Can you start a bookshop and cafe business with no money?

[Lessthandreamy]

Is it possible to ever start a business with no money?

Im poor, no debt as such but I work part time and I have two kids and a mortgage - but my absolute dream is to open a bookshop with a small cafe, I want to be open at unconventional times (4pm - 11pm) to give people who work normal 9-5’s a chance to do something after a day of work.. I’d like to open it as an independent bookshop that sells good condition second hand books to keep the costs low for everyone, perhaps even as an independent library. I’d love a small cafe there and occasionally invite pop up shops ect, have its own book club and events.

will this ever be doable? It doesn’t feel like something I’m ever going to accomplish.. but then I see people says you don’t need money to start a business.. how?!

Have a look at Rebel Business School (run by the Rebel Finance School team)…they focus on start up businesses using little/no money. With your idea, medium/long term there will be essential costs…short term you may be able to do a free/cheap scaled down version. Someone local to be has just launched a mobile/travelling bookshop with no initial layout.

We own a small chain of cafes, and it is an absolutely brutal time to try and enter the industry. Ours are only just surviving.

Between high costs for all ingredients, high salaries plus NICS, high business rates, high cost of utilities etc it is very very hard to make a profit - and then anything you make is taxed. We would sell them if there were any takers.

Independent bookshops I don’t know so much about, except that in the past ten years three independent bookshops have opened in our local area and they all closed down within a few years.

There’s a holiday cottage in (I think) Scotland you can rent for a week that comes with its own bookshop. You open and run it as you choose for that week so you get a taste of what owning a bookshop would be like. Book that, satisfy your craving, and then focus your energies elsewhere!

There are so many coffee shops near me ..I used to visit all of them regularly
But slowly over time they are all charging slightly short of £5 a coffee
So I only go once a week now
What used to be a daily treat is now a weekly one
I guess overheads ,bills .
But £5 for a coffee when you can make one at home

There is no money in bookselling, the margins per book are tiny. Unless of course you are Waterstones or a supermarket.

You are basically talking about a café which uses books to get the customers through the door. Running a café is labour intensive (you have to make every drink), and cost a fortune in set-up costs. Plus the market is already saturated.

Beautiful idea, but not practical.
Keeping the hours off means you will need to commit all your evenings, or hire someone for it. By keeping the books second hand and possibly borrow, it won't bring very much money to be sustainable.
Things like fresh cream, milk, and soy , coffee beans have double in cost in the last three years , baking ingredients, having a good safe kitchen, all take money to maintain, even past opening day.
You could get a load of books donated, but you'd still need business license, rent or purchase location, paying staff, utilities, insurance, it all adds up.

I used to run a tiny cafe/open mike place, for the owners. I saw just how tight the margins were, they made it work by being open all the hours, working their own shifts for free, and with family help to cover expenses at the beginning.

I would suggest that, as you needed to ask, you're probably not at the stage to own a business.

Brutal, I know, but if you don't know the basics I have no idea how you can run a business.

Kindly I live in a town with 2 record shop/cafes and a book shop cafe. These are all well off people who were made redundant and now have a hobby business they really enjoy. None make enough money to be considered a 'job' in a traditional sense. One of them owns the building and confesses regularly she would make more money by letting the building to a betting shop but she loves her business.

Putting aside for a sec the need for any start up costs, have you worked out how many coffees and second hand books per day you would need to sell just to cover rent?

That is a really easy calculation for you to do with half an hours research on the local commercial property market.

I think you’ll probably find that once you’ve done that calculation, your idea will be a non-starter.

Not a hope in hell! I worked in a bookshop decades ago and it was tough when amazon launched and undercut all the physical bookstores. We've lost all the independents near us but there is a Waterstones within driving distance right by the University campus... I've owned, run and worked in cafes and restaurants for most of my 30s, 40s and 50s. I'm glad to be out now. The costs are eye-watering for food, utilities, equipment, staff, insurance, fire extinguisher checks, music licence, rent and a lot more besides. Customers seem to think if they can get something cheaply in the supermarket then a cafe should be able to provide it for the same price.... Without a lot of money behind you this idea will remain an idea only and the business plan is deeply flawed. The Book Nook in Stirling opens 8:30am to 5:30pm Thursday to Tuesday and 8:30am to 9:00pm on a Wednesday. They have late night demand once a week and not nearly as late as you propose. They do run book clubs and have ticketed events but these are outside their core hours (and from experience special events take a lot of time to organise and host.)

As a PP said, if it was easy we'd all be doing it - there are even memes about how it's every woman's dream!

I do like the idea of something mobile, I follow a couple who've done up an old horse box as a bookshop, that feels more achievable.

For every 100 people who start something like this, you'll probably have only a handful who survive more than a couple of years and make the owner even NMW for the hours they work.

The closest to what you imagine I can think of is

Hyde Park Book Club

But it's open 15/16 hours a day and as well as having second hand books/a library, it's also a music venue/bar and is in a very cheap unit with very cheap decor.

but then I see people says you don’t need money to start a business.. how

Who are these people? Are they reliable? Do they give evidence? 'People' can say what they like, doesn't make it true, necessarily.

You appear to have zero knowledge as to business costs and how to generate profit.
The idea you have would not work as you would never be able to even generate enough income to cover basic running costs. Sorry to say, you need to review your plans.

There's something similar near me, but new books and open during the day as well as hosting events practically every evening. It is on it's knees financially and the owners work around the clock.

Pipe dream. You need a Health and Safety compliant kitchen, a back up plan if you are ill , start up costs of ingredient etc. at the very least.

OP the bookshop and cafe idea is so overdone. It is not a gap in the market.

A guy called Michael McEntee used to run a business similar to the one you're thinking about, OP. It was called the Big Comfy Bookshop in Coventry and traded circa 2014-2022. He has a LinkedIn and there is still a Twitter account for the bookshop if you want to have a look/maybe ask about his experiences.

The lovely Sarah Henshaw ran the Book Barge for some years from 2011 onwards, first in Staffordshire and then in France, doesn't appear to be trading at present, as far as I can tell. It wasn't a cafe, but her memoir The Bookshop That Floated Away is an interesting and funny account of the trials and tribulations of running a bookshop.

I would second the poster who said a market stall would be a much cheaper, low-risk place to start. Wishing you well.

I know a few people who have done this as it was their dream and they all totally regretted it and lost money. These were people who were wealthy so they had money to throw at it and it was really a vanity project.

They all stopped when they realised they were working crazy hours and it was costing them to keep the premises open, that plus rude customers throwing “stale” cakes over the counter demanding a refund and standing there quibbling over “eggs on toast” for £2.50 asking “if I only have 1 egg can I pay £1” etc

What do you do part time that allows you to raise 2 children and pay a mortgage. Assuming no partner contributing……?

It’s very difficult for bookshops to break even, let alone make a profit. Cafes are 2 a penny and they come and go.

I hate to tell you this but this is almost everyone’s dream. This exact idea.

Most businesses fail, most cafes fail, even with tons of money. If you really want to do it, work in a cafe for a year first and see if you can do that. Then you can do a ‘running a business’ type course, you absolutely can do this but you need to do a lot of research first.

No, it's not possible. The money and time for these types of endeavors are not small it's not a part-time hobby job. It would end up being a huge money pit, ending up in debt. The people who start these hobby type businesses nearly always have financial backers either a spouse or family

Why don't you just start a book club in your own home?

This sounds like a nice idea!

If you want to do something for your local community, set up a 'little free library' in your front garden. https://littlefreelibrary.org/

I dunno, I feel like it's probably not everyone's dream to be "doing it" in terms of doing the actual work that it entails.

It would be nice to be really rich and buy an already-functioning business like this, pay other people to run it, and just saunter in there every so often to drink coffee and chat to interesting folk 😆THAT's the dream!

I think question yourself a bit more about exactly what is driving you - self employment, making money, making a living doing something that contributes to the community, selling books, sharing books with other people, the atmosphere of a cafe, feeding people, something else?

Once you know exactly why this is your dream, or what the main driver is, you’ll be better placed to consider whether this exact scenario is really what you want, or what alternatives could do the same.

A woman near my son’s old bedsit runs a coffee stall out of an old phone box. I thought that was very cool. No idea if she’s making a living.