Asking for Money

...is always a bit awkward (like this fragment). Like we have mentioned in previous posts, the only outlet for fundraising at this point is through family and friends. Seems easy enough - I mean, we're a small quick-service joint and compared to other start-ups, we don't need much. So we put together a nice little package detailing the terms of the investment and planned to distribute to everyone we know in hopes that they would then distribute to everyone they know in hopes that somewhere along the email chain spectrum, someone would be interested in investing. Why did we do it this way? For one, mass emailing is efficient and allowed us to cover a lot of territory. Second, we were able to include important information for easy forwarding. Third, we could put off making awkward phone calls and let the email do the talking. This method, however, has not worked for us. I will be candid - it's a very uncomfortable conversation to have (close family members excluded) because it just seems impolite to ask for money.

What we have had to remind ourselves is that our investment proposal is a potentially profitable one - it's the whole reason we decided to execute this concept in the first place! Of course we think it will be profitable and wildly successful - but for whatever reason we cannot help but feel we are desperately asking people to take a risk. Here's the Saus lesson of the day (something we still have a tough time with): getting on the phone (or meeting in person) and selling your idea is a necessary evil. In entrepreneurship classes they make it sound so darn easy. You sit down in class, which should be called Entrepreneurial Strategy for Idealists 401 and the professors make raising money sound like just another item on the checklist to be crossed off as easily as bananas (what?) on a grocery list. We have raised a decent chunk from family and friends (fairly easy portion) and once we have raised the rest we will share with you how we did it (and I can tell you right now that unless there's divine intervention the SBA won't be repairing itself for a while).

Perhaps making money will be easier. Let's hope.

May we take your order? We don't have one...

We do, however, have lame one liners in abundance. Seriously though, I'm not sure that there is such a thing as a right order of events when starting a business. What to do first, next, or later? They never really tell you this in the books. It's not as easy as idea -> business plan -> fund raising -> execution -> nirvana. Throughout this journey, we have found ourselves in catch 22s where order was not even possible. For example, we could not raise money until we had a location and we could not have a location until we had money! Currently, while we do have a location in mind for the shop (nothing signed off on just yet), we don't know whether to start with architectural plans to give to the contractor, or to have the contractor tell us what to incorporate in the design so as to lower costs. And how do we plan for equipment when we're not sure about an exact layout?

How have we dealt with this so far? Well for one thing, we have stopped being so hung up on having all our investment money before we took action. Once we obtained a portion of the total required start-up capital, we hired a lawyer and actively pursued a location. Now that we are approaching actual renovation, we'll need a second round of investment money before we hire a general contractor. On that note, there is no order, just a natural evolution of events. The way we have dealt with it is thrown the notion of "perfect planning and timing" out the window and have accepted just being able to handle chaos well, often followed by a lull period of intolerable inactivity, and once again followed by pure chaos.

We hate lull periods, and you'll know when we're in them when we don't post on the blog. But being the true food entrepreneurs we are, we utilize this down-time well. Two words: field research.

Quench Your Thirst

So for those who took our last survey, we are on the brink of another! (This one will be much shorter. Promise.)

As I was getting my ideas for the survey together, I thought maybe this forum would be a good way to get people prepped for it and get some initial feedback. (I do realize I'm talking maybe two responses.. but you never know.)

The Saus team was discussing what kind of beverages we were going to have, soda wise. Traditional American sodas, ie. Coke, Sprite, Root Beer, Mountain Dew, etc. Versus imported European sodas to lend to our Euro vibe, ie. Orangina, San Pellegrino, etc. Or perhaps more natural offerings, such as Steaz (which is organic), Fuze, or Izze.

These are the three directions we have been debating. But YOU tell US, which would you rather drink???