Thoughts on starting a small business

If you were to start a small business, a little store or cafe, what would it be and where?

Ok, ok I am trying to do some brainstorming here...As a mom of 2 little ones my chances of employment seem very slim in this country, so I am considering opening a tiny little place ...I am not sure what though...

I would love to have a cozy lil cafe , though the food thing scares me a little. And then there is the thoughts of selling clothing/jewelry/souveniers etc.

Location is another question..

OK, so obviously I have NO idea what to do.

Hope you all don't mind giving your opinions, experiences, ideas etc. to a motivated but scared mommy.

I realize you'll need more details...fire away

THANKS for all replies

momof2

what about a paint-your-own pottery shop? My sister opened one in Sydney and it did really well. Same sort of atmosphere as a cafe.. music, laid-back, cozy, etc.. plus people get to be creative.

Good luck with whatever you choose.

How good is your German?

My lady has a mind to open a pasty/curry puff stall at Hauptbanhof.

Open a deli in Freimann and serve steamed pastrami and swiss on rye and a side of onion rings.

soup and stews. rake it in from sept to may and then sit on my arse all summer as i'd be knackered after doing that for 8 months.

@momof2

I see you live in Schwabing. If you happen to live close to Münchner Freiheit, we are lacking Asian speciality stores in the vicinity. There's one only Asia store there in the vicinity and the herbs and greens are almost always old! One always has to travel to another part of town for these products. Or you could open a Bio-store in that vicinity as well. Up to now there's only one, small, crappy, smelly bio-store in the vicinity. Hate going there. Would open one myself if I had the dough.

Sell online; you save a fortune in overheads and don't have to be glued to the counter.

My german isn't perfect but it is better than my english...I am fluent.

Sell what? and how?
I just don't know where to start..ebay?
Where do people get their things they sell on ebay (for example)?

Well MB, then I have good news for you...they just opened a Bio-Basics store around the corner from me.
Where the PLUS used to be , corner Leopoldstr/Reinstr.
I shop there , it is very nice.
Asian isn't really my thing tho...
THANKS for the ideas

Also, Karstadt on Munchner Freiheit now has a HUGE bio selection on the lower level.

So, you sell soup and stew? That's it? Do you make them yourself?

How about a deli, selling fantastic stuff from Italy, France, UK, US - you could also make proper sandwiches i.e. harvest loaf, bagels, rye, baguettes etc with proper fillings i.e. prawn mayo, chicken mayo, pastrami, roast beef and horseradish, ploughman's etc. Basically everything you don't get here.

mmm sounds good...I was also thinking along the lines of 'things you can't get here"

Keep it coming guys, I know for a fact there are many more women on TT who want to do something on their own and we can all use the ideas...at the end everybody can take something from this thread.
THANKS

Well, you can sell whatever you were going to sell in the shop. Not food, mind.

Ebay is a great place to start because you can just start selling more or less straight away. Eventually you may want your own website and make sales that way, but this is a slower process.

You should probably buy a book about setting up your own business; it will give you some ideas and help you get started. There's gazzilions of such books out there.

I agree. You really want a product that you can sell retail (assuming you get a wee shop) and also online. That way you can expand and fill the quiet times.

If you have a physical shop selling widgets than you are restricted by the population that can reach you within a reasonable timescale. When selling online the world is your oyster.

This also means that you can go "niche" and still have a huge marketplace. In the past I have looked at items on ebay, then contacted the manufacturer direct, and now sell them myself.

Ebay is a great place to start because it is huge, you have no advertising costs, and you can run as fast or as slow as you like.

All I do is sell online - that is my job!

if you like the idea of opening a shop selling food or 'things you can't get here', why not combine a physical shop in Munich with online ordering in the same business?

If it is fresh food, customers can call in to buy it or order in advance and then collect the food. If it's sealed food, you could post it to them at an additional cost.

Of course you can go entirely online, but it depends on what you want to sell.

Hey, you trying to steal my idea?


Exactly what are things that you can't get here? I will tell you now to stay away from the oreos or marmite or whatever from back home line of thinking. There is not a market here for one more no matter how much BS you here on TT. Unless you can be at the door or across the street from everyone on this site, they will not make the effort or pay the extra fees for a Little Debbie cookie or a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup.

What is your market?
It would seem to me that you are most interested in a luncheonette type set-up. You would be interested in providing a novel product and creating a niche. You want all your income to come from business hours and not so much night, weekend and holidays, but you could expand to that with employees if the demand was there, correct?

If you are really interested in something like this, I would love to be a part of it. If you are more interested in simply making a quick buck, then go with the internet stuff where failure isn't such a hard hit.

Eurovol
Not stealing your idea, just beefing it up a bit for the English crowd. Know you love that country!

From off the top of my head:
baked potatoes w. baked beans and cheddar/chilli/tuna & sweetcorn etc.
quiches, soups - carrot & coriander, french onion, minestrone, potato & leek, thai chicken
salads - nicoise, ceasar, greek
sandwiches (not in semmel) - all day breakfast, blt, prawn & avocado, coronation chicken
fruit salads
carrot cake, banana bread, brownies
freshly made lemonade, freshly juices/smoothies

Remember that any type of food business will require many a certificate for handling, storing, etc, to make sure you are okay with the authorities.

I always wanted to be a chocolatier.

Frankly the thought of relying on yer average German off the street for my income, just sends shivers of fear up my spine.

Don't wanna diss the whole population but I get the impression that the average German consumer wants everything for half price, and simply will not pay extra for extra quality or benefit these days. Plus he will read the riot act if you get anything slightly wrong.

If you opened an "Every Sandwich 50 cents" place you might be in business, but I can't see much future in trying to offer them something special. For the consumers here special = cheap.

I am generalising of course - but don't try offering them anything interesting or exotic. Just find something cheap. You only need to look at the supermarkets to get the hint.

I don't know how old your kids are, which is a serious consideration. I would suggest doing something you are good at now, and like doing now and applying it in a flexble solution. For example, lets say you have a knack at decorating. Try that as a business - flexible arrangements on site when the kids are taken care of. No shop to close down if the kids are sick or have no daycare.
I had a shop idea in my head for years, until I realized that the lack of consistent daycare - even for my school aged son - made that impractical.
And if you are not dependant on your income to feed the kids, then you can take the chance to explore doing what you enjoy instead of what you have to.

How about a muffin-top shop?


Muffin Tops

I have been offered the opportunity to run a small English arts and crafts type of playgroup in Berg am Laim which would be great as I could take my children along and they could enjoy that too - not many English speaking people willing to pay the fees though to cover the venue - most responses from Germans so far. I think it is a great idea though.

saw this cafe come shop once in puchheim which had self made chocolates made in the back . it was always busy.
like JE said the germens look these days for the price they don't understand the diffence in quality between something made in china or germany. saying that they also like to have a weekly treat like self made chocs washed down with a decent cup of coffee or hot choclate. I think if you have a decent location this could work. you need quite a lot of investment to get things started

I think with a new business, in my humble opinion, it is a matter of just weighing up the risks and rewards of your new venture.

So for instance you do not want to invest €100,000 and 6 months into something that is very niche on the 5-1 chance it is a hit.

So don't go looking for a wonderful unique idea that no-one has done before - it is just an unnecessary risk. Yeah, sure, it might work but I "might" also sleep with Kylie Minogue one day.

So look at businesses that YOU like around you, or friends like, or you can see are busy on ebay - and copy them, adding your own style and excellent customer service.

The flipside is that you CAN have a go at somethiing risky and niche - but only if the startup investment is very low. So if you only need to buy 10 widgets and you can chuck them on Ebay, then it is almost zero time and money risk.

Ask yourself what products interest YOU? What would YOU spend your spare cash on?

opening your own business is a lot of work, if you are going to open a store, make sure you have reliable childcare...you will be the one manning the counter when people quit or want a vacation or if you can't find help.. three stores in my area are currently looking for help so retail help seems not that easy to find...

I agree that you need to pick something that you absolutely love because it is going to be your life... you will think about it all the time and it will be just like one of your children and forget taking vacation for the first year...

If you do decide to go this route, make sure to take advantage of the business start up assistance programs which will help you develop a business plan. This is essential if you are going to have a business.. you want to make sure your business will be one of the few that succeeds.

Stay away from food.. but think about coffee... great margins...you can open a smoke free coffeehouse... sort of like starbucks... that place is always packed full of mommies looking for a cup of cofee without the side of smoke.

One of the ideas I was punting out to another TTer earlier this year:

Set up a "gaming" and internet cafe. Basically set up a load of networked computers loaded with games (cheaper/easier than you think), and rent them out for a few euros an hour.

More a gaming cafe than internet access. Place for the kids and youths to come and play against their mates. Saw a lot of these in Australia in 2003 and they seem to be popular. Great place for kids to meet their mates and you can then flog them cokes and chocolate to really get them wired.

Might be you get the odd person also using for Internet access as well, but that is not your target market.

It will be easy for you to get friends and staff to man the place evenings and weekends (easy job!), and you can open limited hours at first until you have worked out the busy times.

Personally I would also add some dedicated networked gaming consoles such as Xbox or PS2.

Don't worry about the tekkie side - once set up and running it will be no big deal at all - less aggro than selling sarnies.

There is or was one of those in Friemann/Milbertshofen on Frankfurter Ring. The place is/was always full of little hoodlums.

Yeah, that's a terrible idea; think of the people you'll attract. And the neighbours will hate you in a way they have never hated before.

I rest my case m'lord.

My brother and I wanted to start a brew pub, a bar with good home cooked food that offered different beers from different breweries (a la free house in the UK) and self brewed ales (English style) as specials. The furniture and atmosphere would be more like your living room (ie an English pub) than style-cloned bar.

We're both sick of the lame choice you get in most bars in any German city, the same beers in almost every bar, the obvious brewery dictated monopoly cloned crap. So, do I have Helles, or Weissbier tonight or perhaps, to be radical, a dunkles. That's not choice. Have these people never been to a free house and been heartily hammered and never tried the same beer twice?

The trouble is the mass market in Germany likes their beer the way it is so we're not sure it would be a success, although there's a section that loves anything with a foreign theme. Also running a bar is hard work, running a brewery is not easy, running both sounds like a nightmare. And then there's the breweries' monopoly to deal with.

Sorry I couldn't reply earlier, WOW what great responses...don't know where to start.

First, no I do not want/need to make a quick buck, I also don't want to do a 50c store or and internet cafe etc.
Chocolate? Would love to do anything with chocolate, but I'm afraid I'd eat my inventory myself...I am addicted to it.
I really want to do something that I love (high quality with personal touch) and where I can be involved and my customers would become my friends etc. I really loved the idea of the paint your pottery and especially of a nonsmoking cafe for mommies with kids etc..(maybe one could combine all of the above)
And yeah, I would definitely sell some fancy coffee/tee , because that what makes most money in this country.
So, after reading all your responses some ideas are forming in my head...this will take a while though until I feel ready (and my youngest starts kindergarden)...
OF course that with daycare is the huge consideration...It has to be doable and I need help...fortunately I have family nearby for emergencies.

I also recieved some very kind pm's which I am very grateful for...feels great to get help from people who've been/are there.

Thanks again everyone

'

hehe, I saw that episode , was hillarious! and remember the skin of the pudding that George wanted to sell? LOL
mmmm skin of pudding, maybe I should try that..lol

[quote name='Johnny English' post='611452' date='Jun 1 2006, 10:28 am']I think with a new business, in my humble opinion, it is a matter of just weighing up the risks and rewards of your new venture.

So for instance you do not want to invest €100,000 and 6 months into something that is very niche on the 5-1 chance it is a hit.

So don't go looking for a wonderful unique idea that no-one has done before - it is just an unnecessary risk. Yeah, sure, it might work but I "might" also sleep with Kylie Minogue one day.

So look at businesses that YOU like around you, or friends like, or you can see are busy on ebay - and copy them, adding your own style and excellent customer service.

The flipside is that you CAN have a go at somethiing risky and niche - but only if the startup investment is very low. So if you only need to buy 10 widgets and you can chuck them on Ebay, then it is almost zero time [quote]and money risk.

Thanks JE for your great input. I agree with everything you said especially :

Ask yourself what products interest YOU? What would YOU spend your spare cash on?[/quote]

That is what I will definitely keep in mind...Something that I would love to have nearby ..

So the real burning question is what are my odds of getting Kylie in the sack?

I've discussed this with some brewing-student friends of mine and we all agreed that this would be the quickest way to lose a lot of money. If you look at the brewpubs in Bavaria, there are two common themes:

1. They focus on the food not the beer
2. The beer is fucking terrible

I also get pissed off (nay, infuriated) at the utter lack of choice of beer in Oberbayern, but Bavarians are very conservative people and they will not try something they don't know. Since they consider Bavarian beer to be the best beer in the world, they have no incentive to even try anything else. The fact that they've been drinking the same beer all their lives makes it virtually impossible to wean them off it. We just have to shrug our shoulders and make regular trips up the Franconia, where they are considerably more open-minded.

Most people go to brewpubs for the food rather than for the beer, so to have any chance of making it successful you would effectively have to run a restaurant rather than a pub.

As a big city, Munich has more options for niche markets, and an English pub could work if you aim to attract only English-speakers. But you'd still have to sell Augustiner, Guinness and at least one shit British lager, so the options for either home-brew beers or imported real ale are rather limited. Bear in mind that, tragically, decent British beer is a niche market even in Britain.

Dude, you have the locals confused with Brits.

Hoodlums don't spend cash, they just loiter. Not good unless you can sell tickets to the fights that break out or just want to ogle the übersexy teenies that cause the fights in the first place.

Small Town Boy, sadly all too true.

As the old saying goes: The easiest way to make a small fortune is to start with a large one.

As a mum - are you good with kids in general? Like other people's kids? Lots of Germans are into the idea of having their kids grow up bi-lingual. Those who are keen on that kind of thing usually do not lack in the cash dept.
So what I'm thinking is a playgroup thingy where the little ones are exposed to another language. Add a cafe for the mums (often with university degrees and now bored) with a book club or paint your pottery or whatever comes to mind.
I'd do it but - frankly - it's the kids part of the equation that puts me off. no patience and you need that with the little ones (even more so with the ambitious parents, probably ).
Whatever you end up doing: Good luck

Opening a bricks & mortar specialty shop: not enough people interested, and of those, as eurovol said, fwe will be willing to pay the premium regularly. There are lot of British in Germany and I worked for/with a shop in Regensburg that struggled for a couple years before closing. The people at Pommeroy & Winterbottom can confirm. You'll have all sorts of regulations and import duties and taxes to deal with. Absolute horrorshow.

Opening a restaurant/cafe: HUGE amount of work. I'm the "manager" (i.e., I make decisions that the owner then ignores) of a bistro. Despite the hell that this entails, I'm about to open a restaurant with my girlfriend. The two of us will each put in 10-17 hours per day, every day, for at least a year. She's now working on plans for this full-time from home while I work my day job and help at night. Shortly before opening I'll take a 3-month leave of absence. Eighty percent of restaurants fail in the first year, and we both have a lot of gastro experience. We've been planning for three months now and don't expect to open befor October, though this may well be pushed off to February.

I've owned businesses before. If you want to strike out and do something on your own, it needs to be something you like doing because you'll be doing it for at least 100 of the 168 hours you get each week. Don't forget the time your kids need. JE has been spot on and dead wrong multiple times on this thread. Opening a business is hard fucking work and Kraut red tape makes it a lot harder. Niche businesses need enough of a niche to carry on year 'round. Every Net/gaming cafe which opened two to five years ago has gone out of business. Blame cheap DSL and computers. Avoid like the plague.

Something like a paint-your-own-pottery thing might do well, but you need to know the ins and outs of the business. You need to find suppliers. You need to be able to do something that:
1) No one else has thought of
2) No one else thinks could work
3) You're willing and financially able to fight already established businesses in doing

That's it. Either you find something enough of a market wants or you fight the others already doing what you want to do, whether by price, quality, service, or some combination of these. Running your own business is a lot harder than working for someone. I'm pretty sure JE will back me on that statement.

woof.

Oooo interesting, what sort? Where will it be?