Starting a business - is it worth the risk?

llcooljayne1

So in short for YEARS I have wanted to start my own dog grooming business. My plan is to open a grooming salon with an added coffee shop to entice owners to stay for a coffee/bite to eat whilst they wait therefore increasing on site spend.

I have written a business plan, and have looked into costings of leasing a commercial property, utilities, insurances etc but am concerned about how I will pay myself at the start as I have a mortgage and bills I still need to pay (as we all do!)

I have had mixed responses from people who have businesses, some saying you may not be able to pay yourself anything whilst starting up and others saying you absolutely have to as it shows dedication to making the business work as not paying yourself (unless loaded) is not viable.
 So question is, is it possible to get a bit extra out on a business loan to start up to help pay myself something whilst I build my business and generate a decent profit?

any advice would be extremely helpful! Thankyou 😊

Mark_d

Yes you should be able to take out a business loan that can pay small salary/staffing costs.
If it was me I'd start small and build up the dog grooming business working from home.  Maybe you could get a fancy bean-to-cup coffee machine for your customers to use.  You wouldn't make as much money as if you has business premises but you would be able to build up a customer base and good reputation on facebook/instagram.
I'd suggest that the time to expand into business premises is once you've established the business working from home.

DullGreyGuy

llcooljayne1 said:

So in short for YEARS I have wanted to start my own dog grooming business. My plan is to open a grooming salon with an added coffee shop to entice owners to stay for a coffee/bite to eat whilst they wait therefore increasing on site spend.

I have written a business plan, and have looked into costings of leasing a commercial property, utilities, insurances etc but am concerned about how I will pay myself at the start as I have a mortgage and bills I still need to pay (as we all do!)

I have had mixed responses from people who have businesses, some saying you may not be able to pay yourself anything whilst starting up and others saying you absolutely have to as it shows dedication to making the business work as not paying yourself (unless loaded) is not viable.
 So question is, is it possible to get a bit extra out on a business loan to start up to help pay myself something whilst I build my business and generate a decent profit?

any advice would be extremely helpful! Thankyou 😊

How are you going to fund fitting out the unit? Buying the equipment you need? 

Some businesses are instant successes, some take years and then fold before ever covering their running costs. In principle you could apply for a business loan but expect to have to personally guarantee it, from this you can either do the setup or cover running costs (inc your salary) but you then naturally have more strain on your cashflow as you'll have loan repayments to make. 

Mark_d said:

Yes you should be able to take out a business loan that can pay small salary/staffing costs.
If it was me I'd start small and build up the dog grooming business working from home.  Maybe you could get a fancy bean-to-cup coffee machine for your customers to use.  You wouldn't make as much money as if you has business premises but you would be able to build up a customer base and good reputation on facebook/instagram.
I'd suggest that the time to expand into business premises is once you've established the business working from home.

There are lots of considerations when running a business from home, especially when you have customers visiting your home. You may have issues with planning, mortgage, home insurance, parking etc. It may still be a lower cost approach but not all plain sailing either. The other option is to offer it on a mobile basis so that you go to the customer which removes a lot of the issues with people coming to you

Hoenir

llcooljayne1 said:

I have written a business plan, and have looked into costings of leasing a commercial property, utilities, insurances etc but am concerned about how I will pay myself at the start as I have a mortgage and bills I still need to pay (as we all do!)

Then I'd suggest you rethink your plan. Minimise your capital outlay and overheads. Establish yourself as a reputable dog groomer. Build your customer base.

Servicing borrowing to fund the business from the off. Will place you under tremendous strain if things don't go to plan. There's also factors to be considered if your home is the security for the monies advanced. 

Have you prepared your plan with and without the coffee shop?  As the viability of the coffee shop must be questionable unless it's also promoted as a business in it's rght not just an ad-hoc add on.  

Go for your dream. Learn to walk before running. Hard work is ultimately rewarded. 

kimwp

Who is going to serve and look after the coffee shop while you are grooming the dogs?

Grumpy_chap

llcooljayne1 said:

a grooming salon with an added coffee shop 

I don't think I'd like the idea of a dog grooming coffee shop.
I understand the suggestion and I know how popular dog-friendly cafes are.
It is just, in a dog-friendly cafe, the staff are focused on food and hygiene and not flitting from food to pets and back again.
Unless this is going to be two businesses with separate staff and facilities for each, that just happen to be near to each other, so really like a dog-friendly cafe next door to a dog grooming parlour.

Savvy_Sue

kimwp said:

Who is going to serve and look after the coffee shop while you are grooming the dogs?

Grumpy_chap said:

llcooljayne1 said:

a grooming salon with an added coffee shop 

I don't think I'd like the idea of a dog grooming coffee shop.
I understand the suggestion and I know how popular dog-friendly cafes are.
It is just, in a dog-friendly cafe, the staff are focused on food and hygiene and not flitting from food to pets and back again.
Unless this is going to be two businesses with separate staff and facilities for each, that just happen to be near to each other, so really like a dog-friendly cafe next door to a dog grooming parlour.

These two sum up my misgivings: it seems to me you are doubling your overheads, doubling * your staff costs, and doubling the things you have to worry about. 

* actually, more than doubling, because as soon as you need a second person, then you need cover for them to be sick / on leave. And no, you can't serve the coffees and food before heading off to start grooming: Fido may not appreciate the extra wait, and Environmental Health tend to want a very clear separation between food serving and where any pets might be. 

Plus, some people just won't want to hang around while you make Fido neat and tidy again, and some Fidos will play up if their owner is still around. But you have to have your coffee-serving person there all the hours you're grooming - and there may be hours when you're NOT grooming, but you may not initially be able to predict what those are. 

To be more encouraging, do you know ANY dog grooming salons with coffee on the side? If you do, especially if they're not on your doorstep, pick their brains! 

More workable might be a discount voucher scheme with a nearby cafe ... 

Bue21

Unless the cafe/dog grooming parlour is in a popular area (town centre/attraction etc) the footfall is likely to be quite low. I get my dog groomed regularly, if I knew the process would only take an hour or so, I may stay and have a coffee as it wouldn’t be worth leaving if there was a facility to stay. However my dog stays with the groomer for 3 hours and I can’t spend that long in a cafe so would be very unlikely to use a cafe at all.
The cafe would need to be able to stand as a business in its own right as this is the only way it could be viable (unless there are a lot of groomers working at the same time). As others have suggested, start small and build up the grooming business first. Then when you have a solid client base you can consider expanding/branching in to other areas. 

Tabieth

I’m another one concerned about the combination of dog grooming + cafe. You’ll need to adhere to strict food hygiene regulation and employ someone to serve the coffee and cakes / pastries. (I assume there will be foood as well?) If the groom only takes a short time people will wait anyway, if it takes several hours they probably won’t wait, even with a cafe. And you may not get much passing trade in the cafe. As someone who is allergic and is scared of dogs, I wouldn’t visit. You’ll likely face a lot of competition from well-established cafes in the area. Your dog owners may spend money on a coffee and cake but it’s unlikely to cover your costs. 

I’d focus on the dog grooming side, start small, and see how it develops. Good luck!

Savvy_Sue

Going right back to the first post ... 

llcooljayne1 said:

So in short for YEARS I have wanted to start my own dog grooming business. 

If that's what you've wanted to do for years, that's what you should concentrate on. If you'd said "for years I've wanted to start my own cafe, and I'd like it to be dog friendly", we might say different things, but if your passion is for dog grooming, stick to that. 

I'll say straight away I have never had a dog which received any grooming, but I appreciate it's now much more of a 'thing'. And I appreciate that whether you go mobile or set up to WFH or have separate premises, there's quite a considerable amount of 'stuff' you need. But whatever business you are starting, unless you have a shedload of money behind you, it's generally better to start small, succeed small, and scale up gradually. 

Of course, what none of us have actually asked, is ... what experience do you have of dog grooming? Are you sure you'll like it? And be physically capable of it for a number of years? 

Another question is, is there a market in your area for another dog groomer? I know of at least three WFH or mobile, plus two salons / dog accessory shops, within five miles of me - and I'm not looking for one! I don't know if we've reached saturation point, but if that was MY dream I'd want to be sure that people were having problems finding a good groomer before I spent out a lot of money on setting up. 

If you wanted to open a cafe, I'd be asking what experience you have of catering ... 

Johnmcl7

I agree with the above comments about not having a cafe and groomer together which I don't think makes much sense, if you want to run a cafe you want to have it in a desirable location or at least one where people are passing through but that is then unnecessarily expensive for the grooming side.

Originally our dogs used to be trimmed in a small shop sort of property in the town but now his groomers are working out of their own properties using a purpose built shed or similar.  I assume it makes it more viable for starting up by keeping the costs down and no downside to use dropping the dog off or picking him up.  I'd have no interest in stopping to use a coffee since the dog usually needs a couple of hours so I'm going to come back later.