Starting a business often begins with optimism.
You have an idea you believe in, you can see the gap it could fill, and naturally you start imagining what could happen if people respond to it in the way you hope.
But what happens if they don’t?
We recently came across Natasha, who has started sharing her experience after closing her café business after 11 months.
Rather than simply walking away from it, she is talking openly about the things she believes she got wrong and what somebody starting a café, coffee shop or similar small business might learn from her experience.
There is an enormous amount of advice available from successful business owners. There can be just as much value in hearing from somebody prepared to explain what didn’t go according to plan.
Natasha’s first lesson is a big one.
When Natasha put together her business plan, she started with what a really busy day might look like and worked down towards what she considered a more cautious level of customer demand.
The problem was that the figures she thought represented a quieter day turned out to be much closer to her busiest days.
Her business was a Montessori-style play café with toys and activities for children. There wasn’t anything quite like it in the area, so Natasha expected that gap in the market to translate into plenty of customers coming through the door.
It didn’t happen at the level she had expected.
And that creates an important distinction for anybody considering starting a business.
A gap in the market does not automatically mean there is enough demand to support the business filling it.
Natasha’s advice is to build your business plan around a much more cautious scenario.
Instead of only asking what the business could look like if things go well, ask what happens if customer numbers are considerably lower than you hope.
Can the business still cover its costs?
How many customers do you actually need each day or each week?
What happens if the number you regarded as a quiet day turns out to be a good one?
How long could you sustain the business if trade stayed at that level?
Optimism is almost inevitable when you are excited about a new idea. But a business plan also needs to challenge that optimism.
Testing the numbers against a difficult scenario before you commit can expose problems while they are still problems on a spreadsheet, rather than problems you have to solve once the rent, wages, stock and other bills are already arriving.
Natasha describes the closure of her business very openly.
Sharing that experience publicly takes courage.
Success stories are easy to find. We hear much less from the people willing to talk about the assumptions they got wrong, what they would change and what they wish they had known at the beginning.
Those experiences can be incredibly useful to somebody standing at the other end of the journey and wondering whether to start a business of their own.
Natasha is continuing to share what she learned from running and ultimately closing her business.
As we hear how her story unfolds and she shares more of the things she would do differently, we’ll share those lessons here too.
You can also follow natashacafeowner on TikTok to hear them directly from Natasha and follow her story in her own words.
