off topic - starting our business!

[cookderosa]

Exciting stuff!!! Congrats. I'm going to throw you a curve, but bear with me.

A partner of mine (in another business) was just offered $5 million for his business + they want him to continue to run the business at full salary and they want to pump another $5 million into expanding the company. Why??? EVERYONE with money is trying to find new ways to earn 10% return on their money right now. This company (representing venture capitalists) doesn't want to run company's they want to earn a return on investing in them.

Makes perfect sense in this economy....and it is unlikely to change anytime soon.

I know this is your dream, but you should consider the possibility of building it and selling it. That is how you make money.

The other thing you should consider (after SCORE has helped/critiqued the business plan and if funding becomes an issue) is to take on a partner (under 50%) who knows you, is familiar with the education concept and has deep pockets that is currently only earning 1-2%. There are probably 5-6 people on the other board who qualify and would, if it was presented properly, invest. I'm serious.

Good luck, you can do it!!!

OMG that should sound exciting but that scares the crap out of me. That's so over my head I don't even have a question. :confused:

Re: buy outs- in my state, 3 long-time private culinary programs were gobbled up by the for-profit franchises/community colleges. Art Institute bought one, Cordon Bleu bought one, and a community college bought The French Pastry School. The owners of the French Pastry School still (somehow) run the school- not sure how that works, but Washburn and CHIC were gobbled up and spit out- they're completely gone now. My rub with the franchising of culinary arts runs deep, from too high tuition, to number 1 loan defaulters in the country, to unqualified instructors, to mass-producing (flooding) the market with one brand of chef (as opposed to being well rounded filling needs in many types of industries). The program I have worked for was my baby, I started it from the ground up in 1991. I stayed on as a teacher after I started a family and didn't want to be full time, but there were some challenges with letting go of "my" vision if I'm being honest. Luckily, I hand picked my replacement, he is my boss and my friend- but he has his own way, some things better, some things not. If I would ever get into a situation to sell, I would have to be done, I couldn't go through that again. I think I'd have to break out and build something else.

Part of why I became so burnt out with my job was the loss integrity on issues that were important to me. When all of this is up and running, I may have a good model and open a second location- or not. Maybe it's a boutique concept and I'm a type A anal retentive control freak who has to micromanage everything (that's possible btw). I don't know, I hope not. I hope I have surrounded myself with a great advisory committee (I know I have) and good business minds (I think I have) that will keep me focused on long term success. But, none of us have deep pockets.