For people that don't know Lisa and I you will need a bit more information about us as individuals and as a set.
Lisa spent part of her childhood in Africa, her maternal side is made up of missionaries and other Christian types. She was raised with a very strong Christian mindset and a determination to help others.
I was raised in the Catholic church and walked away from it. I was one of the forgotten children, abusive family, drugged out mother, that sort of thing.
Strangely enough with our extremely different backgrounds and a rather large age gap we somehow became very close. We also share the same views regarding charity, community support, and life in general.
This business idea has been kicked around for about three years pretty regularly and has repeatedly been put on the back burner as marriage, jobs, family and the like demanded our time and consideration. Not much has changed, our families, significant others, jobs, friends and about everything else still monopolize most of our time and try our patience at every chance, however we are both committed to making an effort to see this through and due to certain events of the last few months this has now become an actual priority for us both.
Our goal, the hope we have for this, is to eventually be able to employ 2-3 people, make a real difference in the community (a very small town with little in it) and be able to use part of the profit to support the causes that hit home for us.
Some have called us hippies, some have called us liberal bleeding hearts, and others have called us simply crazy. I prefer not to subscribe to a title but instead to accept the fact that I am a bit unusual, embrace my occasional insanity, and move forward.
The idea for this business began to take shape when we were sitting on the patio after work one night and complaining because no businesses were currently open and, even if they were there was no place to get a decent cup of coffee, much less a fresh donut. I am an avid food nut, I require real, good, filling food. Both of us love to cook and bake and we started joking about how we should just open a coffee shop and be done with it. We laughed about the idea and went on with our night, however, it stuck in the backs of our minds, and from time to time when we had little else to do we would again talk about it and go through recipes and the like. We have yet to solidify a true business plan but it is in the works. We have also neglected to decide exactly how we will market the place. There are several car and motorcycle groups that frequent the local area from March through November and there is a fairly decent amount of money to be made by catering to that type. We also have what we call the river rats, people who come to the area to raft/kayak, hike and camp. This is another market to target, also with a very real possibility of success. We then have to consider possible local clientele which would consist largely of weddings, showers and funerals. Again this is a very small town and there is very little besides weddings, births and funerals going on from a locals perspective. This leaves us with the option of A) going with the motorcycle/car groups, specializing in cookies, cakes and the like, B) going with the river rat types and focusing on whole foods, C) focusing on the locals which puts us at wedding cakes, lollipop cookies and sandwiches, or D) all of the above and praying we don't go so deep in debt that we can never get out. I'm a bit of an optimist, I believe option D to be the most likely candidate for success, I'm also the pushy one and therefore more likely to convince Lisa that it is in fact the best way to go and be the one to blame if we sink.
Now in the event that we somehow manage to get this off the ground and start turning an actual profit, then we have a whole new set of crazy ideas. These ideas run from handmade candles to knitted goods, homemade jellies and specialty catering, perhaps even at some point other local crafts and such, not to mention our pet charities and projects. Neither of us care much about money except for the possibilities it opens up, and it opens up a lot of them. I would like to see us reach a point where we can not only help to support the community but reach out to other communities in our region, I don't believe in hand outs, but a helping hand, well that's a bit different. I also like to believe that most people are innately good and that if they see two admittedly crazy women able to succeed with this crazy idea and able to give back to the community it will open there minds up a bit and perhaps allow them to reach for their dreams.
More to follow as this progresses, for now though I need to get back to work on the charts.
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