Mike Evans started his entrepreneurial journey selling cookies through a vending machine. Prior to that, he worked as a DJ, the owner of a party bus company, and a restaurant manager. However, when the pandemic hit the world, he found himself out of work.
Bored at home doing nothing, he mulled over his next move; selling cookies through a vending machine. He tells Business Journal that he got the idea of selling cookies through a dream.
“The idea came to me in a dream where I had a warm cookie vending machine. And then, more recently, I had a guy reach out to me, and he said, ‘I had a dream about a warm cookie vending machine, and I went online, and you were the first person to pop up.’ I responded like, ‘I had a dream about it too, man,’” he said. A few months later, it became a reality.
According to Business Journal, he made over $40,000 selling cookies through his vending machine. On the back of his success, he decided to expand his business by launching a storefront called Alibi Cookies and plans to eventually open more storefronts and vending machines.
Alibi Cookies storefronts and vending machines always offer warm cookies which come in different flavors such as chocolate chunk, oatmeal, and raisin. They also come in unique flavors like double chocolate mint pumpkin spice, and deluxe apple pie, according to Black Business.
Evans says he plans to reach a $1 million target in annual revenue soon. The 33-year-old adds that he is proud of his achievement thus far, taking notice of how he started small in his hometown.
“It’s crazy to me that some of the people I went to school with that got straight A’s and went to college — they’re not on the same level as me now. They don’t own their own business. That’s something I think about all the time. People say, ‘Oh, you gotta go to college,’ and ‘You didn’t go to college, so you’re not gonna be anything.’ And I’m just like, ‘I’m some inner-city Black kid, and I’m doing this.'”
Evans was raised on the north side of St. Louis. Growing up as an inner-city child, he faced many challenges of not only being black but being in the city. Nonetheless, he managed to achieve entrepreneurial success at the age of 33.
