“Everyone needs a homeboy.” – Tommy Oswald
How does someone start a cafe at 18? Look at Tommy Oswald, the (now) 19 year old cafe owner of homeboy. The cafe is a hole-in-the wall place in Adelaide, Australia that grew a large following on social media. His business flourished so much that he was able to open a new location in Yugo Adelaide City, a student housing space.
Why is homeboy successful?
homeboy attributes much of its success to TikTok, with 306.6k followers and 7M likes. However, it seems that success has almost fully migrated to the Instagram platform, with the homeboy account boasting over 422K followers.
An article by Broadstreet says it best: “The menu sticks to the basics and does them well. Pick between four sandwiches, including a mortadella and cheddar toastie, and the “Tommy’s Pick” (prosciutto, mozzarella, rocket and balsamic glaze) on fluffy focaccia. Or grab a cinnamon scroll, baked fresh every 30 minutes, and a coffee made with homeboy’s house beans.”
homeboy has a delicious menu, but also sells their roasts online.
Another article by Glam Adelaide states the following: “His candid content about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship has connected him with fans from all over the world, helping to put both his cafe on the map.”
THE BIG QUESTION | The SEO Audit
Everyone’s on the edge of their seat waiting to hear about the big question: what does homeboy’s SEO look like?
The website itself is simple. There’s not a ton of text anywhere but the about section, and the SEMrush audit tool picked up dozens of issues on each page.
However, I believe the simple construction resulted in an easy to crawl and healthy site that does well, since the main pages aren’t complicated.
It ranks high on its organic keywords (most with homeboy in the name). They have run no paid SEO campaigns.
Unfortunately, homeboy has to go by homeboy co. because the domain “homeboy coffee” has already been taken by another website.
My Thoughts
I believe that homeboy is just another example of how social media can really take a business far. Fun fact: on opening day, homeboy received zero customers. With only the free platforms of Instagram and Tiktok, homeboy became wildly successful.
However, with a fully optimized website, homeboy could easily reach farther than Adelaide and potentially open a bigger market for future locations. I’m looking forward to what season 3 (a third location) will look like for Tommy’s cafe!
2 Responses
This is a really interesting example of how social media and SEO can work very differently—and still lead to success. I like how you highlighted homeboy as a brand that grew almost entirely through TikTok and Instagram first, which shows how powerful authentic storytelling and consistent content can be, especially for younger audiences. The fact that Tommy shared the real highs and lows of entrepreneurship clearly helped build trust and loyalty, not just hype.
This is a great example of social media being a key SEO tool! The fact that someone so young could run a business that went from zero customers to two locations is super inspiring! I like that you included a look at the website using Semrush, analyzing other successful websites is a great way to improve our own SEO.