What about writing a Business Plan to present to the banks for a loan? Ive seen examples online but is there any other tools or advice anyone can add? Thanks!
If you know how to cook and love it, then open a restaurant. If you don't know how to cook and have money, franchise.
A former coworker of mine owned and operated 6 Dunkin Donut franchises in the Seattle area at one time. He started with 1 and worked his way up to 6. There are two cycles when owning a franchise. The debt cycle and your personal work cycle. His personal work cycle was: 1. Wake up at 3:00 AM, go to work. 2. Work. 3. Maybe get home at 9:00 PM if he didn't just sleep in his office. 4. Repeat. His debt cycle was like this: 1. Borrow money to franchise DD store, purchase equipment, materials, hire labor, etc. 2. Work 18 hours a day with almost no salary. 3. Give DD their franchise royalties OFF THE TOP revenue, whether your store makes money or not. Also purchase all supplies and equipment from DD (required). 4. FINALLY pay down debt and start to get ahead. 5. DD requires you to re-do the store, buy new equipment, etc and they require you to finance through them, and start all over. His basic thing, was that every time he started to get ahead and make decent money, he was required by the DD to put a bunch of money back into the store and finance from them. They also decided to change the business model which drove away a bunch of his regular customers that kept him in business. (they changed from a coffee shop where you would sit at a counter and eat breakfast and have coffee, to a "Starbucks type" where you'd get it in a paper cup and leave). When he finally sold out after 15 years, he netted a captial gain of $5,000. His salary was enough to feed his family and pay his mortgage, but his take home pay for him averaged out to something like $40,000 a year, taking into account some years he made $0 and some he did well. I'm all for starting a small business and "going for it" but he turned me off to the idea of EVERY investing in a franchise.
