Business plan coffee shop

pedronomix

The idea being floated here is simply quite fanciful. Coffee shops and the like can, at best, produce a living for the person running it. Notions of attracting investors other than benign family members are off the wall. Any hope of raising any bank finance would require guarantees from individuals with clear ability to pay up in borrower default. Rent/rates overheads in decent locations are on an upward trend.
The OP would be best advised to identify actual available providers of finance for the proposed venture before just wasting a lot of time and effort on a fully worked business plan that may never get any serious attention from any investor/lender. The most important aspect of a business plan is the concept/idea/USP and the talent/ability of the promoter to deliver. The paper plan just puts the numbers on it and as such it is merely an attempt to predict the future. It will also flush out any waffle and affords somebody who knows what they are at, an opportunity to demonstrate their business nous. It also makes the promoter come to terms with ALL of the costs involved with definite figures.

pedroeibar1

The comments posted above by smcgiff are useful/helpful for a business plan but do not address the initial request - the OP said he wanted to open a Coffee shop / wine bar in Dublin, had no idea on how to put the ideas on paper and found it difficult to put things together with the LEO template, and needed help from an outsider to write the Business Plan.

There are lots of people out there who will take his money to write a business plan, they will put in fancy graphs, charts, spreadsheets, statistics, footfall, covers, stockturn, whatever, but get him finance from professional investors….. nope, not a hope on what he has written, which is why he received alternative advice from some. He should do his own first draft business plan, it will keep him focussed and he will see weaknesses/strengths.

For any start-up the ‘business package’ (including the owner) is the plan, as Bandara and Pedronomix have already pointed out. Outsourcing the initial few drafts is removing the promoter from the equation and OP will miss learning opportunities.

What OP should realise is that coffee shops have the highest failure rate of all businesses and consequently require the highest amounts of promoter equity (lack of which is why most fail). Why is he planning a coffee shop and a wine bar when they are completely different businesses and require different skills (and often locations)? The very fact that OP has to post a request that is so basic is an indicator that (a) he has insufficient business knowledge (b) has not put sufficient thought into the process and (c) wants to off-load homework. All reasons for him to bring the BP beyond first draft.

Someone on a first project, with little/no money, no complementary skillsets (he's a chef, so he is back office, not front of house), and no idea of how to put a basic business proposition on paper, has huge odds to overcome and a fancy BP is the least of his worries. One look at a BP that has insufficient promoter’s equity, no matter how well it is dressed up, and it will be blown out of the water. A successful BP is not how a concept is dressed up on paper, it is a complete package that jumps off the page.

It is BS for posters to offer encouragement, to talk about ‘raising finance’ and ‘celebrity investors’. Talk of ‘guarantors’ is not helpful either, because they only come into the equation when the business has demonstrable repayment ability but the security is weak. No bank first looks at the strength of guarantors, it looks at the promoter, business concept, and repayment ability. Security comes last, because it is a "given". Borrow from friends and he will lose them as friends.

A bucket of organic fertilizer, covered in glitzy paper, fancy bows and bells and sprayed with Chanel No.5 still remains what it is. And a professional will get the real smell from a mile away.

Positive advice, perceive it negatively if you wish.

Buttercake

While a business plan can be used for financing, it should be used for organisation and planning. Someone starting out may not have the skills to formulate a plan from Executive summary to Financial projections, it doesn't mean their idea/concept is flawed. I know one very successful restauranter in dublin who is dyslexic, he will happily admit he cannot write a sentence never mind a business plan but he will tell you why his next restaurant will be a success or his plans to start a new one.

There are plenty of creative people out there with great ideas but no clue of writing a business plan. The prehistoric one on LEO is no use. From what i can see, the OP was looking for someone to sit down and hand hold through the elements of the business plan, nothing wrong with that.

pedroeibar1

Buttercake wrote: »

While a business plan can be used for financing, it should be used for organisation and planning. Someone starting out may not have the skills to formulate a plan from Executive summary to Financial projections, it doesn't mean their idea/concept is flawed. I know one very successful restauranter in dublin who is dyslexic, he will happily admit he cannot write a sentence never mind a business plan but he will tell you why his next restaurant will be a success or his plans to start a new one.

There are plenty of creative people out there with great ideas but no clue of writing a business plan. The prehistoric one on LEO is no use. From what i can see, the OP was looking for someone to sit down and hand hold through the elements of the business plan, nothing wrong with that.

Totally in agreement with “While a business plan can be used for financing, it should be used for organisation and planning” which is why I’m responding because it is applicable to any start-up. Being able to write a plan shows the ability to think analytically which means that when something does go wrong ‘down the road’ (as it inevitably will) the owner will be able to identify the problem and take educated remedial action.

That is why I said the OP needs to put the initial plan down on paper himself – it’s a learning curve he must go through. Plus it will give him a better baseline and any good advisor would want an initial draft to work from. So it will save him a few grand in consultancy fees. A poor advisor would be happy to do donkeywork, take that cash and put useless blather down on paper.

The OP talks about a coffee bar and a wine bar - why? Different business models, concepts, skills, different premises / fit-out requirements and often different locations to optimise customer traffic. On top of that a licence for a wine bar costs about four grand (after several more grand in fees for architects, fire inspections and solicitor & court application fees, plus time delays and hassle with tax clearance certs.)

As he’s a chef I’d expect the OP to know something about wine, but for a good ‘stand-out’ wine bar does he know enough to discuss the different characteristics of the chardonnay grape used in Chablis, Meursault or New World wines? Or sauvignon blanc in Sancerre, or Pouilly Fume or the wines from Marlborough? If he doesn’t have that knowledge he’s just opening a pub with a very limited product range. Or does he expect (dangerous) just to have the silly idiots who shift with the fashion from chardonnay to sauvignon blanc to pinot bloody grigio and prosecco? (Anyone know what the next one will be?)

I agree there are creative dyslexic people out there with great foody ideas, but this is neither 'foody' nor Taillevent nor el Bulli, it is a start-up business plan for a local ‘premises’. So no, I don’t agree with much of the rest of what you wrote, because I think the concept IS flawed as proposed and much as they are nice, your kind words will not change that.

brianblaze

I'm about 3 weeks from opening a cafe and by far the hardest thing was writing the Business Plan and Financial Forecasts etc. Realistically though, it helped me organise and finalise my plans for myself. I've a lot of experience in the commercial side of business so that helped enormously.

There's also a tonne of YouTube videos that helped, especially with the financial forecasting etc. I didn't really need to do the plan but it did make me extend my research a bit more and to think more analytically about what can often be a 'dreamer' approach to opening a business.

Your local Enterprise Board will be a big help in terms of supplying templates and supports, but I wouldn't fool myself by thinking there's investors tripping over themselves to get involved. A good cafe will yield a small annual profit, but not enough for an investor to dump money in, especially in Dublin.

My adice is go to your Enterprise Board, get some solid advice then look at either raising the capital yourself or from family etc. Banks are lending but not really in the café space I'd imagine. Best of luck though!

LHPHB

cabla wrote: »

Damien - best of luck with the venture.

Have you started anything business before? I think something like your idea is all about location really. There's so many coffee shops out there. Need something unique too. Hope you've got some cool ideas anyway.

Would have to agree with this, I was at the AIB Start-up Academy a while back and Bobby Kerr was the guest speaker, he said he had many ventures with coffee that ended in disaster because of location, to name one of his ventures was the Manchester United cafe or shop that was on nassau street i think, didnt last very long but united still hold the rights and lease to the place to this day, still paying rent and the place is empty.

brianblaze

Location, Location, Location! 100%