what we’re doing and we didn’t just remain a [Westport, Connecticut] local business. The people you meet in Amagansett or in East Hampton or Watermill, [New York] on a Saturday—those are the people who then say, ‘Hey, you should meet this person. They raise money for these things.’”

Sure enough, those referrals turned into customers, regulars, and eventually, investors. But Adam was still careful to vet everyone to make sure they were on the same page about its future. “It’s important for me to make sure that the people we were aligning ourselves with had a big picture in mind and wanted this to be something that’s scaled—and not just for the money, but also for the love of [bringing] this product to as many people as we can,” he said.

Pro tip: If you’re financing a small business, look for investors that align with your personal and professional values and goals. Get more tips for pitching your small business to investors.

4. Streamline operations to minimize waste and wait times

Once Pop-Up Bagels expanded, Adam needed to make even more changes to the operation to ensure it was as efficient as possible. This isn’t the kind of restaurant where customers like to linger, and as the hype for the brand grew, long wait times posed a problem. 

“We love our community, but we know they don’t want to spend more time in the store or in line than they have to,” Adam said. “So we designed the whole process so that we can take your order on the line… so when you get to the counter, we [know what you want]. On busy days, we really want you to get your bagels within 10 minutes of coming out of the oven.”

The compact menu is another logistical feat of PopUp Bagels. “To me, the biggest waste in the food world is when you have a menu that’s too big and you have too many products,” Adam said. He distilled the menu to just two schmears—scallion and plain—and two, rotating offerings, such as Spinach & Artichoke or Cranberry Butter. To help build anticipation, PopUp Bagels also highlights the upcoming flavors on its website. 

“We realized if you create these flavors, not everyone’s going to love every flavor, but if we can give you something that once a month, you’re like, ‘I have to try that,’” Adam said. “That keeps customers happy. It keeps them fresh. It keeps them excited to try new things.”

5. Go viral for good branding and customer service 

PopUp Bagels now has a presence in three states, but Adam’s not stopping there. Marketing and social media have helped the brand build a national fan base, with many Yelp reviewers saying they visited specifically because of the online hype. Each aspect of the experience encourages customers to snap a photo, from the generously sized cream cheese tubs to the party atmosphere inside. 

“Our whole setup is a vibe,” Adam said. “We want people to feel a certain way, not only when they’re in our stores—with the dance music playing, when they’re eating our product—but also when they’re on social media or looking in the press. When we’re doing a brand collab, we want to emit a certain vibe.”

Customer service is just as integral to the business’s success as its branding. “We treat every person in our store like they’re an influencer, and we treat every person in our store knowing that every bagel that goes out is probably going to be photographed and wind up online,” Adam said.

In fact, this very scenario helped catapult PopUp Bagels to viral fame: An employee gave a free bagel to a hungry customer who turned out to be a British food influencer, who shared her experience with her audience of more than 780,000 TikTok followers. “Whether she’s an influencer or not, we like to take care of our customers,” Adam said. “We like to take care of our community that shows up for us.”

These lessons come from two episodes of Behind the Review, Yelp & Entrepreneur Media’s weekly podcast. Listen below to hear from Adam, or visit the show homepage to learn about the show and find more episodes.