I am working on starting up a business. Its really early in the game, which is good because I want to keep a journal of it, to document the experience, and to give myself some accountability.

And I want to document the experience here on steemit for the following reasons: 1) With Blockchain technology, the words will never be lost. 2) It can be shared and 3) Maybe it'll help others or reach some who can help me during this process.

For those that are curious as to what type of business it is... it's a niche retail store. As such it has the disadvantage of being unique, and as such it has the great advantage of being... unique!

If you choose to follow along you'll see what type of niche it is eventually. I'm not hiding it by any means... but like I said it's a niche, which by definition does not appeal to most people. Which is why I don't want it to be the focus. I want the focus of this blog to be the journey of entrepreneurship itself.

What I accomplished today, 1/17/18

• Added 3 new revenue streams to the business plan based on feedback from my two business partners after first pitching the idea to them. Sent the updates to them.
• Decided that the business structure that best suits us is an S Corp. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/S_corporation Researched that more to refresh my memory from Business 101 in college so I could pitch why to my business partners when we meet on Sunday.
• Researched Facebook itself to better understand how it works and decided that if my business partners plan to go all in with me by sitting down with a good Accountant to actually form the corporation, the next step would be to create a Facebook page for the store. Because we are a niche store Facebook is going to be crucial in gathering our local community. The page would at first just announce the fact that the store is in the works and please follow to get updates. If we get maybe 500 likes (Which is possible), it will give us some leverage as we continue to negotiate with suppliers and potential landlords.
• Reached out to a friend that I trust who is experienced with web design. I found out that the actual name of the store.com is available, which is huge!
• Started to blog my progress on Steemit. I like this a lot because now steemit is no longer a distraction, it's a tool to help me focus and be accountable for this idea which is my real passion.
• Reached out to three of our four potential suppliers to request wholesale pricing and information. Heard back from one of them (pwt) who informed me we could get 50% off retail (perfect!) with a minimum order of around $4,000 (OK, that's going to be a challenge).
• Researched Accountants in the area that can help us set up the S Corp properly, and hopefully also help us maintain our books going forward.

Update on past events

I had this idea at least a year ago, maybe more. But I was always procrastinating or kind of stymied because I didn't have the money or the expertise. Until about a month ago when the idea just hit me that perhaps other people in my community would want to participate and help me out. It would be totally worth it to share some of the profits in order to have the help of getting things going. I immediately thought of two good friends whom I trust. They have more expertise and experience in the community and connections, but more importantly I trust them. So ever since I had that epiphany I've been extremely excited! However, instead of calling one of them immediately I waited until I got home and could run it by my beautiful partner and the mother of my daughter first. I wanted to make sure she was OK with it first. Because it's going to take a lot of time and sweat equity on my part to get this going. It's only fair to her that she's first and foremost in the decision to go for it. And she had/has many reservations, all of which I understand. So that night I just sat down on Google Docs and wrote out the ideas that I had. Eventually I got the green light to at least reach out to my two friends to see if they were even interested.

So I finally had that opportunity on 1/14/18, three days ago. We were all hanging out with about 10 other friends in the community and one of them was in a back room working on setting up some AV equipment. I said to him "Hey, I've had an idea rolling around in my head for a while and wanted to see what you thought." He said "what's up" and we sat down and talked. Come to find out, he had been having some of the same ideas himself and had been wanting to do something like this for a while. He called our other friend in and the three of us talked for almost 30 minutes just rolling out ideas. Some I had to squash because they didn't really fit with my vision, but many many others were great! I was very happy to see how much enthusiasm was present and that my two trusted friends had ideas and great input for moving this thing forward. We concluded the meeting by me saying I'll send you the ideas that I jotted down a while back, its about 4 pages worth and we'll go from there.

The next day (1/15/18) Robert texted me to ask if I had e-mailed him the document. I said no, I needed to edit it a little before I did but I would later that night. I'm glad I did, it had a lot of grammatical errors. But after I sent it and he said "It looks promising".

1/16/18 (yesterday). I came home from work and told my sweet Kim "well, I guess Robert is on board with the idea, he went out and found a location". And it was a great location! After he called me and explained where it is I went and checked it out. Just seeing it gave me the chills! It may not be the location we actually end up with because the rent is very high, but seeing a visual and knowing that I have trusted friends who are on board with me and see the potential as I do is just a really great feeling.

That brings us up to speed and back to today, where I added the ideas that Robert and Buck had to the business plan and sent to them.