Char-cu-ter- what? This fancy word is pronounced “shar – koo – tuh – ree.” It is the culinary art of preparing meat products and pairing them with different accompaniments. Having been in the restaurant industry off and on since I was 16-years-old, I have a love for yummy food and preparing fun foods for parties. I am a Sicilian woman, and cooking with passion and love is in my DNA. I remember my grandmother cooking spreads of foods and hosting amazing dinners for our family with some of the best Italian food I had ever tasted. I have spoken to my husband many times about starting a business and shared ideas that I had, and he pointed out to me that one thing I always circled back to was having my own restaurant/bar. I would love to one day see that happen, but financially it just doesn’t make sense right now. So I decided to try my hand at making grazing boxes, tables, and charcuterie boards.
Last year I opened up a side business. I currently work out of my home but was looking for a small office/kitchen space to work out of before pandemic 2020 hit. Being able to work with customers and coordinate their events with them is so much fun for me. Charcuterie, by definition, is based on a presentation of meats, but the beauty of charcuterie is that you can make it whatever you want it to be. I have done spreads on tables for a Roaring 20’s themed party and for a Peppa Pig birthday bash. I created grazing boxes for two to share for Valentine’s Day that people loved. Being able to have fun and have a purpose really makes this side business fun for me.
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I have so many ideas to expand the business, and once pandemic 2020 is over, I plan to work on some of those ideas. Just because we are parents, wives, or have other jobs doesn’t mean we cannot make time to pursue our passions. Even if this never turns into my dream of having a restaurant/bar of my own, I still get to create beautiful works of food art that people can share with those they love. I would love to eventually host workshops where people can come to my space and try wine and beer pairings with some locally sourced meats, cheeses, and other accompaniments. Knowing you can get fresh ingredients and pair them with some yummy jams, crackers, fresh veggies, etc. will open people’s eyes to what is around their local communities. I cannot wait until I can work on my ideas and be able to share my love of cooking with you all. Stay tuned and remember to explore your passions, whatever they may be.
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Last May, Monisha Misra reluctantly accepted her first customer. Nine months later, she’d eclipsed $100k in total sales — all on the side from her day job.
BoardsByMo.com is a charcuterie board prep company, and the early success and attention in that arena has spun off other revenue streams including virtual live charcuterie board building classes.
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She started out donating snack platters to essential workers during the beginning of the pandemic. Now she’s scaling up her B2B operations, running online classes several times a week, and holding several business workshops a month.
When the stay-at-home orders were put in place in Boston last March, Monisha thought it was just going to be a couple of weeks. Still, she started going a little “stir crazy” at home.
She missed going into the office and seeing her friends, and also had a lot of friends and family who were essential employees and health care workers working long hours.
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Seeing her friends working so hard gave her the idea to prepare some little “snack platters or home-cooked meals” for them. Monisha started dropping these off at hospitals around Boston for free.
Monisha had to stop doing this when hospitals started getting really busy around the end of March. However, in April, some of the staff she had given platters to started reaching out to Monisha and asking if they could buy some.
That “planted a little seed” as far as the idea for this becoming a business goes. Monisha said she didn’t see this becoming a full-time thing though, as she assumed she’d be going back to work in the near future.
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Another month went by, and still under lockdown orders, a friend reached out and asked if Monisha would make a cheeseboard for her mom for Mother’s Day.
She insisted on paying and also insisted that Monisha at least start an Instagram account and think about turning this into a business. On May 5th, 2020, Monisha started her Instagram account, and on May 10th, she had her first order.
After Monisha started her Instagram account, she started to gauge the general interest in her boards. She started following all of her coworkers and posted what she called, “almost like a fake promotion”, which read:
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$40 date night board gets delivered to your doorstep, mix of cheese, charcuterie, fruit, nuts, jams, 2 days only, DM me to reserve yours now!
Monisha called this a “fake” promotion because she admits she had no idea what she was doing. She had no supplies, hadn’t costed it out, and no strategy to make these boards if she received any orders.
Monisha said she was being found because she was using hashtags in her Instagram posts. She was tagging Boston food bloggers and using hashtags that promoted her boards.
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She only had around 120-130 followers at the time, and most of those were friends and family. That demonstrates how effective using the right hashtags can be for reaching people on Instagram who aren’t following you.
After rushing around to prepare those first 20 orders and delivering them over two days, Monisha told her husband that was it. She wasn’t going to take any more orders.
As an entrepreneur himself, Monisha’s husband saw that there was potential in this business and acted as the voice of reason. He told Monisha she should work on her processes and give this a shot as a business.
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Monisha was finding it hard to manage orders coming through her Instagram DMs. She set up a Google Form, so people could fill out what they wanted and it would come into her email.
She still found this a bit of a chore though. Monisha would have to get back to them to arrange payment, confirm the order, and some other things.
Monisha works for HubSpot for her day job. HubSpot is a CRM marketing, sales, and support platform. This software is capable of doing everything she needs, and she already knew how to use it, so she set up the HubSpot CRM and sales tool to manage her inbound orders.
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Monisha wanted her own platform where people can place orders and learn more about her business, so she set up her website BoardsByMo.com.
She built her site on the eCommerce platform Shopify and integrated HubSpot so her orders flowed through. Monisha also set up a calendar where people could select dates for deliveries.
After each order, she would send out a feedback form asking what her customers liked, or didn’t like. It was this form that Monisha said was a “really big game changer” for her.
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The changes helped, and the product spoke for itself. Monisha started getting requests from local news outlets to talk about her service, and momentum really started to ramp up.
If you look through Monisha’s Instagram you’ll see that every image is high-quality, relevant, and on-brand. If she doesn’t have anything new to post about her business, Monisha doesn’t post at all.
Monisha tries to post as often as she can to keep building her following. She was posting once a day and is now trying to post twice a day.
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Monisha said using the right hashtags is what gets you on the Explore page and as a suggested account to other Instagram users.
Monisha has a set of hashtags she uses for every post. She also tags all the brands she used in the image and picks up tags for influencers that may reshare her post.
You can use a total of 30 hashtags per post, and Monisha tends to use this many. She’s also found it most effective to add the hashtags to a comment on the post rather than the image caption.
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Monisha said it’s important you follow other accounts that are relevant and reply to comments people leave on your images. This helps build relationships and increase word of mouth and referral business.
In August, Monisha started getting requests from companies to hold virtual classes to teach others how to make charcuterie boards as she does.
At first, Monisha
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