Hey. Thank You for being interested in my experience. I am 23 now took over a family members boutique/salon last year when I was 22. I have always wanted to do something of my own and when this opportunity came along I took it. I had a little bit of money saved up and took some help from my dad and came up with a little bit of money and gave it to the family member as some payment upfront for the business. The deal was that i would run the place and pay her installments every month and eventually pay her off.
I love the place, BUT, i am not a stylist or a beautician, so it is important that if you and your partner are actually going to be the stylists or beautician only then will the business work. Because if one of my staff decides to leave an hr early I lose business. Its like opening a restaurant and you dont know how to cook.
The boutique is ok because thats my expertise, however, it does not represent who I am or what I wear. Which can pose a problem. Because u arent always as passionate. Plus for me because I am slowly paying off the business, and because of the lease situation the place still runs under my family members name which bothers me sometimes because I have the power to run it the way i want to, but then sometimes I dont. Its complicated when you get into business with family. The advantage however is that they cut you slack when needed.
At the moment I am most frustrated about running a place that already has a very confusing and unorganized infrastructure in place.
Hence, as of Jan 2009 I am venturing into two new business, which when I start I will write more about. The goal is to start on a blank slate, which luckily you guys are, and built it from base up. This way I am incharge and sell what I understand better and love to wear myself.
This is just an overview about my situation. But I must add that running the current business that I am running taught me things that I would have never learnt in a class room. For example, juggling employees, how to handle bills when money is short, who to pay first and determining which bills can wait, developing customer rapport, calculating and paying sales tax, store insurances, understanding what everything in the lease meant, licenses, banking, accounting, inventory and soo much more.
Because of these things today I am more confident as I hope to venture into two businesses next year. Again, with very little money, because I dint make any in the last yr, plus already lost what i paid before. The best felling is that I will be starting on a clean slate.
If you have further specific questions just shoot it my way and I will answer them. Again, I am also new and young but I have about 8 years of experience in gas station business, retail store, doctors office,dance studio, salon. Lets just say I kept involving my self in many many things and hung around family and assited them in all of the areas mentioned above.
Its finally time to do something for myself.
Thanks and Best of Luck,
Troikia
