A millennial couple grew their side hustle into a business bringing in $4.5 million a year—here’s how the cofounder would start it again, with nothing
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The millennial founders of The Nitro Bar turned a $1,500 investment into a multimillion-dollar company—thanks to college students and viral TikTok videos.
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August 17, 2025
11:07 AM
Fortune
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Success·FoundersA millennial couple grew their side hustle into a bringing in $4.5 million a year—here’s how the cofounder would start it again, with nothingBy Jessica CoacciBy Jessica CoacciSuccess FellowJessica CoacciSuccess FellowJessica Coacci is a reporting fellow at Fortune where she covers success
Prior to joining Fortune, she worked as a ducer at CNN and CNBC.SEE FULL BIO The millennial founders of The Nitro Bar turned a $1,500 investment into a multimillion-dollar company—thanks to college students and viral TikTok s.Audrey FinocchiaroThe Nitro Bar has grown from a $1,500 credit card investment into a $4.5 million coffee company
Its millennial cofounder Audrey Finocchiaro says the secret to success starts with “ignoring the boomers” and using TikTok to build from the ground up. many Gen Zers today, Audrey Finocchiaro and her then-boyfriend, Sam Lancaster, graduated from college a decade ago and were suddenly struck with harsh reality
The millennials had no money and no career direction—taking up serving and bartending jobs at local restaurants to make ends meet while crashing on her parents’ futon
But they soon hatched a plan to get out of their 9-to-5 jobs: start a by building a coffee cart with nitrogen-infused cold brew
So they started their own company, The Nitro bar, by maxing out a credit card to get things off the ground
It was 2016 when the couple leveraged a $1,500 credit limit and scrap wood from Audrey’s parents’ basement to create a “glorified box” that would serve as their totype
The cofounders packed into the back of Finocchiaro’s Subaru Outback and took off to vidence, Rhode Island
Their first makeshift cart had no electricity, only being able to hold the equipment used to make the cold brew
To start reeling in customers, the couple would park the cart on city streets and at community events—often unsolicited—to sell their nitrogen-infused cold brew
In those early days, the brought in $20 to $60 as the couple stood out there for eight hours daily
Audrey Finocchiaro At first, they became disheartened, as it was hard to make any fit at all
After weeks of little , the couple was ready to throw in the towel
But then Lancaster had an epiphany: he realized that they hadn’t brought the cart to Brown University yet
That fall, when college students flocked back to campus, they struck gold
They realized their key audience was a gaggle of Ivy League kids. “‘Dude, you’ll never believe it!’” Finocchiaro tells Fortune, recalling what she reported to her boyfriend over the phone. “We just had a line of people
There were all these students, and I remember that day, I think we made , $600 which was life-changing for us at the time.” From that day forward, the couple popped up at Brown University every day, as coffee-chugging undergraduates huddled around their cold brew
From then on, The Nitro Cart started gaining a ing on social media, amassing 500,000 ers, while continuing to pop up at events
But everything changed in the spring of 2017
When Finocchiaro and Lancaster were set up at a farmers’ market in vidence, they were apached by a pair of investors asking how much money they needed to grow
Finnochairo hadn’t thought the cart would turn into a with bigger potential until that day
The couple and investors created a spreadsheet together and calculated what The Nitro Cart could grow into based on a jected number of stands and accounts for wholesale customers
They crunched the numbers and said they needed $150,000. “The next day, we got that money, which was crazy,” says Finocchiaro
Audrey Finocchiaro Until then, they’d been brewing their cold brew coffee every night in Audrey’s uncle’s diner
But once the funding rolled in, they immediately set up a duction facility and pivoted into wholesale, figuring it was the only way to survive the slow winter months
The money disappeared quickly—largely spent buying a $1,200 kegerator (a small refrigerator designed or adapted to hold a keg from which the cold brew could be dispensed) for each of the 60 wholesale accounts they got on board during their first year
But The Nitro Cart got its second wind when a local bike shop in vidence offered them 200 square feet of space for $400 a month
They jumped on it, funding their first storefront by taking a steep 30% interest loan through Square. skyrocketed after the loan, and now the Rhode Island coffee company brings in $4.5 million a year in revenue
It also has 80 employees working at its three brick-and-mortar coffee shops, duction facility, and small coffee trailer
The company’s cold brew is available on tap at more than 50 other locations across Rhode Island and Massachusetts
How TikTok helped turn a coffee cart into a multimillion-dollar With over 500,000 ers on TikTok and 130,000 on Instagram, there’s no question social media has been one of the key factors in The Nitro Bar’s continued success—but it didn’t happen overnight. “We just threw a ton of things at a wall and kept going until we found something that stuck,” Finocchiaro says. “And for us, that took I think it was seven years until we really started to gain a significant ing online.” But today, she admits building out a ing on social media is more important than ever
Her advice for new creators is simple: make a running list of ideas in your notes app, post multiple times a day, and stick to a routine to build momentum. “I think it’s an incredible time to start a , because it can cost $0 to start,” Finnochario says. “ You can have no money and start a TikTok or start an Instagram account
That was monumental for us.” The Nitro Bar’s posts include trends of trying different coffee combinations, hacks on what to order, and sampling their favorite items. “How lucky are we to be a at the same time as blueberry banana lattes,” one of the s is captioned
It’s racked up 80,000 s. @audfin reminder: you don’t need a trust fund to CRUSH your #womenin #startabiz #entrepreneurtok ♬ Snowy Morning – FREDERIC BOUCHAL Ignoring boomers and friends helped get the off the ground Finocchiaro learned quickly who she wanted to her ideas with. “Ignore the boomers or your friends in sales,” she explained on TikTok. “The second you tell someone who isn’t an entrepreneur what you want to do, they start questioning everything—‘Why a coffee shop? There’s already a million of them,’ or ‘If it were that easy, everyone would do it,’” she says
Instead of letting doubt creep in from people who don’t understand the risks and mindset required to start something from scratch, she advises limiting those conversations altogether and suggests replying that you’re in the for the long game and betting on yourself gives you a higher return
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