starting a business

In the interest of research and compiling lists (which I love), I have decided to follow my curiosity concerning what it would take to start a business, for instance a bar. This is completely outside of my realm, of course, as I've never taken a single business or business-oriented class. However, not *completely* since I've been in the restaurant business for ten years and, let's face it, I can do anything.

http://www.ychange.com/ - Straight-forward in tone, the Business Articles section looks fairly useful, especially at the early stages of research, and contains several pdfs with lists (which I love). They also do startup consulting if their extensive website isn't enough. Interestingly, one of their points of advice is to have a site map on your business's website in order to facilitate customers finding what they're looking for, as well as getting your site to pop up on web searches, and I don't see a site map on the main ychange page. In fact, there seems to be no way of searching the site. Except, of course, Googling ychange and what you're looking for, but that might be more work than a potential customer wants to do. Just saying.

SCORE is "a nonprofit association dedicated to educating entrepreneurs and the formation, growth and success of small business nationwide." Not the best-written sentence I've ever seen, but what an incredible resource. There's a whole section on Starting Your Business with articles like a Six-Month Plan to Transitioning from Employee to Entrepreneur and a 60-Second Guide to Financing Your Startup Business. They also have a Template Gallery, which is especially useful to someone who isn't sure how to begin. And check out their women-specific site.

The U.S. Small Business Association is a good place to get started as well, with everything from Getting Ready, where you will find a useful FAQ section, to Getting Out, should the need or desire arise.

There is also an abundance of software designed to help you build a business plan, such as Bplans.com, where you can find 500+ sample business plans for businesses in places like Southern, Your State. Or Plan Magic. And don't forget about Wikipedia (as if that were possible).

Of course, anyone thinking of opening a bar had better be pretty familiar with their local liquor laws. So in New York I would check out the New York Liquor Authority, naturally, and there I would find, among other things, the instructions for applying for a liquor license. And say we're opening a bar that will serve food, we'll need an On-Premises Liquor license, which costs $4,352 for 2 years in New York County. Good to know.

Essential information from the NYC Health Dept (Food Service Establishment fee is $280 + $105 for the food protection certificate for whoever is in charge of food [possibly multiple people]). And from the New York State Taxation and Finance office regarding Starting or buying a business. And information on insurance. And the Business Certificate for Partners for New York. Check with the NYC Dept of Buildings.

Further reading:
--Entrepreneur.com has an article and ebook on opening a bar/club, and chapter 1 is available for download. Their books are available at the NYPL's SIBL branch on Madison and 34th.
--New York Mag's three-year-old article is pretty specific - just what we're looking for.
--According to this 2007 article in Forbes, a Micros system that does everything I would want it to ("three touch-screen workstations, printers, cash drawers and credit-card processing, as well as nifty software that can track inventory turnover rates, schedule employee shifts and process customer loyalty cards") would cost about $12k.

My mother always said I should have something to fall back on. To be continued...