Any advice you wish someone had given you when you first started your business?

A friend and I are planning to open a coffeeshop/bar and I've been having a hard time coming up with a concept for the place. We will be catering mostly to college students. Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated: business, aesthetic, or otherwise. Thanks.Any advice you wish someone had given you when you first started your business?
have enough cash to last the first year when you won't be making much money.Any advice you wish someone had given you when you first started your business?
yes get as much support as you can.
Make sure you have a business plan in place!!!!


Lots of research also
Once i had this idea too. Glad to help someone realize their dreams. First of all it's great business because you can have as little space as you can and it doesn't affect money you'll earn. People will definetely come if the the place is cozy. For that you have to choose light colors, but not bright, to cover the walls. You can paint one wall only pure brown(coffee color) and hang some coffee,cup etc. pictures on the wall. there are nice ones at www.allposters.co.uk.- but maybe you have the place and everything ready:) if you have further questions,please ask. Good luck
Starting a business requires a lot of work and dedication. You cannot start a business this week and expect to be earning a good profit next week.





Employees tend to have a ';job'; mindset whereby they worked this week, so they expect to see results this week (i.e. a paycheck this week).





In business, you don't see results like that. Take, for instance, starting a new restaurant. You'll first have to choose a location. The most successful restaurants have their own location, with their own parking lots.





If you wanted to open a restaurant like that, you'd spend a couple of months looking for the right location. Then you'd spend thousands of dollars for an architect to help design the plans with you. Then you'd spend thousands of dollars getting your plans approved by the local authorities.





And then, after all that, you'd be approved to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on hiring a firm to actually build your building. And after that, you'd spend tens of thousands of dollars to install the interior decorations.





And then you'd spend thousands of dollars hiring employees and training them, as well as having them prepare for the grand opening.





And then, after over a year and spending over a half million dollars, you'd be ready to open the doors and start earning your first dollar.





I say this to illustrate my point: businesses take time and money up front to develop. In the longer period of time, this time and money invested up front will pay off.





But businesses take time to develop!





It is not like being an employee where you get instant results, meaning work this week, get paid this week.





Business is not like that.





I hope this helps.





I wish you much business success!
Make points on an excel sheet.


Edit them every day after you work on them.





Tabulate your finance: capital %26amp; recurring (Till you start profiting)





Plan mentally %26amp; practically.


Work on them in a mechanical way.





Go for small sale initially.


It grows this way only.





All the very best. You guys will do it.