Red light, green light

I wouldn't necessarily describe our progress as two steps forward, one step back.  More like two light-hearted skips, some twirling in circles 'till we're dizzy, lie down and take a nap, wake up and rush off in a panic, stop and take our bearings, then start walking again, watching each footstep. But I suppose that's still progress.  I think.

We were gung-ho when we had the deadline of a business plan competition.  We spit out plans like nothing else.  It looked like we actually knew what we were doing.  Then we didn't make it to the last round of the competition and lost the impetus of an impending deadline.  So we dilly-dallied for a while.  We did meet with potential team members and they were excited about it.  The problem is that the people who would be awesome are already busy doing other things.  But we had a few people submit workshop ideas.  Then we realized we weren't sure if we were ready to develop workshops, since we didn't really know yet if we actually had any customers.  But we couldn't get customers until we could tell them what workshops we were offering. So now we've decided we'll work on developing ideas and market research simultaneously.  And actually talk to each other.  And meet regularly.  And maybe, just maybe, this time we'll keep moving.

This might actually work

Today, we discussed the details of how we will develop curriculum for our workshops and how we will pay our staff.  It was weird to be discussing these things as a reality.  As in, this might actually happen.  This idea might actually come to fruition.  I know, that shouldn't come as such a shock to me.  But our past few ideas have fizzled out and my interest in this idea has fluctuated.  So, the thought that this might actually work was a surprise to me.  Here's hoping.

It feels good to win!

We have made it to round 2 of the Springboard business plan competition.  Talia is excited that we won and Kimberly is nervous about having to put together a whole business plan and video by next Monday.

P.S. We've changed business ideas and are now working on hands-on classes for afterschool clubs, camps, etc.

Acting like a start-up

 

And not know what you are doing and get blindsided by new competition and question your sanity on a daily basis.  And not get paid for the hours and hours you put in, on the slim chance that at some point in the future, you will get paid.

What are we doing?

Today we started a list of all the equipment we will need to equip the incubator kitchen.  Reality check.  Kitchen equipment is really expensive.  These are some quotes from today's conversation.

C: What are we doing?  Whose idea was this?  This is a stupid idea!

C: Do you remember when this seemed easy?
K: No.  It was never easy.

What's in a name?

 
 

The biggest challenge that we have encountered so far is figuring out what to call our business.  It's hard enough to find a name for a common business, but what we are trying to do is unique and multifaceted.  We are trying to establish an incubator kitchen (commercial kitchen which small food manufacturers and caterers can rent on an hourly or daily basis) which will be combined with a casual events center.  And we will host conferences, workshops, and other events related to cooking and business management.  So we need something that conveys all of that and is catchy.  Yesterday we brainstormed for over 2 hours and though we had fun coming up with off-the-wall words and phrases, we didn't make much productive progress.  So, until we have any breakthroughs (or resort to picking random letters/words by throwing darts at the dictionary), we'll continue using the full description instead of a name.

"The difference between the right word and the almost right word is the difference between lightning and a lightning bug." - Mark Twain