Cafe2U

Cafe2U is a mobile cafe servicing businesses located in industrial areas. SkillsOne chats to Troy Te Ao, who shares the finer details of what's in his van and how he got started serving coffee for SkillsOne!

About Troy:

Troy is a franchisee and invested his own money into the fit out of the van to turn it into a coffee making machine. He had a generator installed to run the pie machine, the coffee machine and the fridge.A steel welder created the bar for the coffee machine in the boot. Troy has pre-made food delivered to his house each day to stock the truck, he picks up the milk and off he goes tooting his horn.

Originally to get customers interested in his service he created a menu of the foods and drinks on offer. Then the companies just mad bookings for him to drive past their businesses. Troy has a great success in the industrial area of Chatswood because the people are so far away from good cafes.

The business is growing because every industrial area throughout Australia could do with nice hot authentic coffee. Cafe2U is a really good one man business because the working model is fairly straight forward.

Troy says making a good coffee is key and having a friendly chat and a smile for the caffeine starved customers. He works hard to maintain the van cleaning it each day for good hygiene and presentation.

Troy takes the van to community sporting events on weekends and donates up $400 a day to the local netball or softball organisation.

He bought into his friend's mobile coffee business as the first franchisee. He borrowed the money from any credit card company he could and although it was a very risky business strategy, he paid off the loans in a very short time.

He is very adamant that all the skill in his job comes down to making nice coffee with a smile. He like his customers and enjoys the early morning jokes and chatter that get everyone through their working day.

Troy was studying to be a personal trainer when he decided to become his own boss and get into his friend's mobile coffee business. He was greatly inspired by a self help business book. He decided he no longer wanted to be an employee but he wanted to be a boss.