Financial Strength
February 27, 2008 by jim
A woman opened up a coffee shop 2 years ago in a strip mall near my house. Unfortunately, a second coffee shop opened about a mile up the road, along with a Penara Bread store. The second coffee shop, with a drive thru, closed. A dance studio opened in the strip mall next to the first coffee shop. Now, the first coffee shop is doing gang-buster business from the moms waiting for their daughters to get out of dance lessons. The Penara is doing very well.
The key here is that the woman who opened the first coffee shop owned the strip mall where she opened and the beauty salon and the tanning shop in that same strip mall. The guy with the drive thru coffee shop was on his own. The reason the first coffee shop survived is that the owner had the financial where with all to survive the lean start-up times until her immediate business environment turned around. Though he had a better idea and a better situation, the guy who ran the coffee shop that closed did not have enough financial strength to survive the lean times.
Start up times are very lean financial times. Are you ready, willing and able to do what is necessary financially to put your business in the black?