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I had an interesting conversation with someone special about starting an ice-cream business, so I thought about sharing some of my ideas about starting your own business. In the following lines I’ll try to give you a hint about the main things you must keep in mind before starting!

First of all, analyse if you want to start this business on your own, or invest in franchise. The main advantage of franchising is that it may offer consumers the attraction of a certain level of quality and consistency because it is mandated by the franchise agreement. The pre-opening support franchise offer refers to: site selection, construction, design, financing, training. The ongoing support franchising offers refers to: advertising (which is usually quite expensive),assistance, management support. The biggest disadvantage is that franchise is not completely independent.

Secondly, you need a store location. It can be your apartment, if you live at the ground floor, or even your parents/grandparents house (if you ask them to). Location is also very important in order to have clientele. So it’a likely to have more customers if your store is in a central or crowded place. The places I would suggest are: downtown, parks, family-friendly residential areas,etc.

Thirdly, you must do a market research. You must know how many other companies in the same domain as yours activate in the area you will do, the prices they offer, how big the competitors are, staff behaviour, if they have loyal customers (in order to create your target market), if they can extend. In other words you must know if there is enough place for you on the market!

The forth step would refer to developing a list of products that you can sell with your ice-cream, or what ice-cream flavours you’ll include.

Further, we will discuss about the business plan. I would suggest to use the business model canvas with its structure. This is the most complex part, because you must connect all the information you got about your business until now, including: key resources,key partners, key activities, customer segments, channels (advertising techniques), etc. You should always keep in mind the start-up capital, costs and cash-flow!

If we believe in our business, we will succeed!