open a coffee shop

:) Yesterday I squeeled with glee when I found that I can install the double-element (double boiler) espresso machine that I actually wanted!!!

I am meeting my designer friend to come up with a logo very soon, and then I have to come up with some kind of press-release statement… It is so multilayered, this process!! From choosing my initial suppliers, to the marketing campaign, and the interior decor and ambiance, and the training of any barristas (at first it will be my family members, who are more than happy to help out as I get this thing off the ground!!!) ...

A year ago, I never would have guessed I would be doing something like this… ;) I am so exicted, and yet, so terrified that nobody will show up (When I have thoughts like that, I have to remind myself that I am moving into a space where there has ALWAYS been a coffee shop – the last 20 years, and it’s a fabulous location, it’s just closed right now)!!!

The prospect of going to the bank, carefully-researched-and-crafted-business-plan-in-hand is daunting… I have managed to stay without any debt for the whole of my (relatively speaking) short life thus far… lines of credit, bank loans, cheap rent, silent owners… All the possibilities, and I am scared to death to “take out a loan”!!! :)

A very good friend of mine recently “pep-talked” me, and I take his statements to heart… On the whole, he indicated that where I live, to succeed in any kind of financial endeavor, you must, at first, make investments that may at first scare you beyond anything you may have known (financially speaking) before… A house purchase can be terrifying; a small business loan is the same way. I just have to remind myself that I have fashioned a solid business plan, locked up the sweet, outfitted location, purveyors, have an accountant, a tax specialist, a lawyer, a really, really supportive group of friends and associates, who love me and want me to be successful… and are willing to work hard for me to make it so… And a local business and activist-minded community that wants to see me shine…!!

I am in that tumultuous stage of my process, where excitement and terror blend together… ;) Eeeek! What am I doing!? ;) Having fun, learning, acheiving, and growing—THAT’s what I’m doing, thank you very much…!!! ;)
Go me!!! ;)

laugh ;)