Becoming Self-Employed – Part 2 – Building the Family Business

In this 3-part blog series, I take you through my journey to self-employment (my last day of having a 9-5 was in June 2018). My goal is to share the human side of entrepreneurship and self-employment. I am a young, ambitious, well-enough known figure in my community (Albany, NY) and as much as I love the positivity and support I receive, I’m always a little at a loss when people tell me “how well I’m doing”. Granted, I wouldn’t say I’m doing terrible (keep in mind my bias of being very hard on myself), but I sometimes feel like I don’t deserve that kind of praise. This is my attempt at showing you some glimpses of what my entrepreneurial life is really like --- the thoughts I think, the things I feel, the work I put in, the wins…and especially the losses. My life is not as beautiful as I think others think it is…but it’s still beautiful in its own way with all its peaks and valleys.

In my own voice, I think I tell a pretty good story. Follow along.

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Busy Day, my family’s mailing and shipping store in Albany NY, was supposed to be a dollar store called $ingles. But I won’t get into that.

My dad is the catalyst of this story and Busy Day is the start of (what I think will be) our family legacy. I don’t want to sound pompous, but you know…speak it into existence. We will be great (regardless of how this endeavor turns out).

From the moment my dad pulled the family into the fold until the moment we first clicked on our “OPEN” sign, launching Busy Day took something like 9-months, but according to the head honcho (my dad), the total process took closer to 12-months. Even though it was always meant to be a family business — my dad didn’t loop us into all the details at the beginning; he likes to move in silence.

To get us through the startup process (before he actually looped us in), my dad hired a third party development company.

Readers Note: This part of my story will focus more on the process and my/our experiences more so than the dynamics of working with the outside company. I’d rather not mention their name for numerous reasons; if you’d like the name, reach out to me privately.

I summarized the process in 7-steps and even though it’s for a mailing and shipping store, it can really be applied to any business. And just for squeaks and giggles, I’ll throw in our actual timelines for each step.

Steps To Opening Our Family Business – A Mailing and Shipping Store

1.      Create a Business Plan & Operating Agreement

Even though I know how to put together business plans and have experience in doing so, it’s not something I find joy in doing. So how happy and relieved was I when I found out our development company was taking care of it! It was a pretty general plan focusing mostly on local and national industry facts. It also had some great points on marketing strategy, which we added to our own ideas. For the operating agreement, we did have to rush it a little bit and go through a bit of a hassle getting it done because we needed it to open our bank account. I put it together myself and had each family member review and sign; not all the family involved are local, so that’s where the hassle came in. Some of the most important parts in the agreement for my family were equity split, profit/payout guidelines, guidelines for changing ownership and equity, initial contributions, and “work”/decision-making roles.

Many people skip these two documents, but I would never recommend that; even if you do shorter versions of them, I think you should still have them. Me personally, I’m glad we had them done at the beginning of the process because we used them in the next two steps (shared them with our landlord and our bank to get approvals). And we still refer to them now, especially the operating agreement when it comes to making decisions and enforcing work contribution rules — like, “remember you signed this? This is legally binding.” I’ve used that line on my parents; it was such a beautiful moment.

2.      Choose a Location

I loved this part! We looked at locations in both Albany and Schenectady. Some locations were a definite dub (like the one out by the Empire State Aerosciences Museum in Scotia) while other locations were hard to pass up (like the one on Union Street in Schenectady). Ultimately, we were (well at least I know I was) more than happy and excited to get our Loudon Plaza spot. The things that I was looking for in a location (and Loudon Plaza delivered) were:

• Existing Foot and Car Traffic: I wanted to make sure that as a new brick + mortar business, that we could leverage existing traffic. Although it didn’t matter as much to me, rush hour traffic direction was also a consideration. The plaza, at the time, had many vacant stores and offices (which, they still do), but the existing tenants (mostly restaurants) had great traffic and are known in the community so that helped to offset the vacancies.
• Surrounding Demographic: Our target market is busy working professionals (blue, white, pink collar…didn’t matter). With Albany’s warehouse district just down the street, Corporate Woods office buildings just a minute or two behind the plaza, and Albany Memorial Hospital right across the street…Loudon Plaza is in an area that captures every segment of our target market. That’s even before mentioning the surrounding residential demographic.

• Store Setup: This is where I made the biggest compromise. I would’ve preferred a bigger space, but I was happy that we had a blank canvas to work with. I see the big picture, but I think about business primarily from a marketing standpoint, so a blank canvas to me meant creative control in branding and customer experience --- two of the most important things to me.

Side note: we didn't know this at the time, but Loudon Plaza was under new ownership and in the midst of millions of dollars worth of renovations, which to me demonstrates that this area is poised for growth. Another plus for us.

3.      Complete the Legal Stuff

Let me start by saying, there is a LOT of paperwork. In retrospect, it doesn’t seem like much, but prior to starting it it felt overwhelming. Filling out the paperwork wasn’t very difficult; the hard part was figuring out exactly what paperwork we needed to complete in the first place. Needless to say, this was NOT my favorite part, but after getting through the sea of information, there was a definite sense of triumph, but also the feeling of “am I missing something?” If we had a chance to do it over (and had a bigger budget), I would want to outsource this part.

Paperwork included creating and signing an operating agreement (I mentioned this before), articles of incorporation for the LLC, DBA form (optional for an LLC, but I had my reasons), bank account paperwork, permits, licenses, and insurance. I may have missed a few, but you get the idea --- there was a lot and some paperwork even had follow-up requirements to keep track of. If you are not organized, you will lose your mind. My dad and I (there’s seven of us total, but we do the most hands on work) kept both physical and digital folders of documents, which helped in the long run. Plus, my dad is old school and prefers hard copies, so there’s that.

Fun Fact: Busy Day was born (i.e. articles of incorporation was filed) on April 3rd --- my birthday! Totally unintentional (the form was done a week before and my dad filed it), but I love that I can say that.

4.      Get Building Signage Done

Marketing is my thing, so this was another favorite part of mine. Some time during the previous three stages, I developed the brand concept for the store (mission, vision, personality, etc.) along with the logo, colors, and style themes. Our external sign was the biggest investment and the largest (most prominent) visual depiction of our brand --- something that I designed and put together from the ground up; this was the biggest project that my brand work ever had the opportunity to be used for and I needed it to be perfect.

Our developers were handling negotiations and things for our signage, but we didn’t see eye to eye on how it should look. Color, size, placement were contention points and the push back (from both my family and the developers) was frustrating because I KNEW what I wanted could work. I reasoned, found supporting information, and even met with the sign makers (something no one even suggested). The Sign Studio (shout out to Ron and his team), were amazing to work with; they helped me make my ideas work AND they did it within budget. The sign turned out awesome and I’m glad I fought for it.

5.      Setup Operations & Go Through Training

Everything from industry, equipment, and software training in Vegas to ordering supplies, joining associations, and setting up vendor relationships happened during this step. For me, the most valuable part of training was shadowing an existing mailing and shipping center; my dad and I shadowed one while in Vegas. The store there was owned by an older couple and I figured if they could do it with no industry or business experience, then we sure could make it work too.

Something that would’ve been nice to have (given to us or created) during this stage was operating procedures. Creating and documenting procedures is an ongoing project I have myself right now because I don’t intend to work this business day-to-day forever. We are working towards hiring employees and opening more locations and I know from experience that having documented procedures is a key part to doing all that successfully…but I digress! That’s a topic for another time.

6.      Build Out the Store Front

The build out stage is when the actual store gets set up. Flooring, paint, counters, fixtures, equipment setup, etc. all happened here. Our developers took care of most of this part, my dad came in everyday to help and oversee, and I ran around like a chicken with my head cut off preparing for my new self-employed lifestyle. The Friday before build out week was my last day as an employee at my last job.

7.      Open Up Shop

Busy Day opened Wednesday, June 6th 2018 at 9AM…4-days after its original due date.

Previously: Becoming Self-Employed - Part 1 - Quitting My Job

Up Next: Becoming Self-Employed – Part 3 – Lessons Learned