Idea to Success

Last weekend we invited two near and dear friends over for dinner.  Over the course of our friendship, Alix and Troy have been fantastic to us and our family.  I have so much respect for both of them.  Alix is incredibly talented - check out her company Sutton Place Cookies.   Troy (Senior Vice President ofMarketing and Advertising for YapStone) has been a consistent source of wise, simple, yet mind bending advice.  I shared how starting a business is much more difficult in real life than on paper.  That unexpected obstacles come out of nowhere.  There are hurdles that you have to jump over to avoid getting tripped up.

Troy grabbed a piece of paper and made this diagram:

Troy said that most of society views Success as having a direct linear relationship to an Idea.  It makes sense from an outside perspective.  They see the Idea and they see the resulting Success.  Failure is not an option based on this diagram.

But what actually occurs is the following:

Here failure IS an option, even a requirement.  Failure is an opportunity to learn.  Every lesson learned from the previous failure brings you one step closer to Success.  Failure is not what we strive for and we work very hard to avoid it.  But the lessons learned are invaluable.  

The vast majority of Success occurs with failure as an option.  Those who learn from their past failures Succeed.

How thy love thee SBA! Let me count the ways....to $400K

Good News!  We received (finally!) our Letter of Interest from the Federal Credit Union for a cool 400K.    They have agreed to lend us the funds with a bunch of obtainable and agreeable conditions, which includes our first born child.

We are participating in the SBA 504 loan program through the Pacoima Development Federal Credit Union.  I shopped around to several handful of banks, but found that Development Federal Credit Unions really (and I meaning focused on job creation) wanted to lend to start ups and were looking to create jobs in Los Angeles.

HEADS UP BANK PEOPLE!  Production breweries are in all aspects Manufacturing, not the restaurants that you classify us in.  Over the next five years, we will employ well over 20 people during different shifts of the day.  If you are looking towards job creation, looks towards craft breweries!

It is a lot of paperwork and sometimes feels like you are hitting your head up against a brick wall.  But, boy does it feel good when you stop.

Research

Been quite busy doing a bit of research with my buddies from Hanger 24.  Check it out!