I bought a book called Start and Run a Coffee Bar by Tom Matzen and Marybeth Harrison and it has been extremely informative. I took a business class on starting your own business, but I don't think that I learned anything that wasn't already in this book. If you want to find a good bean distributor, I would check with other coffee shops in the area and try to get prices and info from them. You don't want to have the same distributor and you definately don't want to pay more for your product. A good way to get the info if you don't feel like they will be helpful is to act like you're a grad student doing a project. Good luck!