Daniel Kuhlman writes the Tastes Wine Bar & Bistro business plan

The business plan for Tastes Wine Bar & Bistro was more than a consolidation of the business case and the validation. The purpose of the plan under normal circumstances is to generate a document for the purposes of developing concept acceptance for investors and financing. In this case, The first project was going to be self-financed. However, I used this opportunity as one more go/no-go decision point. So many entrepreneurs, especially in the food & beverage segment, dive in without really understanding the financials and return on their investment. Many people complain that they don’t make enough money doing their own business. But, had they simply gone out and worked at McDonald’s (insert your favorite food chain here) and stuck it out for the same amount of time, they would have been regional managers with a superior income. This opportunity cost rarely gets factored in to the decision making process.

The business case had a rough order of magnitude budget of =/- 25%. The business plan attempted to get this closer to +/-10%. The plan also more clearly and completely identified risks and assumptions. During this phase, our board of advisors (not directors) was created to help with reality checks.

Daniel Kuhlman’s Tastes Wine Bar Bistro Business Plan 2006

One more opportunity to expose the idea for validation was submitting it to a local business plan competition. There was even prize money involved. $10,000 to the top 6 finishers. More importantly the feedback from the judges and other contestants (if you let others read it, it’s okay in most cases, they’re too busy doing their own thing to steal yours). In this case, the competition was at the University of Colorado, Denver, Bard Center of Entrepreneurship. They also housed an incubator and held classes. I used the opportunity to brush up on my financial skills, where I thought I was weakest, by taking their course, Finance for Entrepreneurs. While I had covered much of the same information as an MBA student at Carnegie Mellon University, the class put it in terms immediately applicable to my start-up. After all, I was putting my own money at risk and I wanted to cover all my bases.

There were also free opportunities with the City of Denver to help develop the concept. Their office of economic development, while not focused on small businesses, was helpful. They housed the offices of SCORE and the SBDC or the Small Business Development Corporation. The latter would become instrumental in helping me along the way as my company grew.

Next I talk about forming the business as a Legal Entity.

Go back to Daniel Kuhlman Tastes Project Site