I am a nurse and have been doing that for about four years. I love nursing and it is something that I don’t regret doing at all. But I had to quit my job out of sheer exhaustion — being over-worked, made to come in for over time without compensation and smashed with extra work with orders to “suck it up.” Now I want to have a small business.
I love to cook. I had started to look into a small business that I can run out of my home kitchen and office for a lobby Deli Restaurant. I think if I research this right, I know I can be successful.
But I worry, since I am the head of household, with my husband going to graduate school, so all financial responsibility falls on me. I am 100% sure I can do this, but my question is… is it worth the risk? Has anyone else had this sort of complete career change and succeeded? — MetalMaggie
I am a nurse and have been doing that for about four years. I love nursing and it is something that I don’t regret doing at all. But I had to quit my job out of sheer exhaustion — being over-worked, made to come in for over time without compensation and smashed with extra work with orders to “suck it up.” Now I want to have a small business.
Having had my own small business, I can tell you that you’ll likely work 7 days a week for a while, and you’ll have to learn how to force yourself to schedule time off. This is hard in any service business when your time off means losing business and money. Once you have employees, you can avoid this but it’ll take time to work up to that place. (Personally, I burned out on my small business because I never got to a place where I felt comfortable turning things over to employees. I was so happy to shut it all down after four years and get my life back.)
One big issue you’ll have to deal with is getting your kitchen certified by the Dept of Health, or find a commercial kitchen to rent. Otherwise, you run the risk of big fines from the government if they find you. A friend of mine ran a very small cupcake biz out of her house for a few years but was threatened with a $20,000 fine if she didn’t stop immediately or change to a certified kitchen once the feds caught up with her.
I knew someone who got their home kitchen certified, and I’ll say that it’s really unlikely that the average home kitchen will do without a few renovations. They have really specific requirements about clearance between counter tops and number of sinks available–often, they require at least two or a three-compartment sink. If the kitchen opens up too much into the rest of the home, it may need a new wall built. You may have to seal it off entirely if you have pets. The specifics vary by state. At the same time, if your neighborhood is zoned, if you rent or if you’re part of a neighborhood association, you could be evicted for running a business of any kind out of your home depending on the rules.
Start by calling your state department of health and asking what would be required for your kitchen’s square footage–explain exactly what you plan to do, as their requirements sometimes flex based on what you’re making. The next step would be to understand the zoning of your home or neighborhood rules that apply to you.
Don’t let this scare you, though! Do ask–it might be closer to possible than you think. To answer your main question, most of the chefs I’ve spoken to has a story like your’s! They were somewhere totally ELSE in life and they made the change. It isn’t always easy, but it can be immensely rewarding.
Yeah, renting a commercial kitchen space is far simpler but it depends on what’s available in her area. In Atlanta where my friend’s biz was, there were plenty of options but they were out of her budget range, so she was forced to shut down.
It’s absolutely possible to make a move from something more 9 to 5 and make a success of your own business, as someone who has switched career several times I would always say to anyone never think it’s impossible. But that doesn’t always mean it possible right now or that you find out along the way it costs something you are not prepared to give.
Switching career and starting a business are both things that demand a lot from you and your partner both emotionally and financially so think carefully about what the background to it will be. You can do all the business models you like but the bottom line is you just can’t know for sure what kind of income you will get and how soon. If your finances are such that you have reasonable period that you and your partner could not only invest in the business but also live without a wage, then you are probably in a good position to take that high stakes big reward risk.
But all is not lost if you are not in that position, you may just need to move more slowly and minimise the risk. It sounds like you are desperate to be running your own show (which I totally sympathise with especially after all you’ve been through) but getting experience by working with the kind of business you want to run first, might be really useful. Not only will it help you work out whether this kind of work it really is right for you before you’ve sunk every penny in (and therefore make it easier to walk away if you have to) it will also help you plan exactly how you are going to do it yourself when you are in charge. It also makes you a better prospect if you need investors. I don’t think there is a right way or a wrong way about this it’s about how much risk you can financially and emotionally stomach and to work that out needs a long honest look at yourself and your circumstances.
Finally, as a former chef and caterer I would say the qualities you need are as follows, note that I’ve not listed cooking skills, that’s a given. Being able to plan well in the first place and re-prioritise/adapt on the spot when things go wrong because with all the planning in the world they do. Good people skills/tough hide/sense of humour – doing the food for people’s big days/events means frequently dealing with people not at their best when under pressure, but the ones having the biggest wig outs when you arrive are often the most profusely grateful afterwards.. Good health, – you’ll need a lot of endurance and at times brute strength for heavy equipment etc, running a cucpakery for instance might not appear to be a heavy lifting job but those big wedding displays weigh a ton…. Concentration and attention to detail – if you are doing event catering you will frequently have to just get on with your shit whilst those around you are losing theirs and you’ll need the confidence to do it in full view and not be panicked into forgetting a vital detail.
I hope I haven’t scared you off because seeing the food you’ve prepared being enjoyed by people and seeing what it gives them is wonderful and very life affirming, its such a basic human pleasure I think. But go in prepared…
Good luck!
While I cannot speak to the success of a home business (though I have a similar goal down the road as I would like to have a work life that is flexible enough to home-school future children),in the meantime, it is my understanding that nurses are in pretty high demand right now. I would recommend seeking a nursing job with an employer who’s hours are more to your preference (or at the very least, they either don’t make you work overtime, or pay you for it!). Best of luck!
Go for it! The world will always need nurses. You can always go back if needs be but if you never try it you’ll never know.
I was made redundant last year and i’ve since set up two small business’ one making crochet items one doing dog walking and pet sitting (which is only about two weeks old) none of them I could call a success yet but its still early days and i’m miles happier than I was working in retail.
I guess if you are the main bread winner that does change things slightly but if you think you can make it work then why not. Could you do care work or something similar a couple of nights a week to make sure you have some regular money coming in till your business takes off?
I am not an entrepreneur, but living in NH I know a lot of small business owners who all say it’s been worth it, even with some failures. I read this article at The Billfold yesterday that you might find useful/inspiring: http://thebillfold.com/2013/05/how-meghann-rosales-started-nails-yall-her-nail-art-business/
Good luck whatever you decide!!
I’m in a similar(ish) position at the moment – due to redundancy I’m looking at a change from a Monday-Friday 9am-5pm office job (that I rarely enjoyed) to something a bit more creative, working for myself from home.
Luckily we’re in a position where we’re financially okay without my income for a while until things get going, so my main concerns at the moment are managing that shift on a personal level – going from a busy office environment to me, my laptop and my sewing machine is going to be a massive adjustment!
The one thing I would say, is speak to people – friends, family, people who have set up their own businesses in different industries, even some of your potential competitors. I’ve found all kinds of unexpected people to be really helpful once they know what you’re trying to do – you never know what information/ideas people might have that could help you out.
I know that over here in the UK there are also a few not-for-profit organisations that help people setting up their own businesses, either through grants, training, or even things like helping you out with a business plan, so it may be worth looking into that to see if there’s any help that you can get in your area.
Best of luck as you move forwards, whichever route you decide to take!
Working for myself is the best thing I’ve ever done in terms of my day to day happiness…but it’s likely not to be profitable right away (and you want to talk about unpaid overtime, oy vey! I still barely make enough to live on, but we have no kids and keep our expenses low, so it works out.) Normally I’d say to start it while keeping your day job on the side part time, but since it’s too late for that… take a good hard look at how much you have in savings and work up a proper business plan (there are a bajillion books on the subject, you can probably find one relevant to your industry) and you should be able to get an idea of whether or not you can stick it out long enough to start turning a profit.
I’ve freelanced and done gigs before as well as worked part-time and full-time traditional jobs. Some things that don’t really change are bad clients, under-compensation and over-working, and pressure. The things that did change from job-to-job was the type of support network I had. The best jobs had co-workers and supervisors who kept me sane and challenged. They paid well when they could and if they couldn’t they let their employees know how much they were appreciated in other ways.
When I was on my own it was harder to build that support network. Freelancers I met tend to view each other as competition. Friends do what they can but not everyone has the empathy or interest to see you through the hardship. I personally had a hard time establishing relationships with clients. They might love my work but I’m a very reserved person. So, marketing was tough too. This might not be a problem for you, but it’s one of the things I think people tend to overlook when starting out. Unless you’re initially collaborating with others you’ll have to wear SO. MANY. HATS.
And some people, like me, aren’t comfortable with that. If you’re seriously pursuing this then try to view it from the point of view of your (non-existent) manager. What can you reasonably take on and what needs to be outsourced?
Absolutely, check out your local/state/federal zoning and food service requirements before you do anything else. If you’re in the US, call your local Dept. of Argriculture office (they handle food service inspections) to see what’s what. My mother’s home-based catering kitchen (in PA) had to be 100% separate from our family’s daily kitchen, separate sinks, etc. My handy father remodeled first our basement, then half of our garage, to get it up to commercial standards. If remodeling or renting is out of your immediate budget, look into if you can borrow for a nominal fee space at a local community center/church/etc., especially if you’re a member. You also should look into liability insurance on your company – like, “Joe Schmo bought a sandwich and then got sick with food poisoning because he didn’t wash his hands, and now he wants to sue you!” Ridiculous, but it happens. Better safe than sorry on that. Also, some local small business ordinances (home-based) prevent full-time employees. You can usually get around that by having all of your employees be “contracted,” as opposed to typical full-time.
My mom went from being a homemaker with some experience feeding my large family, and a bit of restaurant experience, to starting her catering company from scratch and being very successful in about 3 years. If you’re passionate, you can DEFINITELY do it! It’ll be hard, you’ll work a lot, but if it means you’re happy then it is so worth it.
TLDR; do your research and you can do it!
You have to be careful with the “contracted” employee thing. My accountant told me in 2011 that the IRS was starting to really crack down on businesses who were disguising regular employees as independent contractors. Here’s info on what constitutes an employee vs an IC.
Absolutely, always check with an accountant for these sorts of things! I don’t know 100% the classification of my mom’s business, just anecdotally. 🙂
A possible suggestion to the viable kitchen problem… I know in my city (in the UK) there are small (often family-run) restaurants that only open in the evenings. I wonder if there were any friends, or friends-of- friends who worked in this way who you could kitchen-share with? It’d need to be someone you trust (as with any business partnership) and they’d likely need to be happy that you weren’t going to hijack their custom.
My cousin is doing something similar. She and her husband opened a pizza place and they rent it out as a coffee shop in the morning. It seems to work out for everyone involved.
I quit my day job out of frustration less than a year ago, it was not a change of occupation for me though, just a change in who I work for. I worked as a glass artist for someone else but the day to day drama got to be too much for me, now I work for myself. I am lucky in that my husband makes enough money for us to live on while I am building up my own buiness.
Reaserch everything, get quotes on insurance costs, if the city will give you a business licence for a residential business, ask a lot of questions.
It never occured to me that because I use a glass kiln that a lot of insurance companies would be afraid of it even though it is a CSA approved piece of equipment, just like stove but hotter. It took getting quotes from 6 insurance companies before I found one that did not require me to get super expensive commercial insurance for a small home based business.
Live your dream, just make sure you plan for your dream.
I walked away from my day job and opened my own business (in the same field mind you), and while it has been a crazy amount of work it has been one of the best experiences of my life. The first year was rough in terms of financial gains and losses (the expectation is generally that you lose money for the first 1-5 years), and realistically I made very very little. But, I wouldn’t say it is the same for everyone. Just under half way through my second year, I have already made more than I did my first year, so it is starting to pay off.
Look around for business grants and loans and the like, there are a lot that are targeted specifically towards women in entrepreneurship. This will be especially helpful if you want to work with food and need a kitchen or storefront. Spend some time and write a business plan, identify your suppliers and people that can help you out. Start small with things that you know and build from there.
Friend’s of mine opened up a little cafe attached to a home goods store, it has been a crazy amount of work, but heading into year 2 they are super happy and the business is really taking off.
Go for it, you really can’t put a price on happy. And if it doesn’t pan out, you have a great degree to fall back on for a little bit until you feel the need to take the leap again.
I’d really like to see what Ariel has to say about this…
I don’t know how much time I have to answer since I’m so busy today… running my small business!
I will say that I generally agree with LXV: as the owner of a small business I work harder, worry more, and am challenged 5000 times more than I ever was working for someone else. I think burn out and dealing with isolation are two of the biggest challenges I’ve dealt with.
It’s totally do-able… but you have to work really REALLY hard, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that there are times when I fantasize about going back to a day job… not because my business isn’t sustainable, but because it’s so fucking exhausting.
So can you do it? YES! Should you do it? YES! But should you recognize that it comes with a huge host of challenges and may eventually drive you completely insane and running back into the arms of a day job? YES!
I’m sure I have more to add… but I gotta go work! :O
Lengthy tome ahead:
Do NOT go into your own business because you want to stop working long hours for little to no compensation, because you will still be working insane hours for little to no compensation for quite a while. DO go into business for yourself if you have a burning passion for something; enough of a passion that you are willing to put in the long hours with little to no compensation (whether that passion is for the product, the freedom, the money, or whatever else you want). You need to be working towards something, not getting away from it. Be honest with yourself.
Do not say “oh I can do this myself” or “my husband and I can work this together.” It’s true that you can, for a while. But you’ll be working for a lunatic before long. Feeling burnt out? Want to go to the aquarium with your nephew? Have the flu? Tough shit. You need to go to work.
You absolutely need to build a business that employs other people that you trust with systems that you know will work. It will take time to get there, but you must work towards it. The honeymoon phase of “yay! I’m working for myself” and adrenaline phase of “holy shit! what was I thinking?!” can power you through the part where you are working by yourself – for up to a few years – but it will wear off and you will want to have free time again.
When you put together the business plan, include your exit strategy. This may seem pessimistic, but it’s essential. How much time and money are you (and your husband) willing to lose before you pull the cord on it? On the flip side, if you do amazingly and someone wants to buy it, what are you willing to sell and for how much? Or you’re in it for the love, but sooner or later you’ll want to retire and what do you do with it then?
LLC. Form an LLC. It will protect your personal assets in case the business goes under/ gets sued.
Have a business plan. Not a two page “I’m going to make these sandwiches and sell them to these workers in these companies.” No, make an intimidating thirty page document of profit margins, expenses, marketing tactics, how many customers you need a day to be profitable, how many people you need to hire, timelines, and realistic contingency plans for what will happen when you’re sick, want a vacation, or the car breaks down. Detail milestone goals like when you will be profitable (assume no profitability for a while), at what level of business will you hire someone to do X, etc. Like all battle plans it *will* start to fall apart the moment it makes contact with reality (margins are lower than expected, the web designer misses a deadline, etc), but it’s infinitely better than winging it. If that sounds like too much work, then you haven’t seen anything yet.
You will be the accountant, the HR manager, the legal team, the janitor, the customer service rep, the IT guy, the CEO, and the mail clerk. After you get done in the kitchen and office lobbies you will have all those other jobs waiting for you. The E-Myth
(a book I *highly* recommend) talks about the three personalities you need to balance in yourself – the Entrepreneur, the Manager, and the Technician. The Manager is the least sexy – with neither the vision of the Entrepreneur or the can-do know-how of the Technician – but it is what will take you from being somebody who just works for themselves to actually being a business owner.
If you’ve got any followup questions or bones to pick, I’ll check back here periodically.
TL;DR: Should you do it? I don’t know. It’s really tough. It’s not for everyone. But it is very rewarding. Just make sure you own a business, not a job.
I’m going to be the jerk here and suggest that you don’t make the switch right now. My husband was laid off 3 years ago and took a job working as a contract employee for a big company. Basically, he got to use the company name, but was in business for himself and his job was sales. It was really f*ing hard, even though he liked the job. There was so much instability in our income (read: long periods of none, a few periods of a tiny bit, a random burst here or there of “ok”) and it was so stressful. I’m a teacher, so we had some money, but it was the constant “it’s going to turn around soon” but then not turning around that was so disheartening.
If you were in a place where money was much less of an issue, I’d be much more inclined to say go for it. But about 60% of new businesses go out of business within 3 years, and that doesn’t account for start up costs, which, as other posters have pointed out, could be huge.
If you do really love being a nurse, could you find someplace else to do that job? It sounded to me like you liked you career, but not your place of employment.
Sorry to be a “debbie downer.” I just know that it was so hard on my family to not have that steady income, that I would think long and hard before putting yourself in that position if you don’t have to.
I don’t think it’s a jerk thing to say. I think it’s important to really look at the risk involved, and there is *considerably* more risk when only one spouse is the breadwinner. I wouldn’t give a categorical “no don’t do it” only because there’s a lot about this situation I don’t know (they could have substantial savings, parents could be willing to help them float for a while, angel investors could be lining up out the door, etc.). But realistically you’re right, at first blush it is far from an ideal situation for starting your own business.
Your experience is also valuable to share, because it illustrates how the decision really requires everyone on the family to be on board and enthusiastic about the idea. (Jane, please don’t take this to mean I think you were unsupportive or anything like that. I just mean that everyone in the family has to be comfortable with the amount of risk and instability those striking off on their own will inevitably face.) And it is hugely demoralizing to be constantly living in the shadow of “success and stability is just around the corner” and never seeming any closer to the corner.
Congratulations on taking your health and happiness seriously enough to quit your job. I did the same, out of necessity, and now am an “independent contractor” teaching yoga for workplaces. My partner is also an independent contractor, in green building. Our income is not stable, but it has not been too bad (getting by mostly by keeping our expenses low and having savings to back us up). Personally I would recommend that you try to find a middle ground where you don’t really have a boss, but you do have an employer. Independent contracting means you don’t necessarily have to have all the business plan/marketing/overhead worked out, but you still feel self-employed. Not sure what this would mean in food biz. Two other ideas that came to mind were food trucks/trailers and festival/event food(in tents). Limited menu, hopefully easier kitchen set-up?? I imagine it might be more possible to do than remodeling your whole house and so on.
At the farm my wife works at, they run a licensed kitchen out of their home kitchen. There are restrictions as to what and where the product can be sold, etc, but for a small farm market it works out ok.
The risk mitigation is why I farm on the side and work a 60hr a week job the rest of the time. I love it, but there just isn’t money in agriculture these days. the regular job takes care of the healthcare, retirement, regular bills, etc. The farm causes the need for those things!
So many things to say.
A huge red flag for me was that you say you quit your job “out of sheer exhaustion”. As many are saying, you will be more exhausted than any day job while starting your own business. The question is: is the love of cooking you mention something that will make that exhaustion feel good or terrible at the end of the day?
People have mentioned grants and loans. I think that if you want to really avoid the exhaustion, you need to look into investors. That way you will have capital starting out, which you will need for filing your LLC, getting your finances in order, getting legal advice, trademarking your company name, renting a commercial kitchen, buying supplies, creating awesome branding, and marketing yourself. You can’t get investors without a business plan. You’re a nurse and a cook, so you don’t have experience making a business plan that will be a good pitch for investors. So you need to get help writing and polishing that.
Then, you need to get good at sales. You’re selling your idea to these investors. Then you’re selling it to the deli stores and places you want to carry your product.
Unfortunately, I have to tell you the truth. You will spend so very little time cooking (the thing you love) while you do a bunch of things that you may not love (accounting, sales, blogging, marketing, branding, social media, wholesale sheets, insurance, blah blah blah). I started my own business because I like to make art… But I spend maybe 2-3hours of my week making things, and the rest of it grinding through all that other crap I don’t like. It does feel worth it, but sometimes I would really really love to just show up at a job, do what people tell me for 8 hours, have health insurance, and go home.
Many things for you to consider.
One other thing I thought of…
People often go into their own businesses to “work for themselves”. News flash: when you work at a job, you generally have one boss. If something goes awry, you will see that person at lunch, tomorrow, next week, and next month to mend your fences. Or you quit or transfer and get another boss.
On the flip side, when you have your own company, you work for EVERYONE. Especially in your first few years. If you have a customer with a bad experience, you’ll get yelped, google plussed, and word of mouth bashed. You can’t have any bad experiences, basically. You have to bend over backwards EVERY time anything isn’t perfect, and this effort isn’t considered extra; it’s expected. The customer is always right, even when the customer is clearly unbalanced and screaming at you for fulfilling the exact order she ordered and not the order she thought of in her head. And you won’t get the order to “suck it up”, but you will still have to.
Everything Morgan Culture said… except for a caveat about the exhaustion.
From my friends in nursing, I see the ways in which their work exhaustion is on a COMPLETELY different scale. I mean, when you’re a nurse. a “bad day” can mean “someone died horribly on my watch and then I had to sit with their sobbing family members and clean up after they vomited from the grief.”
With, say, a baking business, your “bad day” might mean “I really screwed up that person’s order and they’re mad and I had to issue a refund.”
Whenever I have a really bad work day (server crashes, accountant calls, lawyer emails, staff makes mistakes, ad clients complain, community members revolt) I always think of my friend the pediatric flight nurse… my bad days start to seem WAY less exhausting.
So, yes: running a small business is hugely exhausting. But depending on the kind of nursing you’re in, it might seem like a walk in the park.
One thing to remember – do all your figures and get them looked at by someone else as soon as you can. My husband recently spent ages working out a business plan and costing everything out to see if he could start up a recording studio again. It all looked like it was going to be tight, but workable, until someone looked at it and pointed out that he hadn’t included VAT. Because his previous business was smaller he’d pretty much not realised it would be an issue. That extra money made it completely unworkable and it was good to know that sooner rather than later.
I was working in a shop and when that shop closed, I reopened it (different business name, etc, just same industry and location). I now work by myself in a body piercing studio. I make enough money to live, but not enough to pay staff.
As other people have said, I work harder and I worry more than I ever did as an employee. Everything is now MY problem, and that leads to a lot of sleepless nights worrying about interactions with clients that didn’t go well, or figures in my finances.
I have taken maybe 3 sick days in the past 2.5 years. I HAVE to go to work. I can’t just call my boss if I spent all night puking and didn’t get any sleep (yesterday… I am so tired right now). Sure, I could close the shop, but that means -closing the shop- and making no money, and it leads clients to become annoyed if the shop is closed (I copped abuse from customers for not being open when my grandfather died, seriously).
Do you research thoroughly. Learn. Taxes confuse the hell out of me, and I often feel like I don’t know what I’m doing. Don’t rely on an accountant, they’ll keep you in the dark to keep your business, learn the language yourself so you’ll be able to spot if something isn’t going right.
I wouldn’t change this for the world. I gained so much confidence when I became a business owner… but it is hard work, and a lot of worry.
Oh and the reaming you get from the taxman when an accountant gives you the wrong answer about something tax related……. Or if you get an incompetent accountant who forgets to file something…..It gorram *hurts* and for a long time.
Definitely learn the language.
Another financial consideration in starting your own business is the insurance. As a broker, I talk to a lot of people who have dreams of owning their own business and are shocked when they find out what it will cost just for the insurance. If you don’t have previous experience as a business owner in the food service industry, your premiums will be exceptionally high.
Not to dissuade you from following your dream, but my suggestion is having either investors or a large start-up fund to work from, aside from what you need to keep your household running. Is developing a detailed business plan something you can work on while still doing part-time or full-time work elsewhere? Maybe until your husband finishes grad school and you have another solid income?
another thing I would personally consider is gaining some experience in the food industry if you don’t already have any. I love–LOVE–to cook, and for years it was my singleminded obsession and absolute passion, but after just a couple years in this business it is no longer something I enjoy doing. Business owners in culinary will often tell you how much they miss “enjoying” cooking at home. It’s important to try and gain some experience in this industry before you devote your life to it, and at the very least it will help you grow the thick skin you need to survive in it.
Best of luck in whatever you decide!
I strongly recommend checking out what small business support groups are in your town/city and going there! I took a beginner small business course and it was SO helpful!!! Some of the stuff might be pretty basic, but other info will be invaluable. They’ll be able to direct you to local resources for assistance, set you up with possible contacts in the community, let you know what certifications/educational upgrades you might need, zoning requirements if you’re running the shop from your home, help with a business plan and SO much more! When I went, I already had my business plan made, but was able to make some adjustments to make it even better. A really great part was meeting the other participants in the course. There was a VERY wide range of businesses and a variety of preparedness among the attendees!!! Some had everything they needed and were so very organized, while others really just fancied the idea of being their own bosses and had no idea what they were even going to do as a business!!! One woman said the first night that her business was a “secret”, but it came out it was a taxi service. The next night she wanted to grow and sell orchids! The other attendees are useful to help you gauge where you ought to be in the process of transitioning into your home business. Please keep us posted on your journey!
Blessings!
I quit my day job 10 years ago to start a small business. It took awhile to make it happen but now my husband has quit his day job too and we work about 3 hours a day and make more than we did when we were working. It is possible, you just have to be resourceful, persistent and PATIENT! Also, entrepreneurship is for people that are multifaceted. You need to be good with numbers, creative, logical, organized, great with people, technical and positive. Some of those skills can be learned but if you struggle with something, you need to delegate. Finding the right people to help you is difficult – lots of dummies out there that are quick to take your money.
I would advise not running a food business from your home unless you have a separate segregated kitchen. I’ve worked in industry for a while and it’s really hard to keep our test kitchens in our facilities up to code, I really wouldn’t want to have to go through that in my home. If you really want to do a food related business I would highly recommend you start it part time first to make sure that you gain momentum. The food and culinary industry is rather fickle, make sure you’ve got a product or service that has momentum before moving forward.
Also, I would HIGHLY recommend looking into renting a commissary kitchen or kitchen space from other food related businesses in your area. This will save you tons of money and will help during that decision factor of whether or not you want to proceed.