Let's build a business.

[Rootabager]

making it just like that bar slate that was linked looks realy cool and nice. Would prolly get more business that what you are talking about.

[Chaostracize]

[ QUOTE ]
A pink tint to light is flattering to the skin.

However, if you fix up that mess in those photos for $125K or even twice that, I don't know why you'd tie yourself to a bar when you could make a fortune in re-building, recovery from disasters, and so on. And you wouldn't be tied to that town and that business day and night.

How often does your mom get to get away from that health food place you mentioned? And you are talking about having a business that owns both your nights and your days.

So just something to think about.

[/ QUOTE ]

Could you make this clearer?

If someone understands, could you maybe clear it up?

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

1. pink light makes people look more attractive. just go to a strip club and you'll see what he means, or maybe google portrait photography.

2. he is saying that instead of spending $125 or $250K on this place, you should rebuild homes in disaster zones and sell them. Then you wont be tied to this business or town. I guess he feels that you will get a higher return on your capital doing this with less risk.

3. he says that you don't want to have a night and daytime business because it will take up all of your time.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

Chaos,

This thread is great, but I would be scared to invest in this type of business. You have to put a lot of money into it just to open the doors. What if people don't come? I think I heard that bars and restaurants are the hardest businesses to break into.

[xxThe_Lebowskixx]

btw, i think handicap accessibility is a [censored] joke. If there is a demand for handicap accessibility, then it will be met by some entrepreneur. Isn't that capitalism? Why does the government have the right to tell you that you have to spend $60K so three handicapped guys can show up all year long?

[elmo]

Your money would be better off if you invested in scratch-offs.

If you are going to start a business, wait for a unique idea, or at least something you are passionate about. The business plan of: spend a bunch of money to setup this company, and people will come to us because our bar/service/product will be cooler than the competition is hopeless in general. The people who make this work are the ones who love what they are doing and have intimate knowledge of their industry.

If you do decide to go through with this, best of luck, and I'll stop in once it opens. Make sure that you don't let pride get in the way a year down the road if things are going poorly and your business sense says its a losing cause.

[Chaostracize]

[ QUOTE ]
Your money would be better off if you invested in scratch-offs.

If you are going to start a business, wait for a unique idea, or at least something you are passionate about. The business plan of: spend a bunch of money to setup this company, and people will come to us because our bar/service/product will be cooler than the competition is hopeless in general. The people who make this work are the ones who love what they are doing and have intimate knowledge of their industry.

If you do decide to go through with this, best of luck, and I'll stop in once it opens. Make sure that you don't let pride get in the way a year down the road if things are going poorly and your business sense says its a losing cause.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm drunk. You can stfu. Yay, neighsayers, "you can't do this, way too hard imo", yup, heard it.

[Chaostracize]

Been a little while before I posted, so I'll try to update everyone as best I can, although most significant update will come next week.

The business plan is 99% finished. It's done, there are just some $$ issues that will have to be revisited an addressed at a later time.

The reason for this is that the plan now calls for $543,108 in capital, but some of my assumptions are off. The architect will end up costing $20k (from $30k) less, the construction will most likely end up costing about $60k (from $300k) or so less, cash on hand will drop considerably, about $30k (from $80k). Then there are some other costs that I've also bloated so I'll be saving a few thousand here and there, however, all the numbers worked with these bloated start-up figures, and that's really what I was going for.

The architect I'm going with is the first one. Her cost will be between 5-6% of the construction cost. Which means that if construction does, for some ungodly reason, end up being near 300k, the most I'll pay is 18k. Compared to the 44k the other architect was going to charge, for the same work, this is a nice relief. Chances are it'll only be 5% since the plans are going to be pretty basic.

I'm slowly deciding against fried food on the first floor. With costs for ventilating and grease traps and other various kitchen supplies needed, it'll probably be more of a hindrance than a help. The new avenue I'm heading down is to serve paninis. This works well with my concept in several ways. Firsly, it is a quick food, which is really what I was aiming for with the first food. Secondly, this is a very European food, and that's kind of the atmosphere I wanted with the bar area, so this will go hand in hand. Thirdly, these quick sandwiches are still viable as a midafternoon food, and should be able to drum up more business in the slower hours than fried food would have. I'm thinking about outsourcing the work of making the paninis for the day, and we will just do the quick grill, but that's some I'll talk to Stu about to see with how much he'd be comfortable overseeing.

I have some potential bartenders lined up as well. They've seen the space and they see the potential, so they are totally amped for the place to open.

Right now my general time line has the business opening in late January/early February. This will allow a few good months before summer starts and all the college kids leave. I talked to a lawyer about getting a visa for Stu, and if I wanted to head down that route I would be able to apply come April, and he wouldn't be feasibly able to come to the US until September of next year. Obviously that's a little farther away than I'd like. The way around this will be to have Stu come for 3 months as a visitor. I can't pay him as an employee, so I'll be paying him as a consultant, which is honestly how I'll be viewing him anyway. A large part of the plan is to start working on an operations manual for a manager to fill in as soon as Stu comes out. This 3 month deal works on a few different levels:

- If Stu decides he hates Ithaca it's only a 90-day commitment.
- If we don't get along as a team, once again, it's only a 90-day commitment.
- By the time Stu would have to leave we'd be coming into the slower Summer months, much easier for a new manager to start.

On Wednesday the architect and her structural engineer will be walking through the place. This meeting will help us discover how we'll be in terms of maximum occupancy, which could end up being a major issue, as you'll remember for those who've read the whole thread.

On Thursday we will be meeting with the town code enforcer to talk about the possibilities of the business, and possible problems to solve. The major issue will be sound, and this meeting will be very important to the outcome.

So, as I said earlier, next week will determine the viability of the business, and if worse comes to worst, then we'll do some minor construction on the building to separate the first floor from the top too and try to get a business to lease the first floor and decide if we want to go the residential/office/business space route on the 2/3/4th floors.

I've also begun the search for investors. My associate, Jeff, has someone who is interested, and I plan on hawking this plan (once it's polished and 100% on the mark in terms of financing) to both my attorney and accountant. With my bloated projections, we're looking for $350k from the SBA and $150k from investors (and then $40k will be taken from the equity of the house I planned on flipping this summer, then held on to because it's become a 25% return investment).

Anyone out there looking to invest?

Also, I've already had 3 phone conversations in my E-Myth course. The E-Myth books were amazing, and I felt like this investment would be 100% worth it. So far the course is about taking the time to understand what it is that I want out of a business and to visualize what the business will eventually become. I'm learning a lot about myself and my views, and it's a fascinating process. I'll answer questions about it if anyone has any.

That's all I can think of for right now. Website development will begin next week once we get the green light from the structural engineer and code enforcer.

Want to plug the guys working on the website, since they do great stuff. www.opdigital.com is the place to go. The guys are great, and really know what they are doing. 3-bet uses them and I've used them for my person real estate site.

[Chaostracize]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Staff.

Your business plan calls for 12 staff. I have two. One of them is a top notch bartender and worth her weight in gold. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have her. The other is crap, but I expected that. I rotate through 3 different DJ's and do it myself on quieter nights. I have the luxury of having my partner behind the bar with me as well.

Good staff are very hard to find. Good staff that won't steal from you are even harder. And you want 12 of them. This is a huge call, much bigger than I think you realise. Cut this down as much as you can. Waitress to bring around mini-shots? Cut. Etc.

I wouldn't even consider a manager for my own bar at this point. It's hands on for me. I want to know what is going on. In the future I will want one, but I want to know my business inside and out before I get one so I know what he needs to do. I'll also need that time to find a good one that I trust.

[/ QUOTE ]

I will definitely be putting in face time, but my purpose for creating this establishment is not to create a place for me to work. I'm trying very hard to set this place up so it can run itself. Within the first three months of opening I plan on having an operations manual for all positions (manager included).

In terms of # of employees, it has increased to 16. I realize this is a large undertaking, and as soon as construction begins, I will begin hiring. I understand this will be an enormously difficult project, but I have help on all sides, so I won't be doing this alone.

[ QUOTE ]
You want to get one right away though. OK, but you need to ditch this English dude asap. Apart from all the hassles of visas and stuff which you don't need at the moment and I imagine that are a lot harder to get than you realise, your manager must be from the town where you are opening the bar. Period. Or at least to have lived there for some time. The manager is the host. He looks after the clients, he knows the different groups and social complexities within the nucleus of the city. He needs to be able to do a huge variety of tasks that will in the end make or break your business. You don't want to be entrusting this role to some nice guy that you met in Europe who is kicking around at the moment not knowing what to do with himself. You also need to be able to get rid of your new manager quickly if things aren't working out. If you bring a guy over from Europe to do this then you'll be emotionally tied to him. This is a very bad idea.

[/ QUOTE ]

With the plan right now, Stu will only be here for a few months, at which point I can reasses the situation and decide if I want to keep him on board, in which case we will apply for the Visa.

In terms of needing a manager who knows the area, I disagree with that. Ithaca is a very small town and it's easy to get a general feeling for the place after being here for as short as a week. Stu is very sociable, and an efficient-worker, and I do not believe for a second he won't adapt to the town quickly

[ QUOTE ]
2. What are you?

You want to be an arcade, a food service, a bar and a dance room. You want to do a lot of things and what you'll probably end up doing is a mediocre job on all of them. Pick one of these things and do it the best that you can. The first one I would dump is the fried food. Food is complicated and hard to do well. The second is the arcade stuff. But you don't have to dump it - incorperate it into the bar/club. Make some booths but instead of tables put in the old fashioned flat-table space invader games. Do creative stuff like this to create an interesting space. Looking at the photo's I would work to create a club on the first two floors and see how that goes before expaning upwards.

[/ QUOTE ]

The business is many things, but there will be a physical separation from the first floor and then other floors. The idea is to make synergistic businesses, not to combine multiple ideas into one business. I'm dumping fried food at the moment, because it looks like costs for ventilating and the grease traps will be on the high side. But I may end up coming back to it, if it doesn't look to be an anormous hassle. I definitely agree with the "do one thing well" philosophy, but I believe that this place can do many things well.


[ QUOTE ]
3. Construction.

It sounds like a nightmare with the common walls. You've made no mention of soundproofing and problems with noise. I hope you have no residential around you. Don't even think about leasing the top two floors out as residential above a night-club. Raising ceilings? Dude, work with what you've got. Have you seen my thread with the before and after photo's of my bar? 35 grand my friend. That's all we spent.

[/ QUOTE ]

35 grand would barely work on the most basic of bars here unless you are doing the vast majority of the work yourself in a space that permits it.

I am definitely with you on using the space we've got and we are going to be doing the with the exception of putting in new stairs for the front to go to the second floor and moving the staircase from the second to third floor to make more room for bathroom space.

There will be no residential space above the danceclub area, but there is some residential on the side. This will be a major point of discussion come Thursday.

[ QUOTE ]
4. Your target market.

I'm still confused who they are. It sounds like you're trying to appeal to everyone. A word of advice; the 35 year old crowd does not like to hang out with the 18 year old crowd. Work out who will fill your place and who will spend more and where the current vacuum is and target accordingly.

[/ QUOTE ]

No mistake here, I am appealing to the 18-24 year old market, with obvious emphasis on the 21-14 range.

[ QUOTE ]
5. Your vision statement.

Do one. Don't know what one is? Find out. It's your vision for your establishment. You need to write it down and stick to it. If you ever decide to do something in the business, go back and check if it is in line with your vision statement. If it isn't, tank it. Your vision statement is an evolving thing. Mine took me two weeks to write and comes in at three small paragraphs, but it is the foundation of what we are doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

This happens to be some truly excellent advice. Right now the catchphrase is "City nightlife, without city prices." The three paragraph vision statement is still in the works.

[adsman]

[ QUOTE ]
Ithaca is a very small town and it's easy to get a general feeling for the place after being here for as short as a week.

[/ QUOTE ]

How small are we talking here? Population?