5 Things to Prepare to Start Your Business
So you are ready to start your business?
So you love to cook and want to start a business? You’ve come to the right place.
Making the decision to start a business is exciting. You KNOW it is going to work! Your friends love it, your family is supportive, your food is DELICIOUS.
But off in the horizon is a dark cloud that you are trying hard to ignore. Doubt. Fear.
You are smart. You know the statistics. The vast majority of new businesses fail. In the food industry, that number is even higher.
When I started my bakery business, I had these same doubts. I’m an analyst, so I made a plan. I researched all my questions. I was motivated and my family was supportive. Unfortunately, there were things I had no idea I didn’t know…and they sunk my business. I closed it within two years.
Well, THAT’S not motivational!
But YOU can be different, you tell yourself.
And you are right. You can be. But boy, is there a STEEP learning curve.
Since then, I co-founded Frontier Kitchen, learned from my mistakes and the mistakes of hundreds of other successful (and not successful) entrepreneurs and businesses. I’m going to try and share some of those lessons with you.
Unfortunately no one can tell you exactly how it is going to go. Some information you simply aren’t ready for—and that’s ok, you will get there. Other parts will be unique to your journey. Anyone who tells you they have all the answers is selling something.
However, you can prepare. Here are 5 steps to getting physically and mentally ready for this journey.
Complete your business set up before you EVER mix an ingredient. This means get your LLC, your EIN, your insurance and your food safety managers training.
Set up your business bank account and your accounting software. NEVER, NEVER, NEVER mix your business money and your personal money! You will watch your personal accounts be SUCKED DRY—that’s bad! (side note, skipping the accounting software takes out 50% of ALL new companies. Your company lives and dies on its accounting.) Related, set aside time each week to do your backend paperwork or hire someone to do it for you—many businesses go out of business because they never find the time to collect their money.
Find your support team. Go to Frontier Kitchen, SCORE, your local Small Business Development Center or Chamber of Commerce. Your friends and family are probably great, but surround yourself with people who have done what you are trying to do and those that are going through it with you.
Be ready to fail, but do it quickly. Do NOT wait a year to find out you aren’t making any money. NEVER say “about” when talking about your profit—you need to know to the penny what your food and overhead costs are every month. This is hard. Get help.
Be prepared to create processes and procedures. As the business owner, that is your primary job. It is great fun to create a delish chicken dish. Cooking 1000 chickens—less so. But this is your business. You are the creator, other people do for you (eventually). Make sure you are thinking about it that way.