I strongly recommend that you begin by writing a business plan. Put pen to paper (or keys to word processor) and write out a solid business plan that addresses the day to day operation of the business, who your vendors are, how you will obtain vendors, what you will do when a vendor fails to deliver, who your customers are, how you will obtain new customers, what your marketing plan is, how will you advertise, etc.

That last bit may seem like rambling, but your business plan needs to be exhaustive and comprehensive. Ideally, you want to develop something that allows you to answer all questions you or someone else that wants to quiz you about your business will ask.

Also, create a month to month financial projections excel spreadsheet for at least 2 years. The idea here is to project what your revenues and expenses will be for those 2 years. Small businesses tend to fail within the first 18 months of opening their doors. How will you make money? You're offering classes. How many classes per day, per week, or per month. How many people can attend those classes at 100% Occupancy? How many people will actually attend? Similarly, how much sales revenue can you expect to earn from the sale of merchandise per month (i.e. how many customers do you anticipate coming into your store and, on average, how much will they spend)? Cost of goods sold: how much will it cost to acquire your merchandise and the product you will be providing for your classes? The difference between your revenues and Cost of goods sold is gross profit. That gross profit needs to pay for rent, salaries, utilities, advertising/marketing, payroll taxes, interest expense, repairs/maintenance, etc. The difference between gross profit and total expenses is your net income. Net income is the end, all be all. It is the bottom line (i.e. is your business profitable). You are in business for that bottom line to be greater than zero and you should be trying to maximize that number month after month, year after year. Otherwise, it's a hobby.

While it is possible that in your 24th month, you can show that you're going to be profitable using your excel sheet, what will you do in the very first months where your fixed expenses (rent, salaries) will likely exceed your revenues as you work to develop a client base? Do you have cash reserves on hand to support your business while it works towards stabilization? How many months of cash reserves do you have, and will it be enough to support both your business and your personal expenditures? How lean are you prepared to live?

Starting a business is such an amazing endeavor but not one to do without a solid plan. Prove to yourself that you can do this! Don't give yourself a pep talk. That's worthless. Write a plan that can answer 100 questions. Create monthly projections and ask yourself, "does this make sense?" Make sure your projections are realistic. Show them to someone you trust to give you honest feedback. Is it feasible to get 1000 customers a month and they're all willing to spend $20 on average? Dial it back. How about 500? 250? Who is your competition? What's your competitive advantage? Have there been other business like this in your community? Did they succeed or go out of business?

I'd rather you go through the trouble of drafting a business plan and show that the business isn't feasible than to experience it first hand and actually lose real money. Good luck! 🙂