Difficulty writing a business plan

[thealternative]

Hello fellow coffee enthusiasts I am looking at opening a coffee house/bar sometime in the near future I know my concept and prodicts that I want to feature I know the atmosphere and colour scheme even and what type of music I will have playing butwhenit comes down to the nuts and bolts og the actual business plan I am lacking the ability in writing one so I was wondering if some one could help me or perhaps tell me other ways next to banks to acquire funding such as start up grants etc... Please if you can reply that would be great

 

[John P]

Do another search on this site, business plans and templates for such have been on and around here, and you can easily find them on Google.

But before you get too far, let's nudge you with a dose of reality. You've gotten stalled and can't figure out how to write a business plan when there are literally hundreds of sources to do so, AND you say you want to start and run a business. If you want to have any chance of starting and just merely surviving, you'd better be able to take some initiative and LOOK, READ, OBSERVE, and TAKE ACTION on your own. Otherwise, whatever money you do have you should wave good-bye to now.

Keep that in mind. Get irritated and then motivated. Now do something about it!

--------------------------------------
How to raise money.

Yourself by way of hard work, shrewd investments, or paid medical experiments.
People who love you.
Heavily collateralized loan. If you are not willing to "risk it all," you can't expect others (such as a bank) to do it either. There are many good SBA or micro-loans through your local city or state as well. Find the local Small Business Center or Chamber of Commerce and they may have resources and tools for you.

Anyone who says there are grants is lying to you.

Create luck through hard work, and then make the best of it.

 

[DaveK]

Hey,

I just joined this forum and ran across your post from back in July. The guy that responded to you is why I usually shy away from forums like this. They are almost always full of "senior" members like him who don't really give you anything, but essentially say, "get up and do it yourself"....great, thanks dude for your inspiration and insight.... I can read until I am blue in the face, but I need to bounce ideas off of someone that knows what they are doing. I thought these forums were about helping others, not being asses..

I am at the place where you were when you wrote your post. I have run restaurants with full p&l responsibility, so once I get going I should be ok, it's just getting the four walls open that I need help with.

I turned to my local chapter of the Small Business Association's SCORE program. Look up yours. They have hooked me up with a mentor, mine is a man who started his own business, now is retired. The mentors are volunteers and they will help you get your business up and running, they won't do the work for you, but they will guide you. I met with my guy and he brought another who was in financing to lend his 2 cents. He has given me work to do, I am writing my plan in chunks, by section and sending it to him for feedback.

I'm not there yet, and really don't plan on being open until late next summer, but I feel much better now than I did before I had found this group.

Hope this helps....Good luck in all of your ventures!

 

[chast]

Everyone is different and what works for me will probably not work for you. I have found that the SBA in MA is useless. It seems when you use a pencil and paper it says you cannot succeed. So do you give up? I never did. The biggest roadblock in opening this business I have found is permits. You sign the lease then start applying for permits, depending on how tall the horse is that the inspector is sitting on can depend on getting the permit in a reasonable time frame. There was a roaster/cafe in NM that was held up just because the building inspector and fire dept couldn't agree on the vent pipe. 7 months of paying rent on a lease with no income. This would come under the "What If" column of your business plan. I hit a steel wall that could have actually closed me down due to the length of time getting the permit. I was lucky enough to know the right people to move it along.
Start smal and build as you go. People are coming to you for coffee and not decor, although some are impressed by that. You need to know that when you have your grand opening and only 5 people show up and a few small orders dwindle in over the next several weeks you still have a way of paying overhead. Forget about taking money out for yourself. Cold hard truth!! maybe take a fin or two for a pizza and treat yourself but that is it. What is your personal overhead averaging every month and is there someone else that helps in paying this or do you need to take a part time job to keep your self afloat. Plenty of us have done that! I just recently opened up a new shop and had a soft opening, still doing the build out but having customers help pay the way. This is my retirement. I have my first SS check coming next month and I have a 21 year old in college. ( don't ask!!) If I ever wrote down a business plan and went to the bank they would be laughing me out the door, but if they came in and see what I have accomplished by slowly building up the business, I will get what I need if I decided to borrow. Location and rent/overhead/lease is really important. do you need a lot of help to start? nope!! People will wait if you have an excellent product. I started small with just a roaster and a grinder,600lbs of beans, bag sealer and a case of bags. decided I wanted to maybe have a small coffee shop/tasting room so people could sample then buy the beans so I purchased my dual brewer and another grinder and a bunch of cups and lids and from there I started building up my equipment inventory as I sold brewed coffee and fresh roasted beans. This in no way could ever be put on paper and there are some , I should say many on this forum would condemn this way but it is how I have always done things and it has always worked. If you want it bad enough you will achieve!

 

[peterjschmidt]

Hey,

I just joined this forum and ran across your post from back in July. The guy that responded to you is why I usually shy away from forums like this. They are almost always full of "senior" members like him who don't really give you anything, but essentially say, "get up and do it yourself"....great, thanks dude for your inspiration and insight.... I can read until I am blue in the face, but I need to bounce ideas off of someone that knows what they are doing. I thought these forums were about helping others, not being asses..

Well, well, well...

Stick around and you'll see that JohnP is more than happy to spend oodles of time helping noobs.

Stick around a little longer and you'll see that the words John offered were indeed designed to help the OP. Honesty regarding the difficulty he'll face and a splash of the cold water of reality in his face was most likely the kindest thing John could offer.