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Advice on starting a business?

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sleek:
My wife and I have a BBQ sauce we make and are now taking the first steps into getting it made at a local co packer. North Carolina ( our home ) requires a liscence to sell food, so my wife is getting info on that from the local college. Im hoping that leads to further information on whats next, because we dont know. 

My goal is to have a bunch made up, hit up bbq sauce contests, local groceries, as well as  mom and pop bar grill locations to market it. We even have a guy who is asking if he can invest. I told him we need to get a solid business plan together first because we dont yet know what we are doing. All the legal stuff, we have no idea about.

If anyone knows much about this,  id sure appreciate advise and direction.

rebsr52339:
Seek the advice of a small business accountant/attorney

Hawkdancer:
Plus 10 on reb!    An attorney!  Also a good  cpa!  Listen to both!
Hawkdancer

rebsr52339:
Sleek, it may cost a few bucks but, better up front than lose a ton of $ later. They also can get you into a LLC and will shield you from most litigation. They also can steer you to other small businesses who may help with their experience's. Good luck

TrevorM:
Before spending any money I'd work out how much you'd need to sell. It's fairly easy to do, just work out all of your costs to produce and sell a bottle. Try to account for everything not just the obvious ingredients and estimate the cost if you don't know it and on the higher side. There are a lot of costs that people don't think of right away, for example delivery. Sure you could deliver it yourself, but that still isn't free. There's the gas for your car, maintenance, parking etc. Once you think you've got it all subtract that from how much you think you can sell it for. Now you have the profit per bottle you can work out how many you have to sell to cover your license costs etc and a livable wage. Knowing all this will really help you. You'll have a better idea of how many to produce, if a farmers market was worth it or not, if driving for an hour to make a delivery is worth it. Plus you'll have a rough goal.
 
I've heard of people successfully setting up a business using legal zoom instead of an attorney to save $. Either way expect to spend several hundred on that. I setup an LLC for the work I do and I think it came to around $600 by the time I was done. That was with an attorney I knew, I seem to remember I priced it through legal zoom and it's quote was just over $400. You're probably going to need an attorney for advice still even if you don't use them for setting up the company. Selling a food product will have a lot of other considerations.

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