It’s going to be hard (and other things meant to be helpful)
Since publicizing our ambitions about Nirvana Soul, we’ve gotten so much love, a ton of great feedback, and several questions from friends, family, and other folks aspiring to start their own businesses too. We’re on a super cool journey, but ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none, right? With that in mind, here are few gems we’ve gathered along the way.
It’s going to be hard
This is a funny one. On the one hand, it’s absolutely true. Starting a business is really hard. There are a ton of moving parts — a lot of which we still don’t understand. So, yes. It’s hard.
On the other hand, so what? We can do hard things!
We have found that there are two types of people in the world who offer this advice. The first type will tell you, “It’s going to be hard,” without any intention of helping you. They’re deterrents. This is the woman at our bank who refused to give us any information on small business loans, for example, and the property manager who rushed us through our tour once we shared our concept with her. I could speculate on the fears of failure that drive this behavior, but it’s not necessary. Identify these people quick and keep it moving.
The other type of people are realists, but encouragers. They want to be clear that what you’re signing up for will be challenging, but not impossible. This is your best friend who offers to host a fundraising event at her home, for example, or your boss who walks you through the financials.
We’re in the second group, too. Understand that the road ahead of you will be uphill and filled with potholes. Keep going.
Not knowing what you’re doing isn’t the same as not being smart
Throughout this process, we’ve discovered just how important self-esteem is. It would be so easy to judge ourselves harshly by all the dumb questions we ask and things we don’t know.
Instead, we’re approaching this business with humility, while also remembering that we’re great at what we do. Jeronica knows coffee really well. I know marketing really well. Do we know finance or real estate well? Hell no! The good news is, there are a lot of people out there who do.
The first thing we did when we decided to open Nirvana Soul was Google “how to open a coffee shop.” That’s as basic as it gets. From there, we connected with the City of San Jose, the Small Business Administration, and several real estate brokers and property managers. One of those brokers continues to offer us guidance and advice. Another person from the City gives us tips on vacancies and intros us to business experts. It all started with a simple search.
Embrace asking all the stupid questions. Embrace saying all the dumb things. Every question and thing gets you closer to understanding and, more importantly, closer to your dream.
Decide to do it
Jeronica has always wanted to open her own shop. When she moved back home to San Jose last summer, we spent a lot of time talking about what this might look like. We could see it so clearly — the colors, the customers, the music, everything.
None of this became real, however, until we decided to do it. There was a distinct moment when we decided we were going to open Nirvana Soul. We started Googling and scheduling appointments and meeting people. Once we started telling people, shit got really real. There was no turning back and there was no stopping now.
Here’s what we had to accept: 1) We could fail. 2) We could go broke. 3) We could die! (Just kidding. But worst case scenarios kind’ve lightened the situation for us. It’s weird, I know.) All of these things accepted, we knew we could survive whatever came our way. We’re fortunate to have each other, and barring death, there’s always another chance to try again.
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There you have it. We have so much more to share including how we’re navigating family dynamics and fundraising, but we’ll save that for another post. If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out to us here in the comments or on any of our other social channels. We’re happy to share.
You got this!