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- [Marcus Goller] There is an order to, you know,
starting a business.
I don't think I spent any money for three months.
It was mainly just getting everything set up.
I think one of the first triggers I did pull
was you just go online and you register
your LLC or your S corp, whatever you're doing.
And I'd recommend an LLC, it's pretty standard
for our style business.
- Didn't wanna leave this business
in a worse condition financially than I was,
so LLC gives you a little bit of protection.
- We are a corporation now.
We were an LLC but by some crazy,
we had a crazy accountant and he decided
we should be a corporation, it's stupid.
LLC is good.
- I think that LLCs are pretty straightforward,
and they also will protect you in the end.
- So you really need to get your LLC registered,
your operating agreement, set up.
And you don't really need an attorney for that,
but you probably should if you haven't done it before.
The employer's identification number, E-I-N.
That was a little more of a hassle,
but it's all pretty straightforward.
It's all website driven, you can just do that.
- [Jess Harmon ] Without your federal EIN,
you can't really do very much.
You're not really gonna get bigger time vendors
supplying to you, you're not going to
be able to hire employees.
I don't think you can even apply
for your food license with that one.
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Food code to me is pretty important.
And I think a lot of people overlook that.
Because it's not the more glamorous side.
of running a coffee business.
Getting the process of the food license
started sooner rather than later
will help you in the long run.
The red tape can take an unbearable amount of time.
- [Lisa Bee] Permitting is a different length
in terms of process in say, North Carolina
versus New York City.
So you have to be patient with that.
- [Maliesha Pullano] When I open up the coffee shop,
I not only had to have different licenses,
this one is pretty easy, it's just a limited wholesale
processor license.
The cottage lodge you can make certain things
and sell them to consumer to consumer
and then you don't need a license for that.
But with a product that you sell to stores,
you have to have a license,
so along with the label, the labeling is different.
Using the cottage law, you don't have to do all this,
but you do have to write on each individual label
that this is not made in a commercial kitchen
and stuff you have to let people know.
But you can't sell those things in stores,
just direct to consumer.
- [Jess Harmon] I think people make the mistake of seeing
the health department their enemy versus
their support system.
Lean into them for advice versus doing something
and then asking for them to come check it out.
You could get shut down for a couple days
while they figure out whether they like
what you did or not but you had involved them
in the process from the get-go,
it'd be a lot less painful,
and also they could help you find equipment
for the things you're trying to do.
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Your budget is going to dictate to you exactly
what sort of building you can buy or rent.
Definitely having street level visibility
is super important in choosing a place.
It's also going to be a little bit more expensive
but that's something you should work into your budget,
most definitely.
- If you can get an A-level location,
get it because another thing it does,
is it pretty much safeguards against competition.
Say you take a C location and build an awesome business,
somebody comes in a takes the A level location,
they're going to siphon away a ton of your traffic
because of, it's just easier to get to,
it's a better location, it's more convenient,
and there's not a thing you can do.
You can combat that with advertising,
you can't cut prices, that's not why people go to cafes.
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- [Lisa Bee] You look at locations
that have great visibility,
also the ability for people to get to the location,
so either they have a lot of parking
or there's public transit that brings them there.
We also look at the surrounding tenants
and we would like tenants, other businesses
that are high volume, high traffic.
So, restaurants, hair salons, stuff like that.
We're also looking at very specific parameters
for the interior for architectural purposes.
- [Jess Harmon] My biggest tip is to find a landlord
who's willing to start renting you the building
the day you actually open your business to customers,
instead of starting the lease when you are renovating
the building.
That could be the difference of like three or four months
and could save you thousands of dollars.
- [Marcus Goller] Signing the lease is a real moment,
this is like, okay, when you do that,
you've just committed to a personal liability
for at least five years if not more.
So you better have your financing committed,
they say, yeah, we're ready to go.
You kind of want to have already talked
to a contractor and visited the space,
got a really good estimate, bid, you want a bid.
Signed bid, if possible.
There can be water connection fees,
like maybe the building isn't rated for what you want to do,
or the electrical system is not rated
for the amount of power you're gonna need.
You need to know all that.
- [John Roos] In the like,
getting everything up to code was huge,
you know, I mean when you take a building
and it doesn't have floor drains,
you have to chop the floor out and put floor drains in
and figure out that whole thing, and I'm good at that now.
You know, I know who to call.
You've got your list of contacts, it's gotta be long.
- [Marcus Goller] So hiring and training staff,
super important.
Everything this, if you're going to go into business,
not one thing, there's not one thing that's unimportant.
So, location, location, location.
We talked about that, make sure you're funded right.
So you get to the point, you know, four weeks before
you're going to open, you need some staff.
It'd be a travesty if you didn't hire the best people
and train them right.
I put a number on it once, it's about $10,000
if you make a mistake hiring a manager.
For a regular barista, it's about a $2,000 mistake.
So it's really super important that you interview right
and then training same thing.
If you've hired the right person,
the training's going to be a lot easier,
and they're going to get it and they're going to flourish.
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- [Lisa Bee] All the responsibilities and tasks
that have to be done in the store
can be trained.
But, what you can't train is someone's personality,
so we really talk about how you're hiring that personality.
You want someone to be friendly and outgoing
and engaging and you can turn a shy, introverted person
to be that person that talks about your coffee
and knowledgeable about your tea
and feeling passionate about certain products.
So, we really talk about hiring the personality
and then we can train.
Every franchising can train them on all the different tasks
that have to be done in the store.
- You know that, you can go back to the question
you asked earlier, do you regret anything?
Yeah, I regret that we didn't train people at all.
Like, we were just like, I would be like,
yeah you're cool.
I would just hire people if they could breathe basically.
I'm the worst at hiring.
Like, I'll just be like, you seem so cool, let's go,
and then the development of our staff too.
Create jobs that are so good that people are just like,
damn, I love working at RoosRoast.
I wanna get a job at RoosRoast,
it's hard to get a job at RoosRoast.
I mean, that's another huge thing.
Become the place that people want to work.
- If you've set up a culture that's friendly fun,
honest, trustworthy, expectations are in line,
you know with what people would reasonably assume,
you treat them well.
People are gonna wanna work here
and that keeps our costs lower and sales up.
Customers are happier, did I make it sound important enough?
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- [Marcus Goller] I would just say it's really hard to know
as you move toward opening a coffeehouse,
what steps to take next.
You need your whole personnel package ready,
you need your product procedures ready,
you need to be in touch with your vendors.
You need to be testing recipes.
I mean there's so much work to be done,
so you don't want to,
you don't wanna dwaddle away your time,
and all of a sudden the store's going to open in two weeks.
- [Lisa Bee] I think I remember the very first day
that we opened.
We were getting everything ready
and we ordered a ton of product and we expected
that the day we opened there'd be lots of people
coming into the cafe, and we all just stood there.
There was nobody there,
and the first people to come in were the guys
who owned the building, and there was a sense
of a reality check, uh oh, we definitely need to do more.
- [Maliesha Pullano] The first launch it was like Art Hop
which is a popular event here,
so that was kind of my official test.
I sold there, I remember selling 10 bottles,
which was $100 and I was like,
oh man there might be something to this.
But I was giving out samples and doing a demo
so that was kind of it,
but the next day was like the big official launch
where my son just graduated, he was there,
we opened the door to the car.
The first case fell out and a couple broke,
and I was like oh my god, cause I like signs,
and I was like, that's not a good sign,
but we're just going to do it anyway.
That makes sense, you know the universe has jokes,
so let's just do it and I probably made
a couple hundred dollars and I know my mind was blown
at that time, and I remember giving my son
like $10 after the market
and he was like, what's this for,
and I'm like, right, just here.
- Opening day, I would say just any cafe I've ever opened
is similar, but I'll tell you about the one here.
It was December 27, it was really cold.
We got here, I'd say 20 minutes after we opened the doors,
somebody came in, ordered a coffee and we're like,
your dollar's going on the wall, could you sign it?
She's like, I'm the first customer, when you'd open?
This morning, and then it just starts going.
So, I think be really open about what you're doing,
invite people in during construction.
Do some preliminary social media about the progress.
The more you tell people what you're doing,
the better, cause you're letting them get involved.
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