Loan docs waiting for us Monday over at the credit union, and 10,100 mandel bread boxes floating their way over from China. Waiting for the bill of lading, then I have to figure out how the hell to get the boxes to our house – and even if we have enough storage. We’ve been to a few places lately that are really cool, great inspiration for how to run a successful business. First is the Urth Cafe… If you haven’t checked out the downtown location… It’ awesome. Next is Aroma Cafe Hollywood, the Israeli run coffee shop that has been mobbed since opening up on the Sunset Strip – great coffee, and people are lined up for over priced salads and such (10 bucks for an order of fries!) Finally, my friend John runs the smaller but just as impressive Backstage Cafe. John has offered to lend his advice on where to start our business, and equipment etc. I expect by next week we will be turning the web site on and beginning to offer retail sales online….
Team Mandel Blog Development Countdown
This morning a loan package went out to our local Credit Union. We’re looking for a business line of credit to get Aunt Erma’s rolling after the boxes show up. Late last night I added a new media section to the B-plan which included a mention of this blog as well as our prescence on Twitter, exchanging information with fellow bakery people around the world seems like trend!
Team Mandel Blog Development Countdown
This week I pulled the trigger on the production of 10,000 boxes of Aunt Erma’s Mandel Bread. Not sure exactly how to get them Long Beach to our house in Burbank, or even if they will all fit in our house.
Also started work on an SBA Loan to help us buy a kitchen in Burbank and pay for some of the other goodies to get us started. Shifted the web site to it’s own domain and getting and SSL, web payment pro for the credit card processing and and odds and ends like cardboard case boxes etc….
http://auntermas.com/packaging/TheStory1.mov
Team Mandel Blog Development Countdown
Language barriers to save a few bucks. The chinese overseas account rep thought all along we were talking about 100,000 boxes! Which is way beyond our current needs. I pointed out an early e-mail in which I asked for a quote of 10,000 boxes. So after some back and forth they agreed to do the short run for 10,000 boxes at 21 cents a box plus a $100.00 customs fee. The snag now is the shipping costs. I’m just starting to learn what some of these acronyms mean. So I’ve got a new one ‘CIF’ which means ‘Cost, Insurance and Freight.’ So the estimate submitted was about $2,290.00 for the 10,000 boxes, but then I scan down to the CIF and about fall off my chair…. $14,715.00 !!! I think this a mistake, at least I’m assuming it is. Anyway, with the time delay I have to wait until this evening to try to get this all straight.
paper-box-pi1
Meanwhile, tonight Crystal will have a look at the proto box to make sure all the typos are cool.
Team Mandel Blog Development Countdown