I quickly scroll local New Hampshire news every morning when I sit down for work.
Usually it’s a light scan and then I’m on with the day.
A few days ago, something truly transformational caught my eye.
It was a preview of a TV spot on “New Hampshire Chronicle” a PBS-esque show that airs nightly and highlights quirky local stories and characters.
The subject in question on this particular day was the Wee Irish Pub, an Irish Pub on wheels that started as a hobby project and turned into a full-in service business.
Yes - that’s a real sentence. An Irish pub, on wheels, that you can access as-a-service.
Here it is in all its glory:
Image and story via Patch Massachusetts
For between $800 and $1,200, these guys will drive the pub to your chosen location and drop it for the night.
It fits up to 12 people and has all the trappings of a traditional pub.
Knowing my friends, and knowing that we’re the kind of people that would absolutely rent this, I hope they make you sign a waiver and give a security deposit.
The only thing missing is the booze (admittedly, a big thing that’s missing), which the subscriber(s) must supply.
I love this idea and I love this business.
Why? Well it helps that I love pubs, and I love pub culture. I think personality-wise I should’ve been born in a different time as a local character in a rural Irish or British countryside town.
So I love this business because they’ve nailed my niche.
But I also love how this business profiles.
It truly embodies an anything-as-a-service (XaaS) business. Which is obviously what we live and breathe at XaaS Pricing.
The Wee Irish Pub has great profitability and growth characteristics.
It is also is low-risk and has low startup costs.
What are the risks? No one rents it? Cool, you have an Irish pub in your backyard. Invite your friends over and have an incredible time. Repeat. Repeat again.
In terms of startup costs, you need some carpentry and construction skills (I have none of those) and some money to throw at the raw materials. Do that and you have a tiny bar on wheels.
Digging in a bit more:
Price range per rental is $800 - $1,200; so let’s call $1,000 the average price
Looking on their site, they have about 15 to 20 days of every month booked throughout 2022
So let’s assume they are able (or want to) book 15 days a month annually - that’s roughly 180 bookings per year
At the average price, that’s an MRR of $15,000 and an ARR of $180,000. If you’re keeping score, that’s a “we’ve cleared product-market fit" level of recurring revenue by SaaS standards.
I’m guessing the operating costs are limited to maintenance and upkeep, improvements, as well as the gas to get the pub to the rental location; after that, they literally drop it off and leave. Gas is currently no small expense of course, but we’re taking a long-term view. So it’s almost all bottom-line!
There’s a lot of expansionary opportunities. This is a regional business in the New England area; they already have plans to add another pub, and there are many other opportunities to expand nationally (franchise it?), add other experiences to more specifically serve corporate or other audiences, provide alcohol and/or food services, etc.
There’s a lot to take away from this story.
There truly are XaaS opportunities everywhere. That’s the point of XaaS, after all. It’s just about knowing where to look and how to structure the business model.
Not everything has to fit the B2B SaaS model. Productized services can be an excellent pathway to growth for many businesses.
Some of the best ideas are simple.
Some of the best ideas might (whisper voice) not scale.
Building subscription businesses can even be (whisper voice again) fun.
It certainly sounds like fun to build and grow this particular business.
It is unquestionably fun for the customers that buy from this business.
If it’s not fun for you and your customers, why do it?
There’s a lot to learn about XaaS from the Wee Irish Pub:
(1) Just build
(2) Do things that don’t scale
(3) Do things that are fun
(4) Do things that are fun for customers
That’s all for today!
For those that celebrate, Happy St. Patrick’s Day! This ancient thirty-something will be living vicariously through you.
If you’re in the greater New Hampshire area and are looking for something fun to do, definitely visit tinypubs.com!