Daniel Kuhlman creates the business structure for Tastes Wine Bar & Bistro

This is perhaps the easiest of each step in the Create Concept phase. However, some people tend to go a little bit overboard so it deserves a mention. At this phase of the business development, most people hire an attorney to advise, form and configure the LLC or the Corporation. Since I was creating a larger type enterprise, I used the Corporate structure. I was not forming a partnership so there was no need for an extensive LLC operating agreement with appropriate partner extraction strategies.  After all, the key to an LLC operating agreement is extracting yourself from a bad decision about who you went in to business with. Therefore, I opted not to engage an expensive attorney at this point. Instead, I used the Colorado Secretary of State website and for $10 formed a corporation. Too easy. I also researched corporate by-laws and the other requirements for later development.

For the food & beverage operations, the other critical corp vs LLC decision was the liquor license. In the state of Colorado, a corporation must be represented by an attorney for the hearing. If you are LLC, it is not necessary. However, the cost of the attorney to attend the hearing was less than the potential costs for changing the structure later to accommodate later franchising growth.

With the Concept Creation phase complete, it is now time to move on to the business Planning phase.