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talked to state farm

I got off of work a bit early on Friday, since I had to take Bo (my dog) to the vet. He’s fine, just needed a checkup. Anyways, after the visit, I decided to drop by State Farm and talk to the owner. We had a great chat, and I’m glad I stopped by ’cause I wanted to see if I could get some answers from him, rather then trying to get it from my property manager. It looks to be a bunch of miscommunication from the Landlord’s part, as myself and State Farm haven’t been given any clear answers.

Larry, the State Farm owner was under the impression that I was on a time crunch, and that he needed to get moving, and I was, but now that we’re both pretty sure that the delivery won’t be until April 1st, I told him to take his time. He definitely felt more comfortable. Since I don’t plan on being open until the middle of July, I don’t need to put any more pressure on him, as he’s been getting it from the Landlord.

Anyways, I took a walk around the office, and it seems there is gonna be quite a bit of work required for demo. Luckily, it’s none structural walls – so it should be fun kicking, punching smashing and anything else possible when taking down the dry wall. I’m thinking of getting a few buddies together to help demo the place over a weekend. Should be fun! The only big project will probably be getting a contractor to build out my bathroom. This is gonna be my most expensive project, so I need to make sure I can save money in other areas.

Maybe April?

I decided to drop by the shopping center on Friday after work, and I come to find out that the contractors are far from being finished in building-out the new space for State Farm.  The have some dry walls up, but I don’t believe they’ve mudded yet.  And then they will have to texturize the walls, lay carpet down, and get all of the data wires re-routed into the new space.  So, my guess-timation is April 1st for the space to be delivered?…  Which is fine with me now.  Gives me the entire summer to come up with a great marketing plan, maybe start working on a little PR or do a press release with a local newspaper.  Either way, the timing is probably working out better as we speak.  I’m now thinking mid July would be the Grand Opening of The Dojo.

I’m also looking at starting up a new company… a construction company.    Actually, to try to keep costs low, I may pull a permit myself for the school and be the General Contractor, and then hire out sub-contractors for projects, such as the plumbing for the bathroom, electrical, and possibly an architect to draw up the space plans.  All this needs to be approved by the city before I move forward, plus I need a permit to do demo in the space.  I ran these ideas by a friend of mine that does GC work in Denver, and he thinks it’s a pretty good idea.  Anyways, I’m just weighing out my options before I make a decision, since I’m thinking it may be a bit tight with the allowance that I am receiving.

Milking it

That’s right… I said milking it.

I got off the phone today with Scott, a really good friend of mine, that owns a karate school down in Lakewood, CO called Denver Karate Academy. He’s basically been a father figure in my life, as well as a great mentor in starting up my business. Gwen, his wife, initially called me to see if I’d be interested in buying their karate mats, since they are going to be moving to a new location. They’d obviously cut me a deal, $5/mat, which is a steal! Buying those things from a whole seller would cost a fortune. Anyways, I decided I’d take them up on the offer.

I then started to talk to Scott, who’s a real big numbers guy. No joke. He doesn’t even write things down, and he’s already calculating your break-even, monthly expenses, gross revenue, etc. Well, he was saying that it’s probably not a bad thing that it’s taking too long to have all the paperwork finalized, Blockbuster approve the space, and State Farm still negotiating the lease. See, I have a 90 day grace period to do my build out for the space – meaning, when the space is delivered, I will have 90 days from that day until my build out has to be finished and The Dojo of Karate can open for business. Well, I was hoping to open ASAP, but Scott pointed out that it’s tough to get students over the summer, which was actually a concern of mine. And, getting permits can be a nightmare too. But he’s saying to take FULL advantage of the 90 days and then when the school opens, I will be almost out of summer and close to “back -to-school” where enrollment can be a bit easier to obtain. Plus, I worked out in my lease that I would only pay 6 months of half rent, after the first months of full rent. I Basically won’t have to pay full rent until January or February 2009. Sooo, I’m going to exercise my leasing rights to it’s fullest. I’ll try to get work done in a reasonable manner, but I am no longer going to be emailing my Leasing Agent to see what else they need from me, and if State Farm has moved out.

I’m starting to feel really comfortable opening the school in late June, ’cause what I can do is 2-3 weeks prior to opening, I can begin to enroll students. If I can get 10-15 “pre-enrolled” that would be a great start, as it gives me bodies in the school to cover any immediate overhead. It’s like they say, “everything happens for a reason”, and this is nothing short of that. Or at least I’m hoping!

Are we there yet?

You know when you were a kid, and you took a road trip with the ‘rents, and all you would say was “are we there yet?”. Well, that’s basically what I’ve been asking the past few weeks.

Last Friday I received a portion of my SBA loan. I feel like I had to sign my life away! All these rules… I don’t do well with rules. Anyways, things went well, and I believe some of the funds were deposited in my account today. The remainder will be distributed as I make purchases for equipment. I guess I need to send my lender an invoice, and then they will make the payment.

Insurance is probably one of the delays nows. The leasing agent says I am missing some information and that Josh would contact me. I haven’t heard from Josh in over 1 week, and I’m beginning to get really annoyed. The leasing agent said that he’ll call tomorrow to give me the appropriate information. I personally don’t think their word is “as good as gold”. No pun intended.

Also got word that Blockbuster sent an email of consent, but they still need a hard-copy, which should be in by the end of the week. I still won’t bet on it…

My property manager is in Colorado right now, and I guess she’s working out the lease with State Farm, so they’re really close too. I’m hoping I can begin doing demo by this weekend, or possibly next weekend.

Are you wondering where the school is going to be? Well, click here to see a map of it! The address is: 12910 N. Zuni St., Suite 200, Westminster, CO 80234. The Shopping Center is called Willow Run and some of the surrounding stores are Safeway, Blockbuster, McDonalds, Chase Bank, gas station, liquor store (there everywhere!), Subway, and some other mom ‘n’ pop shops. This place is loaded with new housing development, schools, and other businesses.

Starting to buy equipment

There was a karate school in Boulder that went out of business a few months ago, and had left all of their equipment in the vacant unit.  I decided to call the broker, who got me in touch with the contractor to see if they were willing to sell some of the equipment.  I decided to make an offer for 7 mirrors, 6 wavemasters (punching bags), a couple of file cabinets, a table, and some benches.  My biggest interest were the mirrors because it would basically cost me about $2000 to have custom mirrors installed in my school.  This is saving me a TON of money – so I went ahead and dropped off a deposit today and I will pick up the equipment on Wednesday.  A buddy of mine in Englewood offered to help me pick up the equipment and store it in his garage until I open The Dojo.

One of my biggest purchases so far, but I’m sure it will be one of many.  

I also should have insurance established by tomorrow, so all I need to do now is setup a time to close on my SBA loan.  Sorta exciting things are moving along!

 

Finally… but!…

A lot has happen since my last post, but at the same time not a lot.

Yes, I know. You’re probably thinking, “how’s that possible?” Well, my landlord has already received the check for my space, which covers my first month’s rent and a deposit – which I can probably kiss goodbye ’cause how often do you ever get your deposit back?

Anyways, I do not have full access to the place because, A) State Farm is still in there, and probably won’t be out until March 1st, and B) Blockbuster needs to approve my business with a written statement. A verbal “yes” isn’t gonna work. This is just killing me! I just found out about this two weeks ago.  Yeah, this is beginning to get VERY annoying. Otherwise the space is mine.

As for my lender, I already sent a copy of my lease last week, as they need to “bless” it.  And, they also need proof of insurance. I think the insurance should be taken care of by this week.  I’ve received a few quotes and found a company that seems to be comparable to other providers, at a reasonable rate. After that’s done, I get my SBA loan fully injected into my account.

Now that most of the logistics and immediate paper work has been ironed out, I’ve got one big task to take care of… getting a general contractor, an architect, and builder permit(s) in the next few days to two weeks. I may already have a general contractor though.  A co-worker of mine – her husband is a general contractor and does great work.  Talked to him and he’s willing to take a look at the space and put in a bid. He also knows an architect that can probably stamp a design for the city to approve. From there, I guess he just needs permission from the city to do work in Westminster – and pay some sort of fee. That’s another thing… there are all sorts of fees in starting your own business at a brick and mortar location. This is something I definitely didn’t take into consideration.  Anyways, if I can get a builders permit soon, and once State Farm leaves, we can start doing the demo and make finalizations to my place. I think I’m now looking at late March, early April.  About 6 weeks behind schedule, but I guess I can’t complain, right?

As for talking to my manager about starting my own business… well that went really well.  She’s quite happy for my decision, but some changes have taken place at work, so this may become a difficult transition.  This is a topic I can not talk about… mainly because I want to keep everything in my blog about The Dojo.

Well, I hope I make more strides this week!

 

It’s been awhile

It’s been a couple of weeks or so since my last post, plus I figured that I should update everyone about the latest and greatest news.

First off, the issues that I was experiencing at the beginning of the year with one of my lenders decreasing my line-of-credit – well that couldn’t be resolved due to the school not making any money. It’s kinda tough to generate revenue when YOU’RE A START UP. But, the banks don’t want to hear that… as it’s no excuse in their eyes. Whatever the case is, this hasn’t stopped me from what I’m suppose to be doing.

With that said, I sent my leasing agent a check to secure the location, so I should be golden. All I’m waiting for now is to get insurance for the school and get approved from the city of Westminster for my business license. Once that’s done, I can access the premises, receive my SBA loan, and probably hire a contractor to do my build-out. Which brings me to a great question… what do I need to do to get a contractor? Do I go through my landlord, or do I need to find my own?… I’m hoping to get an answer here shortly, so I can at least put in my building permit application. But, it’s tough too ’cause my space is still being occupied by State Farm. So, all of the logistics hasn’t been ironed out quite yet.

As for when will The Dojo of Karate open… It may be a long shot, but mid March looks somewhat realistic now. It’s so close, yet so far away. Then summer will be creeping up, which will make it tough for business. I feel like I’ve prepared myself to get this far, but then I’m sorta lost now too. Crazy…

Now, I think my next biggest task/priority is talking to my current manager and telling her about my future plans. I don’t know how she will take it, and/or how the company will take it. Something in me says it will be fine and she will be happy for me, but at the same time I’m scared to bring it up, and possibly loose my job. As people say, timing is everything, so I’m just waiting for the right time. I hope the talk goes well, and it does not affect my job and my future there. I do want to continue job there, and leave on good terms – but I don’t want to drag it out either. I almost have to be very diplomatic here – and I’m really not that kind of person. If all goes well with the location, I will be talking to my manager this week.

Paper work

Well, I’ve got good news as far as the lease is concerned. The landlord has accepted my changes/additions to the lease and sent me an executable copy of the lease on Monday. I’ve signed my life away, or it at least seems that way, then made copies of required documents they requested, and put them in a file. I’m hoping to send the leasing agent everything by the end of the week, if not, maybe early next week. They wanted to have everything signed by the end of the month, but that ain’t happening, especially with the problems that I had to go through (and still going through) the past couple of weeks.

I then went through my checklist of documents the SBA loan department requires, and didn’t realize how much information they needed from me. Maybe I should read ahead more often… Well, they need proof of insurance (which I knew, and delayed due to timing), copy of sales/business license for the city of Westminster, (which I just learned takes 3 weeks for approval and I don’t have that kind of time), copies of my lease terms, and a few other things. I basically spent 5 hours yesterday finding documents on the state and city websites, printing applications, and filling them out. I don’t even know if I have everything! I’m not looking forward to getting a building permit either, ’cause from what I hear, this is a long process too.

At times, I almost feel like these establishments make it so difficult to start up your own business it stops those with a great idea, yet you hear that the government is all for start ups, entrepreneurs, leaders of the free enterprise, etc. I definitely am not feeling the love when it comes to getting my business off the ground. But, it’s like the old saying… “no sacrifice, no victory”.

I keep telling myself, “stay positive…” “things happen for a reason…” I just hope I learn what that reason is sooner, rather then later.

Sigh…

No sacrifice, no victory. I’m now thinking I should put that on my first school t-shirts. At least it would have significant meaning, you know.