Keywords for this post:
Internet cafe
Coffee shop start up
Financing a start up business
It is one thing to suffer the trials and tribulations of starting a small business. But it takes a special kind of masochism to share those hassles and head-aches publicly with complete strangers. Yet that's just what 23-year-old Jason Duncan is doing with A Thought Over Coffee , a blog devoted to documenting his attempt to start an artsy coffeehouse in Bozeman, Mont.--or, as he puts it, "my journey through the dreaming and planning of Cafe Evoke."
As more and more coffee lovers and small-business owners stumble across the online diary, it is serving as a gathering place for an informal advisory-focus group. "I get a ton of great feedback," Duncan says. And right now he'll take all the help he can get as he struggles to turn his business plan--originally a college project at Belmont University in Nashville, from which he graduated last spring--into reality. It hasn't been easy. His Small Business Administration loan fell through ("I found out that banks don't want to lend you money if you need it"), forcing him to borrow dough from his father, a financial planner. He has also had trouble finding a location for Cafe Evoke but maintains that he's still on track for a March opening as he also works a full-time customer service gig. His main piece of advice for other entrepreneurs can be summed up in the tag line that he uses for all his blog posts: Be bold.
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