View Full Version : Anyone started their own buiness?
This will probably end up in my long list of researched and given up ideas. but I don't enjoy my job and as you know I love cooking.
Has any one started up their own business how did you learn about the minefield of starting it up. Everything from tax, employee law, suppliers, business plans and loans, H&S, tax, advertising, renting or leasing properties, registering a company and the other 1001 things.
Do you read books, did you go on several workshops.
Knipples
11-01-2010, 19:07
Will send Pheebs your way when she gets home from work later. :)
If my brain wasn't so frazzled from working my ass off for someone else for the first time in 2 years, I think I would be somewhat useful in this thread ;D
Just as a small blurb on it though, I did a lot from my own back. Rang up my local council, found out about business days and courses (all free things which ranged from VAT, accounting, setting up business in general, business planning etc) and just got myself out there. Lots of reading up on the tinterweb too!
Food wise, I cannot really help you with the legislation there as I know nothing about Health and Safety and what food certs/licences you would need to hold to be able to trade nom noms. It's something I think would be fairly easy to research!
Start simple though and in mini chunks. Get the basics of what you want to do down on paper and start sorting out a business plan. What you want to do in the next few months to a year and then piece it apart and research how to go about each section.
WHen I'm more alive I will PM you some details which might help :) But my advice would be the above and then calling your local council and seeing whether you can pop in with your ideas on paper and have a chat to someone who will be a bit more in-the-know and give you more direction! :)
*wubs*
Good luck - it's worth it! It really is!!
*curses job she's been in for under a week* Working for others suck!!! Hehehe!
I've learnt everything I know from my parents and then experience so have no idea of where to go to for information starting from scratch. I guess the best thing is to just read and learn. There are probably plenty of guides on the net.
Get yourself a decent accountant. They don't cost as much as you might think and they'll keep on top of your books and will look after all of your tax returns and other things. They'll come in especially handy whilst you're learning all of this for yourself.
If there's one piece of advice I'd give it would be...don't just work hard, work smart.
My old man is one of the hardest workers you'll ever find. If only he'd have worked smarter over the years he may actually have made some half decent money.
And of course you can always ask more specific questions here and I'll help if I can :)
Yes, but am very small and have no employees,stock etc so it was very simple for me. Went on a few government run courses for doing my tax forms etc, made sure I had all my insurances and licenses, set up a website and I was off.
same as Roberta for me.
Check out Business Link, they usually work with the local council & in my experience are very good, and very helpful.
Cheers guys I had no idea you could get free courses from the council will have to have a look around and thanks for the business link link, seems to be loads of info on their.
What type of business are you looking at Acid? I know it's probably to do with food, but in what context? Just a catering type of business or a full shop, cafe, etc. What route you take means a vast difference in what you'll need to learn :)
What type of business are you looking at Acid? I know it's probably to do with food, but in what context? Just a catering type of business or a full shop, cafe, etc. What route you take means a vast difference in what you'll need to learn :)
Takeaway. so would need staff. Which complicates it massively.
fast food just done properly, massive shortage in Bristol of good fast food.
Your usual pizza, kebabs, burgers, chips, pies. Just home-made with proper meat.
Most places around here can't even cook chips. fish comes out soggy, kebbabs are done on a grill which hasn't been washed for 2 years and just tastes of burnt ash. Burgers have no taste and are about 1/2 a mm thick.
Obviusly people wouldn't spend loads. but I reckon you could make a tidy profit, as the meat is all cheap cuts. People are much more aware of where their food comes from and this only seems ot be increasing.
Well there's a fair few of us in the Bristol area that I'm sure would appreciate your grub!
Crack on :D
Takeaway.
Well if you want menus, I'm your man :D
Dude! I totally forgot you were Brizzle :) If you fancy a pint one evening and any help with ideas and what not give me a poke, would be more than happy to help out :)
is that permission to poke you ;)
Thanks for the offer but it's barely an idea at the moment. think I'll get a couple of books to start with and go from their.
Maybe something like these
http://www.amazon.co.uk/How-Start-Run-Your-Restaurant/dp/1845280199/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1H69P02KBM36M&colid=243PHTF8RPVKL
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Starting-Running-Sandwich-Coffee-Bar-Successful/dp/1857038053/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3E82NJCCKZG6Q&colid=243PHTF8RPVKL
Think they would give me some direction and a base to start with to then go do proper research once I know some of the ins and outs.
Admiral Huddy
13-01-2010, 18:12
Acid
You may recall that myself and a local PC repair man looked into PC retail..
The best place to start is Business Link. Each area runs a series of free courses and workshops designed to get you started. You have nothing to loose and they are quite enjoyable days out too. :)
I attended "Starting your own business workshop" and "Business planning workshop ".
the first gives you a road map of where you are and where you want to be .. like a tick list..
Your business plan is key to providing a milestone to continue or stop. Not only is it a concept document outlining your objectives and how to reach them but it's also a financial document outling your business potential. It provides a worth while investigation as to what your targets you should be hitting. You'll need to present this to receive any capital investment such as business loans.
Sometime times you can get lost in a sea of confusion. It took six months to complete ours and that's with two people only to find the return wasn't feasible to continue but nothing was lost.. if we went in without doing the course and business plan, we would have been in a lot of trouble now.
Good luck.
Well if you want menus, I'm your man :D
Don't listen to him Acid - I heard he tries to hide a cock in every piece of work he designs! :p
Thanks for the offer but it's barely an idea at the moment
Bristol Pint Meet Anyway? :D
Princess Griff
13-01-2010, 18:42
Bristol Pint Meet Anyway? :D
Yehhh and we can taste test your menu!! :D
Admiral Huddy
14-01-2010, 15:18
Any joy?
I'd say the primary concern would be why is there not a 'decent' takeaway already?
Research whether it has been tried - maybe the market just isn't there to make it worthwhile/profitable/last?
Healthy/quality fast food will always be an odd one because people dead set on living healthily don't often go out for a kebab or a takeaway pizza, quality or not. Those who do attend takeaway places a lot likely don't care about how healthy or high quality it is. It could turn out to be a very niche market, to the point you can't sustain a business on it.
It wouldn't be about health. Just proper home made stuff with a lot locally sourced. Rather than 50 burgers for £6 down your local macro.
The area round here is mad for there proper butchers, green grocers, bakers and restaurants. These all do well but there is basically no good fast food places. ritas is good for kebabs, but that is about it. The rest just seem to get a good tick of due to location, rather than producing edible stuff.
Assuming similar price I think most people would buy a takeaway which didn't taste burnt or of nothing. Obviously price is something I need to research and talk to suppliers but considering the place is known for local pies and sausages. I really think the demand is there, just a lack of choice.
We've always lamented the fact that there isn't anywhere healthy to go for a take-away when we can't be jiggered cooking. In California you can go out and get really good healthy food - usually the take-aways are run by immigrants - there's good Vietnemese, Thai, Greek, anything you can think of. Take-away there doesn't mean crap food. One of my faves is a place called First Choice which is basically a salad/pasta/pizza/soup buffet place, but you can get all you can eat salad for around $5 and it's always completely packed out with people eating soups & salads, with the kids usually eating the pizza/pasta. It's fab. I so wish we had something similar here. We've talked about starting one up in the past but never looked into it seriously.
Like I say, just make sure you do the research. It may be a completely untapped market you can exploit or a completely unsustainable one that others have already fallen foul of. 90% of fast food is crappy for a reason - most people don't care, that's why they're eating fast food in the first place.
Once you factor in property leases, wages and so on I can see it being pretty hard to remain competitive and using high quality ingredients too, butchers and the like are a different market where people are prepared to pay a little more for quality. Fast food is something you'd need to give serious thought to, as I know the attitude I have to it and judging by the massive queues for McDonalds and KFC in West Quay at Southampton and the utterly empty 'Fat Jackets' and 'Quiznos' places, most people feel the same way :p
Healthy/quality fast food will always be an odd one because people dead set on living healthily don't often go out for a kebab or a takeaway pizza, quality or not. Those who do attend takeaway places a lot likely don't care about how healthy or high quality it is.
That's very true here, completely different in the States. Obviously your burger places make a fortune but the healthy people eat take-out a lot too. Its an experience not just convenience. Wish it was like that here, then there might be more call for opening such places and keeping them going. I'd certainly be prepared to pay more for good quality convenience food - we don't really eat take away stuff like burgers and kebabs and stuff because you just know the quality is going to be crap in 95% of places. Just because I don't want to cook one night doesn't mean I don't want to eat well.
That's very true here, completely different in the States. Obviously your burger places make a fortune but the healthy people eat take-out a lot too. Its an experience not just convenience. Wish it was like that here, then there might be more call for opening such places and keeping them going. I'd certainly be prepared to pay more for good quality convenience food - we don't really eat take away stuff like burgers and kebabs and stuff because you just know the quality is going to be crap in 95% of places. Just because I don't want to cook one night doesn't mean I don't want to eat well.
Very true but what needs to be considered is the volume of people who will be like that. Many takeaways thrive on business from drunk people at weekends for example. It'd be harder to make ends meet on a customer base of people popping in once or twice a month in comparison.
(I'm not trying to piss on your chips or anything AH, just trying to emphasise that in a market like fast food I think the most careful consideration needs to go into the viability of the idea rather than how to run the business to start with. You have to ask why no one else has done it already? Who would be the target market? Would they be big enough? Enough regular business? Could you really provide good quality produce at even remotely competitive prices?)
Oh absolutely. Like you say, research is key!
I understand divine as I said this wouldn't be something I would do without research I would want every single thing researched before even going to a bank or registering.
I think people over estimate cost of home made stuff from wholesale. Probably talking 40-50p per burger using wholesale price charts.
I guess this is also dependant on the type of takeaway you're looking at. A highstreet place reliant on passing trade would be more dependant on location rather than the quality of the food. If most of your trade is home delivery then quality/price become the dominant factors.
I understand divine as I said this wouldn't be something I would do without research I would want every single thing researched before even going to a bank or registering.
I think people over estimate cost of home made stuff from wholesale. Probably talking 40-50p per burger using wholesale price charts.
Don't forget to factor in labour to make it too. You couldn't roll up at 5pm, sling the burgers on the grill from the freezer and open shop. Your staff would need to do some extra hours for prep.
Just making sure you've considered it, that's all. Sounds like a great idea and could be a very fulfilling little business if it works :)
I think actual food costs would be one of, if not the smallest component of per item cost unless you were shifting a LOT of food.
I think actual food costs would be one of, if not the smallest component of per item cost unless you were shifting a LOT of food.
compared to buildings and rates yep, but those costs are the same as other places.
Don't forget to factor in labour to make it too. You couldn't roll up at 5pm, sling the burgers on the grill from the freezer and open shop. Your staff would need to do some extra hours for prep.
yep already thought of that. and I think most prep could be done at quite times and more importantly I would do the extra hours in the mourning. Big batches could be made and refrigerated or frozen.
Your staff would need to do some extra hours for prep.
He's running his own small business....that's the sort of stuff you have to do yourself :p
Unless it really picks up and you do really well.....kiss goodbye to holidays ;D
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