[Bored]

I am interested in opening my own business (food related) and I have a good idea. I need to know how to get started, how to prepare, and basically what to do. What major should I take? Should I work as a manager before? Where do I get the money to start my business?

I also want to know if my idea sounds like a good one.

I want to create a healthy fast food chain. What is special about the concept of this restaurant, is healthy food at cheaper prices and faster service. I am also thinking of equipping the store with touch screen computers that have a dietary program on it. Someone could enter their weight, height, age, schedule, etc. and the program would automatically configure a dietary plan (using the food of my restaurant) that best fits them; will also include exercise plans to supplement the diet. After they computed their dietary plan, they would receive a card that can be used to purchase their special plan. The card could be good for anywhere from a week to a month (prices will vary). This way they would not have to memorize their plan and simply just give the cashier their card and pick up their food (delivery included). My restaurant will have an emphasis on speed and accuracy.
Since food orders will vary so much, the main dietary meals will be organized in a sort of assembly line. The menu can include salads (big variety), fruit, steamed vegetables, chicken, rice, veggie burgers, normal burgers, sandwiches, soups, coffee, health drinks, fruit salad shakers, etc. Not to confuse customers with the overwhelming choices, there will be recommended combo meals. None of the food will be from hormone induced animals, no preservatives either.
My target customers are people who care about their health, but don't have time to deal/start diet plans. My restaurant offers fast food (not in quality, but in speed) that is healthy for you. The environment of the store would be fun and modern. Not necessarily homey looking, because I still want to give the impression of a fast food and not a sit down restaurant.
A good location for my restaurant would be in any big city. People are busy and are getting sick of getting their food at McDonald's, my store would be the best alternative.


I need some direction to help me reach my goal.

[green]

I like the concept of a high tech healthy fast food store. Theres definately a push towards people eating healthier food, which can be seen by the success of boost juice, subway and sumo salad.
I think your best idea, is the card which holds your menu preferences. I could see that working really well for people who order salads. I dont go to salad bars, but I can imagine standing behind someone who takes 10 min to order one with 20 ingredients, pausing every 30 secs trying to remember what else to add. If everyone had a card with their salad combinations on it..

1. The service would be faster. The employee would just scan the card, and the ingredients would appear on the screen, ready to be put into the box.
2. Customers would get what they wanted all the time- buying a salad becomes easy when you dont have to remember 8 or more ingredients, specially when your stressed ( as city folk often are).
3. Having a card which has your food preferences on it is just plain cool. Simply because its never been done before (in sydney anyhow...maybe in Japan.) Your bound to attract a hip young crowd, leading to the masses that follow them. And before you know it you've turned into the next boost.

"Since food orders will vary so much, the main dietary meals will be organized in a sort of assembly line. The menu can include salads (big variety), fruit, steamed vegetables, chicken, rice, veggie burgers, normal burgers, sandwiches, soups, coffee, health drinks, fruit salad shakers, etc....."

OK, that is a HUGE variety of food, You cant have that much variety and expect to be cost efficient. Compared to a store with a smaller menu, you would would have to hire more staff, rent a larger premises, buy more different types of packaging, and pay more for your ingredients as you wouldnt be able to buy in bulk.

Since your starting out, I would go the cheapest and therefore easiest way. Stick to salads. All you would need is some sort of refrigeration, about 40 plastic tubs, you could just buy the salad leaves/sundriedtomatoes/chicken etc from your local supermarket ( as most small food businesses do), until you become popular enough to buy in bulk.
As for the touch screen computers, These are not cheap + I can forsee them breaking easily. An LCD screen would look just as elegant. I would also get rid of the exercise plan printouts, for simplicity/cost reasons.

Heres how your card system could work
On the customer side--
1. Each card has its own unique 7 digit id number printed on it.
2.Customer takes one of your cards--- uses your LCD screen computer/ uses home computer to go to your website and enter in 7 digit number.
3. The customer chooses salad preferences---these are then stored in your websites database (MySQL) under their 7 digit number.
4. The customer is free to update their salad preferences at any time they wish, even from their computer at work, just by logging on to your website.

Onyour side--
1. Employee swipes the customers card( so the card will haveto have some sort of barcode, as well as the 7 digit number)
2. Computer employee is using connects via the internet to your website database, bringing up the the salad preferences which are displayed on the screen.


This website/database system is very easy to implement. Probably take a coder less than a day to complete.

Also some ppl are technophobes and would not want to use the cards, ppl may lose their cards, or feel like something different--- so you'll have to serve those customers too.

But to encourage people to use the cards, you could possibly offer a 20% discount on marked prices, or charge the other people 20% more.

Anyhow--- hope thats helps you get started

[Bored]

Thanks for your response!

I was thinking the exact same about the menu being too big. I also thought about how I would start off more simple and get more sophisticated later on. Just salads sounds a little too plain to me, unless I include salads that aren't simply with greens like potatoe salads and eeg salads. Or maybe add a Baguette slice to every salad.

The 7-digit code idea sounds cool because the customer might want to change their menu at home. Also the cards don't necessarily have to be used for the dietary plan, they could be used simply for preference. Those who use the card will be given a discount of course. Usually when people buy in bulk, they recieve a discount. Your right about the printing out thing, it looks way too tacky and messy. The code system would be a lot better.

Customers would have to put their names in the data base for those who lose their cards. Some ID would be necessary as well. For those who realllllly do not wish to use the card, they could simply write up a schedual for them on paper. The employees should have a strong understanding of how the program works and help any customer with it.


How much do you think the cost to hire a programmer to write up my program would be?

[green]

A good way to find out, is to advertise your project on freelancer websites. Where you write down what you want, and programmers bid on it.(quote how much they will charge you for it).

Since you want it to look cool/high tech, I would suggest getting the website designed in flash and using mysql for the database. You would need someone with intermediate/advanced flash skills, good photoshop skills, and beginner mysql skills. But if you dont want the flash, which would cost more + not everyones computer has flash, hire a php programmer, who could do it easily and fairly cheaply.

At some freelancer sites, you get to rate the programmers on how well they completed the job. Because people are wary about hiring someone who has not been rated/ never completed a project, these programmers will often bid really low, so if your lucky you could get the project done for under $100.

here are some freelancer sites- you can find more by googling
www.elance.com
www.freelancers.com
www.freelancers.net

[akula]

Originally Posted by Bored

I need some direction to help me reach my goal.

Look, i just started writing a lengthy thread for you but I need a sign of faith that you're not just some starry-eyed BS artist. Judging by the quality of your writing, it seems you have minimal exposure to the business world and you've never actually sold anything to anybody, so there is no reason for me to believe that advising you is not going to be a waste of time.

What are your motivations for starting a business?

If you can clearly articulate why you want to be a founder, judging by your response, I'll be able to tell if introducing you to the stepped method for risk efficient commercialization is going to be waste of time or you can actually benefit from it. It's an anonymous board, please be completely honest because you don't know what I am looking for.

[Bored]

Originally Posted by akula

Look, i just started writing a lengthy thread for you but I need a sign of faith that you're not just some starry-eyed BS artist. Judging by the quality of your writing, it seems you have minimal exposure to the business world and you've never actually sold anything to anybody, so there is no reason for me to believe that advising you is not going to be a waste of time.

What are your motivations for starting a business?

If you can clearly articulate why you want to be a founder, judging by your response, I'll be able to tell if introducing you to the stepped method for risk efficient commercialization is going to be waste of time or you can actually benefit from it. It's an anonymous board, please be completely honest because you don't know what I am looking for.

I am just a young guy that is really interested in creating their own business. Through out my life I have been searching for my meaning to life. For a long time I was lost and I did not have passion for many things. Then I thought about times that I feel the healthiest. I thought to myself "when do I feel like I am doing the right thing, going towards the right path?" After some introspection, I came to realize what truly makes me happy. Nothing gives me more satisfaction that creating something from my own mind. Working problems out, creating art, and making money through creativity truly made me happy. Starting my own business would be my idea job, or even, my meaning to life! Even if my idea above does not work out, this is what I want to do for a living.

I never owned my own business, but I have had jobs before. I am also currently taking a couple business classes. You are right, I do not have much exposure to the business world, and this is why I came to the forums in the first place.

But hey akula, if you don't feel like I am worth your time, thats fine. I understand you are a business person yourself, and you always have an eye out for frauds.


What good is gun powder without the gun?

[akula]

Originally Posted by Bored

I am just a young guy that is really interested in creating their own business. Through out my life I have been searching for my meaning to life. For a long time I was lost and I did not have passion for many things. Then I thought about times that I feel the healthiest. I thought to myself "when do I feel like I am doing the right thing, going towards the right path?" After some introspection, I came to realize what truly makes me happy. Nothing gives me more satisfaction that creating something from my own mind. Working problems out, creating art, and making money through creativity truly made me happy. Starting my own business would be my idea job, or even, my meaning to life! Even if my idea above does not work out, this is what I want to do for a living.

I never owned my own business, but I have had jobs before. I am also currently taking a couple business classes. You are right, I do not have much exposure to the business world, and this is why I came to the forums in the first place.

But hey akula, if you don't feel like I am worth your time, thats fine. I understand you are a business person yourself, and you always have an eye out for frauds.


What good is gun powder without the gun?

Ok. Good. I am going to start advising you now with a series of posts. This is going to be the first one and I will start identifying and breaking down the kinds of roles you will need to take on to get to your dream. Is it OK for you to electronically nod so I know when to proceed with the next post?

First, feedback about your motivation. Finding meaning is an OK- so so motivation. It's not the best possible motivation because there is no reason to believe that you will find meaning with your nascent venture. Often, once you see what it's really like, the realities of administration, dealing with hostile employees and losing sleep over your bank balance, you might feel that writing a book, or taking some sort of a course is a more sensible way to go about finding meaning in your life.

The best, historical motivation for company founders is a sense of severe dissatisfaction with their life or their employer. Growth companies are born out of hostile intentions to beat somebody, or prove somebody wrong. Of course there are exceptions, but in general, unless you are really hungry and really pissed off, you will find entrepreneurship to be a difficult occupation.

Now...you want to be an entrepreneur and start a health food chain. I am going to assume you have strong enough reasons for doing this and skip to give you some guidance on how to be an entrepreneur and how to build a business using a clearly defined set of steps and outcomes.

Firstly, we will need to define the occupation that you want to participate in and later on look at one of the outcomes of this occupation- which is a business. In other words, to do your job properly as an entrepreneur, we need to define the four work roles that make up entrepreneurship. Does that make sense?

1) Entrepreneur as an investor. Entrepreneurs invest the overwhelming majority of their time and capital towards their businesses. If you want to be a good entrepreneur you first need to make some decisions about the kind of business you are going to be investing your self in. This is the sort of decision making process which defines your idea as either good or bad in relation to other ideas. The major skill you need to excise, in this case is finding the right balance between risk and return. Let's look at your situation:

Retail Health Food Chain. Whilst there is little doubt that there is demand for this service, the proposed investment has problems passing due diligence because of the proposed business model, which requires a lot of upfront capital, has low margins, requires rapid four digit growth and leaves little room for mistake. Missing a sales forecast by even 10% can bankrupt the venture bacause of all the high fixed costs and low revenue per customer to cover these expenses.

In relation to your shop as a means for distribution; going out, borrowing millions of dollars to lease, outfit a store, market the business and keep the store running - places a lot of capital at risk. To compensate this risk, there is a possibility of revenues from retail customers but it’s a questionable possibility. Your customers have not promised to buy from you once your store opens. Likewise, by selling fast food to people you are choosing to compete with very smart, tried and tested, extremely well financed competitors like McDonalds, who will innovate and put you of business if they find you taking away their customers.

In other words, if the investment proves successful, because there is nothing to lock-in your customers, your competitors will take them away, which will be the undoing of the investment.

So, from an investment point of view, trying to sell directly to retail customers through some kind of a shop in a highly trafficked street is asking for a beating. Likewise, your customers are not contractually bound to return to your store once they bought something and their purchase size is going to be really small compared to the amount of expenses you will have to keep your store running, which include interest you will need to pay on your borrowings. In that sense, you will need to clock a huge number of customers, really quickly, in the face of the best competitors in the world, to simply break even on your venture.

Better Investment: The opening proposal to put some shops together to sell fast food to people off the street, is a bad investment compared to other investments, because for the amount of risk taken, the returns are either too low or too uncertain. Fierce competition has pushed fast food prices so low that making a go out of a fast food chain a-la-McDonald’s is a very costly, highly uncertain exercise, subject to changing consumer tastes.

To improve this investment you need to find different customers who have more money they are willing to spend and you need to deliver your products in a way that doesn’t get you in the face of your competition. You need to be where you don’t piss anybody off.

Finally: There is a set of steps which you can take to improve the risk-return profile of your proposed venture. Before I go on, do you understand that entrepreneurs have a role as investors and they need to make smart investment decisions?

Do you understand that a McDonald’s style distribution system for your health food franchise is going to cost you a lot to set up, get you in the face of the best and smartest competitors in the world and try to make a go of selling to customers who can leave you any time, will not be ready to spend over $50 on any one purchase and will need to number in the thousands per day just for you to pay your expenses?

Do you understand that the business you are proposing (in this current form) is very high risk, for very low return? Are you ready to look at the steps to improve your risk return profile and meet some business owners who have made it in the fast food game?

[JimiHendrix]

Akula, that is one of the best posts I have read on this site in a long time. There are other business forums that could use your expertise in addition to YE... check out my sig

[Bored]

akula,

First of all, thanks a lot for replying back to me.

I know that most entrepreneurs come about because of their dissent towards employers. This is not so much my motivation. When I look towards my managers now, I feel like I can do their job 10x better than they can. I just have a more optimistic drive towards my goal.

The problem your presented with my business idea sounds very probable. I have considered my competition (McDonald’s one of them), and I know there is little to no chance I could compete with them. You are also right about my target customers, I need to change them. Remember, my business idea is subject to change. I really need to start thinking, studying, and meeting people to improve my risk-return situation.

You think I should start smaller and work my way up? Or should I completely change my target customers and renovate my store?



By the way, dealing with troubling customers/employees is what I love to do. In my job now (cashier in Panera bread restaurant) I would come across some troubling customers. I always calm them down and give them what they want even if it involves extra charge. After I deal with them I feel like I figured out a tough math problem. It might sound weird, but that is what I am looking forward to


[edit] I just thought of another target customer, kids! Kids need to eat healthy too, and with the whole child obesity epidemic, my store sounds even better. Then again this is just an idea.

[evolvingentrepreneur]

There are several healthy fast food chains emerging here and there around the US. Do your homework on Google 1st to get some idea of what's already being done.