Kudzu Jungle

Day 97: Starting A Coffee House With No Capital Is Harder Than I Thought!

colleen — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 17:46:49 +0000

We are trying to earn money to use as capital in starting a coffee house. What we didn’t plan on was the things that break down and need to be fixed, the high cost of everything, the this and that that will take your money faster than you can blink.

Is it possible to start a business, of this kind, without going in debt? Without a government grant? Well, I will say this much, if it’s not possible, then we don’t need coffee house that bad. Either we pay as we go, or we don’t go!

I have to re-think our strategy. I would have thought that by the first month of this documentary, we would have the following completed:

1. Menu
2. Recipes
3. Suppliers
4. A start-up location

We have completed item #1, and we need to test more recipes to complete item #2. Item #3 is partially done, but until we get a location set up, I don’t want suppliers to have to deal with “we just dream about a coffee house.” They probably wouldn’t want to do business that way anyway. They’re going to want to start making money from our adventure, right away, of course.

Though, we do have some suppliers we have already decided to use, simply because of the ingredients we need, and they have it. The local farmers will be found later, when we are ready.

The one thing that’s most disappointing in this is that we don’t have a location yet. And especially not one we can afford. Oak Ridge, TN is expensive, and yet, they have a lot of empty space! People would rather have their empty buildings sit there, not being used with no money coming in, than to lower their lease amounts. I don’t know, perhaps an empty building is a tax right-off for them, and they get more financial gain that way than to come down on their prices.

Still, in my heart, I know there is just the right location and just the right deal waiting for us. I also know we will figure out this capital dilemma. I also know God will direct our path, either to continue, or to end our journey.

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Day 53: How we spent our investment money

colleen — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 04:03:06 +0000

I wrote on Day 41 that we completed our job in Maryland and had some money to invest. So, how did we spend it? First of all, it was about $200, which is not much, but it was $200 more than we had before we left for Maryland for the temp job. The job paid all of our July bills, and gave us $200 left to invest in our coffee house plans.

We broke down our dream into smaller chunks. Obviously, building our dream coffee house would be the best chunk, but not within our reach right now. Here are the phases we have.

Phase 1. Planning

During this phase, we have written everything we could think about that would be required to start a coffee house from scratch. It’s taken over two years to research, learn, write and dream. I suppose it would take less time to just write a business plan and put it in action for the typical person, but my husband and I are not your typical person. We had a lot things going on that had to be taken care of first, before we could dedicate our lives to building a coffee house. We still do, but the planning stage is almost done.

During this phase, we have developed our draft business plan, and are now fine tuning it. Our business plan contains the following sections and sub-sections:

A. Vision
B. Company Summary
C. Action Plan (this is what we’ll use to monitor our business and make sure we stay on track)
D. Products & Services
E. Marketing Plan
F. Operations Plan
G. Financial Plan
H. Appendices

Phase 2: Test Kitchen

We are in this phase. This is what we spent the $200 on. We bought a brand new, unused Kitchenaide mixer for $50 (with separate parts, a bowl, paddles and a box of stuff that came with it. We also bought some small wares and ingredients. We are now testing all of our recipes and costing out the products, and making modifications to our recipes (thanks to our family and friends who are taste testing and critiquing for us.)

During this phase, we will fine-tune our business plan, and also develop our marketing materials. We’ll stay in this phase until we can move to Phase 3.

Phase 3: Start Up Location

This is where we’ll open to the public and stay until we can afford to build our dream coffee house. We’ve looked at three properties in the past week, just dreaming of course! It doesn’t hurt to look. You never know what kind of miracle God can work out. It was fun to look.

Phase 4: Permanent Location

Our dream coffee house will be built from ground up!

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Day 41: Maryland Job Completed

colleen — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 03:09:33 +0000

Wesley and I completed the temporary job we set out to do in Maryland. We needed funding for our documentary and we were given an opportunity to earn some extra money. We leave for Tennessee either tomorrow night or Tuesday. We’re hoping to get a fun day with family tomorrow before we head home.

We earned enough to pay our July bills, and that leaves us some money to invest. We don’t know how to invest yet, so, that leaves us with three projects we have to complete in July.

1. Get a presentation ready (including cupcakes) for the Entrepreneurs of Knoxville: We are going to present our newspaper, documentary venture and our first three cupcakes for the “Building a coffee house one cupcake at a time.” campaign.

2. Create a start up business plan; including finding out what it takes to run a business in Anderson County / Oak Ridge, TN.

3. Execute the start up plan using the investment capital we raised on our trip to Maryland. It’s not much, but it’s better to invest in a business than to spend the money and not try to make a return on it.

I’ll outline how what our proposed budget is. Later, I’ll write about how we actually spent the money, (once we get back to TN and execute our plan) and then how we plan to get our money back through sales. Of course, this chapter has not been written yet and we don’t know how our plan will turn out. It looks good on paper though!

It’s going to take a long time to get a coffee house going without going into debt. That’s the toughest part of our documentary. I want it all, and now, but we have to do this by raising the capital first, then build the coffee house. I am learning to love our journey.

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Day 32: Building Without Borrowing

colleen — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 18:06:32 +0000

It’s easy to forget the original challenge to this adventure when you see something you want but you don’t have the capital to get it. In this case, it’s property for sale in Oak Ridge, and the finished dream of the coffee house in operation.

Wesley and I got $100 to take a trip to Maryland to work for a couple of weeks. The pay would give us another month to work on the documentary. That $100 went quick. Before we even left Tennessee, we had to get the brakes done. That set us back $60. Only $40 was left for gas, which was enough to make the trip. Google Maps set us back by two hours by routing us the wrong way. That was gas we couldn’t afford to waste, but nonetheless, we made the trip on $40.

One hundred gone in one day.

Can you imagine being a person who has a dream, but no skills to raise capital? Wesley and I have a very long ways to go in learning business skills, and especially raising money. I hate the money issues. Going and getting a loan would be so much easier. Debt…isn’t that the American way? Perhaps, but I don’t believe it is YHWH’s way.

I wish I was money smart. I wish I knew how to invest and get great returns. I wish I could have taken that $100 and turned it into $200. I don’t, yet, but one day I will be a better business person and so will my husband.

We are sticking to our original goal of building a coffee house without going into debt. It may take us longer to raise the money because we have to work for the money. Some day I hope money will work for us. Until then, we will keep building our dream one cupcake at a time.

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Day 31: Maryland

colleen — Fri, 02 Jul 2010 04:28:09 +0000

Wesley and I are still in Maryland, working a temporary job so we can fund our documentary.

We left for Maryland last Thursday, without a definite return date. We still don’t have an exact date when the job will be finished, but nonetheless, we are willing to do what it takes to raise money for the coffee house. It’s very difficult to pursue an expensive dream without capital, but the challenge is worth it. One of the treasures I’ll be bringing back to Tennessee with me is a Kitchenaide mixer. It will be great for whipping up frostings.

One piece at a time, we keep building a puzzle.

We still don’t know what’s next, but we trust whatever it is, God has a plan. We have a dream of owning a coffee house and we’ll see how our dream plays out.

I don’t have much time to write, as you can see, but I’ll try to do better with keeping up the journal. By the time we get in for the night, we are tired. Such will be life in business, so we better get used to it, right?

Good night. ZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

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Cupcakes On Hold

colleen — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 14:42:28 +0000

I wrote on day 18 that we needed to make cupcakes for a presentation today. The presentation was rescheduled to July 7, but now that we have a road trip planned, we’ll have to give our presentation when we get back. This works well for Wesley because it’s his turn to give a presentation in front of everyone. He is learning business skills and wants to know this industry very well.

Anyone from Macon, or now, Tennessee, who knows Wesley, will laugh at the thought of him giving a presentation. He’s hilarious but rambles on and goes off on so many bunny trails that one has to get him back into focus. Teaching him how to do a presentation is going to be tricky. I think he will do well once he knows how to sell a product. Listen to me. “once he knows how to sell a product” I am not one to laugh at Wesley considering I didn’t even want to give the first presentation. I was petrified of rejection and I didn’t think anyone would like the idea we are doing a documentary, and oh….we have cupcakes to introduce to them.

I was wrong. People liked the idea, and they want to sample the cupcakes.

Income is needed to continue the documentary, and since we are down to our last few dollars, the road trip trumps over making the cupcakes. We’ll put the cupcakes on hold for now and then the third week in July we’ll be ready. Wesley will do fine. I think it’s going to stream live, so you can check it out online and we’ll give you the link when we get closure to that day.

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Day 22: Why Is Faith So Hard?

colleen — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 03:17:01 +0000

My husband and I decided to do this documentary three weeks ago, putting one foot in front of the other, not knowing what will happen next. We just know we have a dream of owning a Christ-centered coffee house, with a ministry and outreach program to people like ourselves. People with a dream of owning a business, but with no way of getting there. We have dreams of some day providing seed money and resources to those people, and hopefully our journey will be a blessing to others who have to walk the path we have to walk, or to those who read about our journey and find encouragement in it.

Today is one such day where we can ask ourselves why we doubt YHWH and His ability to see people through trials. Wesley and I never heard an audible voice from YHWH saying our journey is His will. We can’t say for certain that we are doing His will. How can we when we aren’t certain what He wants? We are just trusting that by faith, we put our feet forward and He will direct our path. That’s all we know right now.

Still, faith is like having to step off the edge of a cliff and not know if there will be a ledge to catch you, or you will plunge to failure. We faced that cliff after Wesley lost his job. Our plan was for me to work on Kudzu Jungle, and Wesley to keep his job and we would live off of that income. One day before I was to venture out that direction, Wesley lost his job.

Panic set in. We wanted to abandon our plans and get jobs, and wait until some day came up again…you know the some day I’m talking about? It’s the day that never seems to get here, and several years down the road, you look at your dreams and wonder why they were never fulfilled. It’s because you didn’t go after the dream. Our approach to our dream is always by faith. We realize that. YHWH didn’t give us bucket loads of money and tell us to go out and build the coffee house. I wish He had done that, but He didn’t. I know why. I asked Him to teach me faith. How can I learn faith if I never walk the path that teaches it?

If one were to evaluate our checking account and our living conditions, one would think Wesley and I are horrible business people. I write a homestead blog and as of July 7th, we would lose that dream as well. I wrote a post titled “Two Eleven” that sums up what we face.

Today I had to fight fear. Do we walk in faith and keep going with Kudzu Jungle or do we say the journey is to scary and just go get jobs and forget the dream? I told YHWH I didn’t see His plan. How do we pay for a journey when we have just begun the documentary and do not have a source of income yet? Still, Wesley and I decided to continue with the dream, and if we fail, we fail. At least then we could stand before YHWH and say we went as far as we could with faith, in spite of our fears.

We found a printer today that will print our contest fliers and newspapers. By faith, we were just going to give the printer the last amount of money we have to print enough fliers for us to take around town and introduce our project. We didn’t know what would happen next. I set up our “Want to help?” campaign, because doing temporary work would be fun, and it would fund our documentary.

This is how YHWH came through for us. We got a phone call today because my sister needs temporary help with her company. We are going to make a road trip to Maryland and it will fund the next month of our documentary! Our journey of faith continues, and so does the Kudzu Jungle project. Perhaps when this temporary job is done, someone else can hire us, and the adventure continues. I am so excited to go on our first road trip!

Why do I doubt YHWH’s ability to direct our path? He promises He will, and yet walking in faith is so hard when you can’t see the next step. I hope during this journey, I will be able to close my eyes and not know what’s ahead of me, but be able to say “By faith, I trust You YHWH.”

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Day 20: Making Progress!

colleen — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:27:08 +0000

COMPLETED OUR DRAFT CONTEST FLIER

Wesley and I headed to the Oak Ridge library Friday to do some Tennessee trivia research for our puzzles. What we didn’t expect was that it would be closed due to the Secret City festival going on. We headed to the Clinton library, even though the festival looked fun and I would have rather gone to it than sit in a library.

Once we got to the library, we had a good time doing research. Did you know that in Tennessee, it is illegal to drive while you’re sleeping? No kidding? Really? I’ll remember that next time I sleep walk. I would hate to get pulled over by the cops because I was sleeping, and not know I couldn’t do that and drive at the same time.

Anyway, the librarian presented us with some fun trivia and Wesley and I got to work writing down a bunch of trivia questions and answers for our sample flier. I did say sample, so if you download our draft flier, just remember, the $50 prize does not apply right now, and considering we haven’t gone out searching for sponsors yet, we don’t have a “secret sponsor” for you to discover.

The attached sample is for Anderson County. We also have a flier for Knox County and we will add other counties if there is enough support. Each week, a winner will be drawn from each county, from all the correct answers for each county. Two counties, two winners.

This is one of the ways we plan to fund our documentary and get the word out about our “Building a coffee house one cupcake at a time.” campaign.

What do you think? (Adobe PDF file) We’ll upload the Knox County flier later, but it will be the same format, except the puzzle key will be different since we will choose a Knox County sponsor for that flier.

Download file:

AC-Flier.pdf

FINANCIAL PROJECTIONS

We are still lacking some data for our projection, such as the amount of money we need for a temporary kitchen or kiosk. Right now, we are just going to fund our documentary and business training. We’ll be making sample cupcakes for our marketing plan for our campaign.

MARKETING

Still lacking in this area. The idea of going around town and introducing our project scares me. I’m a “behind the scenes” type of gal, and I don’t like this part of the documentary at all! However, I have to get over my fear of marketing. I wish I could look at this as an adventure. Perhaps once I get out there with Wesley, it will be fun and I’ll look back at this time and laugh at myself.

We’ve fixed our draft marketing presentation, based on the feedback we received from the Entrepreneurs of Knoxville and I must say, they were right! We needed to narrow down our business approach into what we are working on now.

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We Don’t Have a Clue How To Make a Documentary

colleen — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 16:30:57 +0000

That’s what is fun about our journey. We really don’t know what we are doing, and have to learn everything from start to finish. That’s the point of creating this documentary in the first place. We know we want a coffee house. We have to learn everything as we go, and part of our journey involves learning how to create a documentary. Right now, we are just blogging as our platform for doing the documentary. We would like to record it on video but that’s a learning curve and a budget we don’t have.

We don’t even have a video camera right now, so we’ll have to raise money for that. How many cupcakes do we have to sell to get a camera? What is a good camera for a beginner? Where do we start learning to make a documentary?

I was searching for a camera I heard someone talk about. All I remember them saying was PEN 600. What I found was a $600 camera by Olympus, but I also found a really cool site. It’s Videomaker.com. I created a Kudzu Jungle account there and now it’s at least a starting point to learn about shooting video and creating a documentary.

Blogging is free and there is nothing to it, which is why we chose that route for our documentary. I also HATE being on camera. Sooner or later I have to get over that, but until I do, perhaps I can run the camera (and hide). Wesley is a goofball that loves to make people laugh. He be in front of the camera.

Technorati Tags: documentary,videomaker

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Day 18: God Gave Us A Rope

colleen — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 15:41:51 +0000

We’ve made it this far in our documentary project. Obviously, 18 days is nothing to write home about; however, when you have no budget and no money to work with, 18 days is more like an eternity.

We are headed to our first “off site” office. That’s kind of funny because we don’t really have an “on site” location either. We are in no man’s land. We don’t have a permanent address. We don’t even have Tennessee driver’s licenses yet. It’s hard to get a driver’s license when you don’t have an address. I’m telling you, this is a walk by faith, and we don’t know what will happen to us.

We are nearly $100K in debt, because of a lost career in Georgia and a foreclosure. How do you get out of a hole when you can’t even see the next step?

God throws you a rope.

I woke up this morning not wanting to go on. What was the point? We are so far in debt it isn’t even funny. I laid there wondering where God is in all this. I am someone who can not put my whole heart into something unless I know God is going to be there with me. I’m just that way. I firmly believe we can make a plan, but God will direct our path; so I wanted to know what He thought of what my husband and I are doing.

I even whined about the debts we have and didn’t see a way out. I asked Him to show me something that He is pleased with us and that things will be okay.

I got up, planning on working on the Anderson and Knox County contest fliers today. It was more like just going through the motions, like a robot with no feelings, wondering if there is a light at the end of the tunnel.

It was about 9 am that I got a phone call that made me cry. Nearly $4,000 in debts was forgiven today. Just like that. They said the Lord told them to forgive us of that debt.

It was just this morning when I asked God to show Himself. We are in a very deep hole, with no way out. God threw us down a rope and it increased our faith and gave us enough hope to realize there is an end to the crisis we are in.

I dream of the day when we open the doors to the coffee house, and there is praise and worship there, and musicians and art. Some day. For now, we continue the documentary of our own journey. We are off to the Oak Ridge library today to gather Tennessee trivia questions for our crossword puzzle.

By next Wednesday, we need to have these fliers ready for a presentation, and we need to have three dozen cupcakes!

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