Future Coffee Shop Owner

[Harbl]

O, for plain sailing and less regulations! I'm just starting down the road towards opening a coffee shop with a business partner, and I'm learning the ins-and-outs of everything for the first time. I'm considering purchasing the guide to coffee shop specific business planning teneric provides. We have our plans outlined in detail regarding our product, our market, marketing practice, the competition, now comes the financial details. We've found our suppliers, priced up everything from rent to printed cups, now we're looking into the part where the government runs away with our hard-earned Then it's financial planning time.

It's good to meet you all, I've already learned a couple of things and reinforced my grasp on a couple of points by reading this forum, I'm sure I'll be around for some time to come. Please wish us luck, and the best of luck to you and your businesses.

Danny

[BlueSky Web Studios]

Hi Danny,

I was involved into a similar project about five years ago - two chaps with a good looking business plan approached me, asking for investment. After looking over their plan, I decided to go ahead.

The particular shop in question struggled at first, as it is directly opposite a Starbucks which opened 8 months after our particular store did. It was clear however the chaps found a suitable location, where the rent was very reasonable for a London store, and where there was a high demand. After about a year, the shop started to make quite a strong return, and is now at full capacity and is looking to expand into a new store in the next few years.

I am very hopeful that your business turns out the same way - keep us informed, and let us know how you get on. If there is anything you need advice on, this would appear to be the place to ask!

I’m no longer involved with this investment, but I gave the chaps a call for you to see if they could recommend any reading material, and they suggested this:
http://www.waterstones.com/waterstonesweb/displayProductDetails.do?sku=3875938

Hope that helps, and all the best!

Stuart Johnston
BlueSky Web Studios
Professional & Affordable Web Design
http://www.blueskywebstudios.co.uk

[Red_Stafford]

Hi Danny, I am also new here and I am also hoping to setup my own Coffee Shop, see my topic here http://www.teneric.co.uk/forums/starting-small-business/starting-up-coffee-shop-cyber-cafe-8791.html?posted=1#post30015, my partner currently runs a coffee shop at the moment but does not pick up a good wage because she runs it for someone else so we was thinking why not open our own, if you have any advice that may be of use for us I would gratefully apreciate it if you could share it with us.

[Tim]

It may not be exactly the kind of advice you were looking for (and/or, of course, you may know of it already), but may I recommend a book which I've found particularly interesting and inspiring in this context? "Anyone Can Do It" by Sahar Hashemi and Bobby Hashemi, subtitled "Building 'Coffee Republic' from Our Kitchen Table: 57 Real-Life Laws on Entrepreneurship". It's packed with inspirational anecdotes that everyone can learn from. Specifically, anyone who imagines that only "gifted" or "special" people can start and run a successful business should read this book, which might just change their mind about that!