Sam Kidd's thoughts on business

I can't believe how many days it has been since I updated the blog. The days have just been flying by since we opened Sam and Dan's. The official opening, on the 4th of July, went really well. A big thanks to Fuzion for helping out with the launch as well. The weather for the day was bloody shocking but still we had a great turn out and everyone was kept happy with their free Hot Dogs and Donuts we were serving along with a glass or 2 or wine as well.(Now before another person says it, we do realise that Donut is the American spelling of Doughnut. We had a long debate about this, but we thought people are so used to seeing the American spelling of it on TV shows and the fact that it's really an American product in the end. So we have decided it's spelled DONUT in Sam&Dan's)

So what's been happening since we opened, well we have had a leak in our Donut machine we have had a Bain-marie unit that was overheating and all sorts of teething problems that you always run into when you open something new. Thankfully none of these have been too bad at all and we are now
well under way with most of the small bugs worked out now. (I hope)

We have been having a great response from people coming into the shop and everyone has been really complimentary on the Hot Dogs, thank God, other wise we went into the wrong business. I still can't get over that loads of people have never tried the American mustard, they all think that it is English mustard that is on the dogs. Once we twist their arm them to try it they really like it. You just can't have a dog without mustard, it's just so wrong.

The other side of the shop, the Donuts have been the real surprise for us I guess. We got the machine in not knowing what sort of demand there would be in Cork and they have been going really well. We often get people in saying they were walking by and the smell was just killing them so they had to call in to get some donuts. The only problem I have with the Donuts is for me to stop eating them. I'm having to use unreal restraint when I'm in there not to just test (one as quality controller) every 2 mins.

Also I would like to say a big thanks to the team we had construct the shop I would give my fully recommendation to these guys. If anyone is looking for a team of builders and supplies to start their own place at a great price try the guys below:
The builders&painters and the whole Project was managed by a really nice guy Denis McCarthy 086 2778428
The sparky was M-Power Electrical 087 6536419
The Kitchen was with Quipman 021-4210433

I'm sorry for the lack of updates and new photos but the last week has just been one of the hardest weeks ever for me.
Sam&Dan's is now open and trading to the public!! I can't believe it myself, I thought we would never get there.
I'm a bit up the walls at the moment trying to get all the small things sorted out so I will post a more detailed blog later on.

In the short time below are a few pics from the shop. I also have a few more photos on my flickr page.

Yesterday was manic inside the new Sam and Dan's shop, at one stage we had 9 people working away in there and space is tight with the kitchen sitting in one corner.
Yesterday, the counter we have running around the shop was finished off, all that is left now is to have it varnished a few times.

The back store room was worked on and all the holes patched up. The ceiling throughout the shop was also painted. We then had the hoods for the kitchen installed and all the steel work on the walls behind where the kitchen will go finished off as well.

Now we just have the painting of walls, Kitchen to be installed, and the second fix of the electrics to be completed and also jacks to be plumbed in. We are hoping (praying) to have most of the work completed by Tuesday so we can open during the week.

We also have our first shipment of Hot dogs arriving from Germany tomorrow as well, I have to say I wish we were finished with the construction in the shop, because we have stuff stored all over the place such as, bar stools, donut machines, donut mix, T.V's. Ahhhh so much to get sorted and so little time.

Work in Digital Crew is manic as well at the moment I was in Galway on Friday looking at the new Galway webworks building, we are doing the website for it, nice place all very modern. 

The days are very long at the moment with trying to do loads of Sam&Dan's work during the day along with Digital Crew and AREA51  trying to get all my written Digital Crew work done at night. Still I have to say I am enjoying but also finding it a bit stressful too.

Below are the latest pics from the shop.

I have be meaning to update the photos and fill you in on what is going on with Sam&Dan's but finding time to sit down and write a blog post has been very hard to come by.

Work in Digital Crew at the moment is crazy as well, every man and his dog is looking for new sites
or application to be built. We even finished a pretty cool internal app. for Lidl Ireland in the last week.

Any how as you can see below Sam&Dan's still looks like a bomb went off. So much for the builder saying most of the work will be done by Tuesday. There should be big changes made by Friday this week. I would be hoping that the shop will be pretty much ready to rock and roll by next week. (fingers crossed)

Sam&Dan's is now well under way to actually becoming a real shop and not just being an idea.
I have posted some photos from the construction below.
We decided to rip the ceiling down on Tuesday, we discovered there was about 2 feet of dead space above the old one. Denis (the builder) said it was an easy enough job so we gave the go ahead and down it came. The frame for the new ceiling is now up, and we got almost 2 feet of extra height inside the shop now, and man it makes a savage difference to the room. I'm so
glad we decided to go ahead with it.

We also had a small bit of a headache during the week when we realised we would have to
re-tile the floor. Once we took the old internal walls out we found out that the existing floor
wasn't level the whole way through the shop. We thought this was going to turn into a massive
job, taking the whole floor out then levelling it off, but Denis was able to just remove the parts of the floor that were too high, then level it out. We are then able to tile over the existing tiles. You
can see in the end pic half of the shop was done today, I hope the rest will be done in
the morning.

The shop once all the internal walls were taken down.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

             The new ceiling. You can see the mark from the old one on the right.

               The builders working on the shop.

              Photo from the back of the shop towards the front. The tiles are being prepared for the
new ones to go in.

                        These are the new tiles which are going in to Sam&Dan's.
Well that's the update so far, I will keep you posted over the week and let you know how it's turning out. I hope to see the shop start to take shape this week and not to look just like a construction yard.

This is a very depressing post for me to write. It looks like Sam&Dan's has hit a bit of a bump in the road. Well more like a huge mountain actually. The landlord of the property we were taking will not give his consent to a change of use. This is something I have to say that I was not expecting. I was expecting a bit of a fight with the planning board from the city, but this has really come out of left field and knocked me for six.
>>It's been a very depressing week with that news.  This property has consumed about 4 months worth of work so far, so to get this news at this stage has been a killer.

So I guess it's back to trying to find a property that will suit and to keep pressing on. I will keep you posted.......

Well it looks like the opening date for Sam&Dan's is going to be pushed back at the moment. We unfortuantly are still at the legals stage of the lease.  I have to say this part is taking an age. It's a good thing I have other work to keep me sane and to take my mind off the painful wait. It's becoming very frustrating waiting for people such as solicitors and their clients to get back to us.

It's definitely killing the buzz at the moment.  I would love to write here when we are to open but I at this stage have no bloody idea.  It does make me realize how luckly we were with AREA51 when we opened that.

 

Here is the logo that we have decided to go with for the new shop.

We wanted to go with something fun and bright, plus the whole USA Red, white and Blue hotdog thing has been done to death.  I would be interested in seeing what people think of this one.

Things are really taking there time at the moment. We were hoping for a mid September open but it’s not looking like that at the moment. I love the thrill of starting a new business but the waiting round for people to get back to you is painful.

I know this is a bad time of year with people away on holidays, and then when they get back it’s to a desk full of work. So they need a week to catch up that’s always the down side of taking a break, when you get back you get swamped down with work. Then you need a break to recover. Hmm I see a pattern forming here.

Anyhow things are moving on nicely with the new place and soon I will put up here the new logo and concepts we have done. We are hoping/praying that we can open at the start of October, but we will have a better idea of how we are fixed in the next few days as we find out order times and actually have people get back to us.

I’m looking forward to getting my hands dirty and starting to rip the place apart. I will post up pics of the new place soon, along with the before and after shots, as well as the work in progress.

Right, I could do a rant on what I think of banks in this post but I will restrain myself as best I can.

I thought I would post this blog on banks in case any one else was out there looking for money from Irish banks.  Recently I went to three banks looking to get 35,000 euro to part fund a new business idea. I was approaching the banks looking or an unsecured loan, but I wanted to use this money to help secure a lease, so I was hoping to use the lease of the property as some form of security, as I figured this would have a value.

The first bank I called on was AIB. Now, this is the bank that my current business banks with  We have a great account with them so I thought this a good place to start. I rang up my bank manager, who was away so I left a message, I asked could I get an unsecured loan for 35k using the lease as a form of security. A few days past before I got a brief call."I'm sorry but AIB does not do look at a lease as a form of security. By the time I got this phone call I was already talking with two other banks so I just thought I would  just leave it at this.

 

The second bank I talked to was Bank of Ireland. I arranged a meeting with the Patrick St. branch and met with the lady in charge of commercial lending.  I had my business projection and trade history from my current business with me. The meeting went well  and she seemed to like the idea and felt it was a sound business, but of course in the end she had no final say in the loan and she would have to write to Dublin to find out what they think. So two days later I rang up to ask if there had been any news.

There was she said, Dublin had come back with a report saying that my running costs for the new business were to high , and so the loan would not be approved. This wound me right up. I then started my attack down the phone to her. Iwent on about the fact that I have a retail business up and running now, AREA51, which she knew, so the figures I had were based on experience. I asked if she would like me to redo the figures so that the world would look beautiful and fluffy where everyone I hire would want to work for nothing and Mr. ESB would only charge me half price cause I'm such a nice guy, and so on. I stuck to my orginal figures and argued that they were right. In the end she seemed to agree with me. She said she would get back to Dublin and fight my corner but she could not promise anything.

 I have to say she was great and she was straight up with me. But in the end I'm fighting with her and shes fighting with Dublin, and when it gets to Dubin everything is just entered into the computer and it like in the show Little Britain "computer says no!" After a few more days Dublin came back, the best they would offer is 25k. Well at least it was some sort of a result and it proved that if I stuck to my guns and could prove the business I could fight to get results.

A few years ago if the bank had said sorry no to me, I would have just said ok thanks bye. I let her know I was talking to another bank so I would not accept the offer yet and I would get back to her. I also asked about free banking if I went with it. She said they wouldn't do it, but if they look back on how much activity there was during the first year they would look at what they could do for me. Not really good enough!

The 3rd bank I went to was Ulster Bank. I had a meeting booked there and went in to meet the Commercial Manager.  He was really nice and I talked to him about my business idea and showed the figures that I had done.  I told him I had no security but hoped to use the lease as the security. He was open to this but said they this is not the norm. He also said this would have to go up to Dublin for approval, I thought, oh great here we go again 'computer says no' started replaying in my head. I handed over all my documents, he said he would get back to me in a few days. 

A few painful days later, of which during this I was fighting with Bank of Ireland, I was praying for some good news. His business partner rang back and said he would now like to meet with me to get a bit more info about my business idea. So off I went again.  He looked back over everything I had done out and offered some great advice, such as, if I could get an accountant to redo my figures it would look better for the guys/ computers in Dubin, and it would help my chances. So off I ran, I got hold of my accountant ,who in fairness, in no time re-did all my figures and made them look professional as well as print them on their headed paper. This is something I would recommend to anyone do before you talk to a bank. I took them back to the bank and that day he sent off all my stuff to the dreaded Dublin.

The wait was painful, people were away on holidays, so they were short staffed in Dublin so everything was taking longer than normal. Then the phone rang... "I'm sorry We couldn't get the loan for 35k " was the news. My heart sank.. "but you have been approved for 30k". Sorted!! Thank god! I went back to the bank to go through all the documentation.  I noticed that the loan rate was fantastic. I can't remember what is off hand,  but it was below 5%. I think it was round 4.5% but I will have to find out for sure. (compared to what I'm paying on another business loan it's a hell of a lot better) They also gave me 2 years free banking with this as well. I have to say Ulster Bank had out done themselves. I found everyone I was dealing with in the bank really nice. Even in the few times I have been in there, the girl in customer support remembered my name, which is something I love in a business and try to do myself in AREA51. It's small things like this that builds customer loyalty. I will be interested to see how I get on with Ulster Bank once I start using them on a daily basis. I will keep you posted.

I have to say Ulster Bank have come out on top by miles. I was talking to someone at a wedding not so long ago who works in Ulster Bank in Dublin. He said that they had said they want to start to help out new businesses and in turn become the best bank in Ireland. Well so far they got my vote.

UPDATE: the Loan rate is 4.9% Ulster bank have a startup offer which is the 30k plus free banking and the good loan rate. If you looking to start up a business I would recommend going and chatting to Ulster Bank.

Right something I don't get is Leases....How the feck can you charge people so much to take over a lease of a failing business. Then be expected to pay rent then set up the whole shop.

To me it doesn't make sence. Surely if your business was sucking ass you would be happy to get rid of paying rent. But hey it's greedy Ireland where it costs you an arm and a leg to do anything.

If you take AREA51 for example we got that place as the first tenents. So we paid our months rent and a few months up front and away we went. Now If we decided we have had enough, or if we were going under I'm sure we would be bloody happy to get rid of the place so we don't have to pay rent and rates and everything else that goes with a place or is it just me.

The reason I say this is I was looking at a place in town for another idea I have and they wanted 85k to buy out the lease then 18k a year. Dam thats alot of cash to spend just to get rid of a business that has failed before you spend a penny on your new business.

Ok so I might be being a bit harsh or missing something but come on if your business is hitting the wall cut your losses and move on. Why make it so bloody hard for a new venture to start up.  It's hard enough to start up a business  get the cash and the idea together and make it work without this.

Well thats me I have ranted enough...for now,