Am I in cloud cuckoo land?

[RobynLou]

some background... I'm 28, have a BA and an MA in Theatre Design.
since graduating I first worked as a wardrobe mistress then as a designer all over on short term and freelance contracts. I've recently been making puppets as art objects as well, doing portraits of people as puppets and running puppet making workshops/parties for adults and children. Through this work I've made many theatre/art/craft contacts.

Alongside that, apart from a couple of breaks I've pretty much continually worked pt as a front of house duty manager in 3 different theatres - in charge of getting the shows in/managing casual staff/cashing up/sometimes doing rotas etc.

I also do things like making bridesmaids dresses and clothes alterations.

I work very hard and just about get 10-12k a year, I'm tired of it all.

We rent our house and just make ends meet (DH works ft in a not very well paid job) but I can't see a way we're ever going to have any more money in the jobs we're doing at the moment. we have a pitiful amount of savings.

SO I want to start a business. I want to run a mini community arts venue. A 2 storey shop (this shop is vacant on our high st and has been for a while) with a small simple cafe downstairs with a carpeted corner with children's books and a weekly story time. Also downstairs we would stock arts and crafts materials. We would have 'make a finger puppet'style packs which you could buy and then sit at a table in the cafe and do - alongside the salt and pepper on the tables would be pritt sticks and a few other little crafty tit bits.
Upstairs we would sell more grown up craft/haberdashery/wool/art&craft books and have a small meeting/exhibition space.
We would run regular workshops on various arts and crafts, have a knitting night, maybe even life drawing, run children's parties, mount mini exhibitions of local artists work.

I've dreamt of running somewhere like this since I was at uni. I've got plenty of contacts for workshops and experience in the running of a cafebar/managing budgets and people. DH used to work in bar management. We live in a very nice suburb of london where people still seem to have plenty to spend on coffees.

I've got a meeting with the princes trust, will they laugh me out the room? is it even remotely possible to start a business, and convince people to lend you money when you don't have a mortgage?

I don't think they will laugh at you tbh.
Have you got a business plan?
Projections? Overheads V incomings etc

Have you worked out how you are going to make sales?
What is your marketing strategy and budget?

Like any business, it's a bums on seats affair, and sounds like it will be sales driven, so you will need to show how you are going to get those bums on seats. You won't just be running it - you will be selling it.

Good luck with it.

The Princes Trust meeting is an initial advice session to help me write a business plan and see if the idea is worth pursuing.
I have used the profit we make on coffees etc at the theatre I duty manage to estimate what sort of profit margins there would be in the cafe, and I've based staffing costs on the theatre bar too. I know what the rent and business rates would be, but I don't know where to start with estimating utilities, so I think the number I've picked is probably rather high. It all seems to add up so far.

There are already cafes on our high street, which are always packed, but none of them do anything to cater for mums and children, which would be a good draw I think as mums and children are the main customers of all the cafes.

re getting bums on seats, the location is crucial - the shop is right in the centre of a buzzy high street, so there's lots of passing trade. I also have quite a good mailing list from my workshops. I am really involved in our local community - all the playgroups, the church, the schools, the big craft fair. It's very strong village style community and I think a lot of promotion can be done by being involved in that.
Marketing is something I don't have real experience in so I may need to talk to marketing people at the theatre for some advice.

anyone else got any advice/ideas/thinks I'm mad?

Ring the utilities companies to get an estimate of What your overheads will be.

You need to be able to prove you can fill the seats every time you run a course your self - not relying on drop ins or passing trade.

How are you going to do your marketing and sales? Have you a budget for that? Have you or can you get someone to help you do that?

I run my own business, and have done for 15 years, and know that whatever your business is it is ALWAYS a sales job, no matter how lovely and organic / chi-chi / wholesome / fun your product is, your business will die if there are no sales.

Are you going to sell your kits online?
Lets say that Swine flu (remember that) came back horribly this winter, and there was a curfew - no one was going out for coffee - can you sell your kits mail order / online? Have you got them ready as a second stream of revenue?

I can help you with a full e-commerce website if you like!

I don't think it's a stupid idea at all, there is money in coffee and if you can bring people through the door with the arts stuff then that will always help.

The key is to show that you can afford to pay back any money they will lend you - this is what they will be interested in. When you go to your meeting you should have an idea of how much you want to borrow, so have a good think about the cost of your equipment (fridges, coffee machines, tables, chairs, shop fittings etc), how much haberdashery stock etc you will need to buy up front, anything else you will need to pay for up front before your sales start. You also should then have a fair idea of how much profit you will make each month (which it sounds like you are doing) and then be able to show that your profit is bigger than your loan repayments.

Don't worry about the mortgage angle, there is no reason that should be an issue.

thanks for your input guys, you've been really helpful.

I've just found out the landlords of the property are offering a 1 year rent free deal, as they really want to get it leased out. I'm going to look into what exactly they're offering, but it's potentially very exciting...

RL - it sounds like a great idea and you sound very well-placed to implement it. It also sounds like a niche idea - lots of places have a few token toys for kids, and at the other end of the scale lots of places do the full-on, takes 2-hours, pottery painting stuff (and the coffee is usually rubbish!) - the idea of a few crafty things on the table and activities to do whilst having coffee is great. And the other aspects of the idea sound great too.

a couple of thoughts:

could you ask mn to host a survey for you to do some market research to present to potential lenders? surveymonkey is really easy to use - you could ask specific questions re how much people would be prepared to pay, how often they might use such a place, and questions about specific activities etc. you migh even find a mn-er market research type who'd help you ask the right questions.

could you find and speak to anyone doing anything similar - or even one of the pottery-type places to inspire you with ideas and help you get an idea of the challenges (best to find someone in a different but similar London area - ie not someone for whom you'll be a competitor). I think you should trawl the suburbs and see what else is out there.

Could you explore cheap ways of getting bums-on-seat ? the finger puppets sound good but would be an occasional thing for most parents ? in terms of both novelty and, probably, cost. I think you need to have good quality coffee and cake ? so people will come in for that anyway. And you could have basic craft activities ? the kind of thing you get at play groups ? cutting and sticking from magazines ? if you varied this and themed it ? ie gave people a specific ?activity of the day? (or week), on the tables, (which, with your background, I?m sure you could do), then I think that could really get people in ? regularly ? buying lots of coffee. (maybe charge a token 50p? 75p? to cover cost of paper and glue, or even have a honesty box for these cheap activities for people to drop in what they think is fair ? people like that, makes them feel trusted, makes them feel part of something ? and if it?s an affluent area you might get more than you?d be willing to explicitly charge.

and, could you explore grants (rather than loans) to develop the community-side of things and/or the idea of exhibiting local artists' work - I don;t know anything about arts grants but strikes me as potentially worth exploring.

good luck with it all - you sound like you've already put a lot of thought into it. I'd love a place like this near me...

and I think you should call it cuckoo land.

hatwoman

the honesty box thing is a brilliant idea. I've looked a little into arts grants, and I have friends who's jobs are applying for arts council funding for theatre in education type projects, so am planning on getting some help from them in return for cake. Everything's very up in the air i that area at the moment though - no one really knows if there'll be any money available after cuts.

A very old friend of mine runs a pottery cafe in a different but similar part of the country, so I've been quizzing her, and one of my NCT mums has been running a cake and biscuit making business for the past year, so I've spoken to her and she would be really excited to do wholesale cakes for me - all made locally with natural ingredients and she does lots of amazing flavours, her fairy cakes are so much more appropriate for children than the muffins you get in chain coffee stores.

the market research idea is brilliant, will definitely look into that.

thanks again guys, you're great!

We have a similar concept locally and something that really gets people in is knitting/sewing circles. They have a couple during the day during the week and also open up for an evening knitting circle. They charge about £5 per session, for which you get a drink and a cake and can get help with any sewing/knitting problems you are having from the proprietor. It's mainly a social event though too of course.

I hope you live near me - it sounds fabulous!

have you got a Business Link near you? they used to offer free courses for people looking to set up their own businesses (this was years ago though...)

I think you might need to investigate the utilities costings further.

One of my clients is a pub and the electric and gas is HORRENDOUS!! Fridges, freezers, chillers, glass washers, TV's etc all burn it up like mad. And water rates, and refuse collection.

Can you find a similar enterprise in another location - even google other parts of the country - and then see if they are friendly and helpful and could give you a guide as to how much they are paying?

It sounds fab - where in London are you? Something like that would go down really well round here.

You need to cost your overheads/fixed costs first and first out what you need to break even (irrespective of your salary!). How many kits/lessons etc would you have to sell a week to break even?

I'd also imagine that you're need to be open very long hours eg, from after school drop-off (to get the pre-schoolers crowd in) to evening if you're running evening events. Plus parents love stuff that's open at the weekend, preferably both Saturday and Sunday so you may need to figure in paying for extra staff.

Best of luck, it sounds great.

The dangerous time is setting up. You don't sound as if you have much capital (I am in the same position so sympathise!). The one year rent free deal sounds good (almost too good- why is it so hard to rent?)

Can you think of a way to start the business without the running costs of a shop then build up to a shop when you have established an income stream? Cash flow is the killer. Really pay attention to the cash flow you need to start up.

Prince's Trust sounds a good place. Get out there and start talking to people.

I think it sounds lovely, really appealing but financially precarious.

Some things you could try:

Offer puppet making birthday parties on premises. You can do different price tiers with surcharge for party bags of finger puppets.

You could do more tricky/whacky marionettes or design your own tee-shirt/instant fashion design (dresses held together with gaffer and safety pins to attract older kids as these will bring in bigger money.

You could charge other craft groups (knitting circles, stitch and bitch, even art or creative writing) to use the space by the hour, to bring more bodies through the door.

You could offer courses, rather than just pop in sessions, so people return on a regular basis.

The danger would be that it's a place people muse and browse but spend only a £1 on some felt or a coffee, which won't keep you alive, so there need to be some steady earners through the doors each week. And if you don't want it to fold after a year, start as you mean to go on, acting as if you were already footing the rent.

Really good luck to you. (I have a similar dream, but not likely to happen for ages, if at all.)

saintlydamemrsturnip - "why is it so hard to rent?"

It may not be massively difficult to rent, but the business rates have gone up in lots of areas, and I think the councils look to the landlords to pay that, even if there's nobody renting the property, so they have to find cash and have none coming in.

By offering it rent-free, the tenant has the business rates to find, which at least means the landlord is freed of having to find that cash (and the more properties owned, with no tenants, the more outlay).

Sounds a great idea! Could do with something like that here.
My friend runs a company called Theatre Tots, which is drama classes for 0-5s. You could look at having a class on upstairs while the mums have coffee downstairs.
Website is www.theatretots.com. Have a look. She is in South London and the classes are fantastic. Good luck with it all.

Sounds like a great idea. Good Luck for it.