What is the best way to expand a business? You can do it on your own or find a local partner. Shea Coakly chose the partnership path for Lean Box interconnecting his fate.
Lean Box is a healthy meal vending machine company that serves small to mid-sized companies. Over several years, they have a built a successful model in New England and figured out how to use technology to deliver fresh food, manage inventory and get paid without an attendant. When Shea and his partners at Lean Box decided it was time to move beyond New England, they considered their options. 
Lean Box had an innovative business model that worked in New England. His data-driven vending machine for healthy foods comes with a vision for seeing vending machines in every office in every city in the U.S. He considered doing it himself, franchising and partnerships.
Then Nancy called.
Nancy Sharp, founder of Food for Thought, a multi-million-dollar mid-west catering company learned about Coakly’s business and wanted to bring that idea to the Chicago. Shea and Nancy met and formed a partnership that leveraged both company’s strengths. A partnership with Nancy’s business made sense.
Lean Box Great Lakes was born.
Partnership not Franchise
Serving mid-sized companies have always been the target and the path to expansion beyond your hometown can be tricky.
Lean Box’s focus was smaller businesses that could use their innovative vending machine to allow associates to eat healthy food at the office. For the consumer working in an office, a healthy meal vending machine becomes an alternative to running out to a Whole Foods or a Trader Joe’s and instead brings high-quality food right to the company’s lunchroom.
The technology tracks supply and demand to control waste and accept payment at the point of sale. Their system works, and they have slowly built the business to over 1,000 installed machines.
To grow, they needed to go to a new market and see if they could replicate their success from New England. Without first-hand knowledge of a new market, Shea felt that a partnership with an established business might be the best approach. Starting from scratch in an unfamiliar place is fraught with complexity. A partnership with the right company made sense.
Nancy Sharp, based in Chicago could see the changing office work landscape and was frequently asked by small to mid-sized firms if they could serve them. Before Lean Box, she didn’t have a solution to meet clients needs. Issues like unattended pay, managing inventory, software to control freshness are all necessary to build the business.
After eight months, Lean Box are popping up in Chicago. Employers like to have fresh food in the office to keep people together and connected. Fresh food helps make a welcome environment and HR/Office manager are the critical target.
Three Keys to Partnership Success
- Partnerships work when both companies bring unique assets that when combined, give the new business something new and compelling. In this case, Sharp brought knowledge of the food business in Chicago while Coakly brought a specialized technology to serve a unique market segment.
- A new entity was needed so that the partnership has a chance for success. By establishing a new business with a separate leader, both companies give the new organization a higher opportunity for success and focus.
- Trust matters between the partners, but a well-crafted legal document helps them both articulate and imagine, how they will manage disagreements. Without that in place, the two companies risk having conflicts that end in lawsuits. By determining conflict resolution upfront, they avoid some of the headaches later.
What’s the right way to expand your business? There are pros and cons of partnerships versus franchise. Lean Box has taken a novel approach to expansion and Chicago is their beta test. I’ll be curious to watch the results over the coming year and to see if this model can succeed and expand into other markets.
At the heart of any partnership is trust. Testing that trust happens every day as two entities combine their resources.
Thinking about expanding to new markets? Speak to an entrepreneur who has that experience. You can set up a time to chat with me about your marketing challenges using my calendar. Email me jeffslater@themarketingsage.com Call me. 919 720 0995. The conversation is free and we can explore if working together makes sense. Try my new chat feature on my site if you have a quick question.
Photo by Trevor Cole on Unsplash
