Rights of Passage

This past week has been really busy! I need to be better about updating my blog more regularly- don't want posting once a week to become a habit. I hate when you stumble across those blog posts that are ridiculously long and I have tendency to ramble on as it is. I'm thinking creating a new posting every couple days would suffice.

On Tuesday, we had the chance to bake for the first time in the commercial kitchen that we have thought about using for a while. The director of the kitchen was kind enough to allow us to come in for a day and let us bake several batches of the cookies with which we are planning on launching the company. The good news is that the cookies turned out quite well! This was the first time that we have baked them in mass quantity.

The kitchen is actually a small business incubator. The idea of a small business incubator is to provide a facility where entrepreneurs can produce their products in a commercial environment and at a cost effective rate. This facility that we're planning on using is supported by several community development organizations that aim to encourage small business growth and increase the number of jobs in the area. The kitchen is a great space for us to use- it's relatively new and has all the equipment we need: professional-grade stove tops, ovens and an industrial mixer. Here are a couple photos of the kitchen, so you can get an idea of what the space looks like:





On this same day, we had a health inspector (they call them sanitariums- weird, huh?) from the Dept. of Agriculture come to inspect the kitchen. One of the requirements for being able to use this specific kitchen is that you have to have a license issued by this government department. Before you can get your license, someone from the Dept. of Agriculture must come to check out the space to make sure it's up to snuff with safety and health regulations. Luckily, we passed our inspection and we received our temporary license to regularly bake in the kitchen.

We've also made lots of progress in taking the steps we need to officially be recognized as a business with the federal and state governments- these are like rights of passage that you have to go through before any business can be legally recognized. We set up a separate bank account and also got a separate phone line (for now, this separate line is an additional cell phone that we've added to our family plan).

Yesterday we had a meeting with a local lawyer that specializes in working with small businesses to discuss how we should file our business structure. Legally, a small business can be anything from a sole proprietorship or partnership to an LLC or corporation. What I've learned from my research is that you and your business are subject to different tax regulations and various levels of personal liability depending on what structure you choose for your business. Filing as a sole proprietorship vs. an LLC can mean the difference between whether someone can claim you lost their pants, sue you for $54 million dollars and take all your personal assets or have your personal assets completely protected from any possible payout. I'm sure they were extremely nice pants- wool perhaps, or maybe silk.

This next week I'm continuing to work on our business plan- the financial projections are proving to be a bit tricky.