Hello!

I'm not sure where you are in the world but I can offer some insight from the UK!

Generally if you're serving good coffee other shops like Starbucks won't be a massive threat - infact, you can thank places like Starbucks for making it socially acceptable to charge £2.40 for a latte.

There's a great book on the subject of starting up coffee shops to get you started if you want to have a look - http://www.amazon.co.uk/Setting-Managing-Your-Own-Coffee/dp/1845283279 - it has some great advice on every aspect of setting up shop from some coffee shop consultants.

It's easy to get lost in the romantic vision of breezing in, picking up a cappuccino from one of your talented baristas (for free, it's your shop after all!), shaking a few hands and then jetting off to some remote exotic location and sitting on a pile of money.

I know of a lot of coffee shop owners pulling 80+ hour weeks for very little return on investment. It's truly a labour of love. It can be very rewarding, but equally back-breaking.

I'd say coffee shops are more similar to bars than restaurants, because people are used to having to queue up at a counter but there is an extraordinary amount of freedom in choosing how you want your shop to be run. Some coffee shops do well with table service, some with counter service. Just make sure you're providing something that people can't get at one of the chains you are competing with. Be it a friendly face or a killer cup of coffee.

It goes without saying but find some good staff, pay them well, and make them want to work for you. While a coffee shop is your business and your baby, the staff who work for you will be its life and character.

My biggest piece of advice here would be to go and fall in love with some independent coffee shops. Have a look around, check out what they are doing, how much fun they are having. Look at the passion of the people involved, think about what you would do differently and what you would do similarly. After you've had a few coffees somewhere, ask for some advice from them about running their shop in your area.

Best of luck.

• Get books on starting a business. There are plenty of them and you don't have to read them back to back. Get them as a reference and reference them often. The Small Business Start-Up Kit and Start Your Own Business, Fifth Edition are good ones.
  
• Accountants and lawyers will be very helpful to getting you guys get setup. Seek them out and bring them on board early.
  
• Form a corporation. Either an LLC or S-Corp. If someone sues your business for a million dollars and wins, they can only take what the business owns, not what you own personally (your car, your house, etc.).
  
• Create a business bank account and business credit cards. This will be critical for bookkeeping purposes and for keeping track of expenses.
  
• Are you forming a partnership with your friends? How will you work out the percentage each person owns? Will it be based off how much capital each person contributes? Be VERY careful with partnerships.. treat it as if you are marrying someone. Because that's what it is. Your business partner can drastically affect your life positively or they can destroy your life. Even if you like each other now, money can change things. Be future minded and write up an operating agreement to protect all of yourselves. What if 10 years down the line you want to quit? Or a business partner wants to move to another state and wants to quit? Who gets what? Don't leave this to chance or goodwill or you will regret it.
  
• Learn accounting software. Your accountant will likely have a say in this but it is ultimately your decision. Most accountants are familiar with Quickbooks or Quickbooks Online. There are alternatives like Xero. This will help you track your expenses and be critical to filing taxes.
  
• Get CRM software to keep track and manage your clients. ShootQ is one of the best in the wedding realm, although it can take time to learn and get it set up.
  
• Get project management software (Basecamp or Apollo). This will help everyone in the business stay up to date on to do task lists and deadlines. Apollo has time tracking software which is helpful in knowing how many hours you spend on a project. Historical data will be useful in knowing how much to charge for future projects.
  
• Be wary of taking out any loans. It's often better to bootstrap yourself off the ground.
  
• If you don't take a loan, you all may need to work side jobs to pay the bills until you are ready to go full time. Don't expect to have enough cashflow to pay full time salaries for a few years. This is just being realistic.
  
• Weddings have a low barrier to entry. Do your first or two for free to build up a portfolio. Then charge very little. If you're not charging a lot, don't create a million hour long edits for them. Charge little and promise little so you're not stuck with them. Same principle applies to commercial and corporate. Seek out the type of work that you want to do, approach businesses and offer to do it for very cheap or for free. Do a killer job so that it looks like they paid you a million bucks. This will open doors.
  
• It is very easy to get bogged down with wedding edits. Consider yourself warned. Sifting through hours of footage and piecing edits together is a lot of work. Do not underestimate it.
  
• Only market the work you want to attract. Don't post all your work on your blog.
  
• Contracts are important to look professional, and more importantly, to protect yourself. A lawyer will be helpful here. Many books on filmmaking also have sample contracts.
  
• You are essentially a start up business. Be prepared for long work weeks, very little pay, and high stress. Not everyone is cut out for being a business owner. Don't think it will be like a 9-5 job.. you don't go home and tune the business out.. it will be very much a part of your life. I'm not saying that it should take OVER your life since you should do everything you can to maintain some sort of work-life balance. If any of you are married, you will need supportive spouses who are willing to make sacrifices.
  
• Read The E-Myth. It reads like a story but will teach you very important business concepts and how to think like a businessman. This is very important as you start to grow.
  
  This just scratches the surface. It's not rocket science, but it's a lot.. it will take time. CONSTANTLY evaluate and look for things that can be improved.
  
  Source: Started a few businesses, the current one being a filmmaking one.

"The Business of Kayfabe: Turning Wrestlers' Secrets Into a Million Dollars" by Sean Oliver

Length: 209 pages

Sean Oliver is someone who I admire. I got to know him a little bit by working behind-the-scenes at Kayfabe Commentaries (KC), and I respect that he has managed to turn a company that started as nothing into an organization whose ideas are often borrowed from by more famous companies like WWE. I reviewed his first book ("Kayfabe: Stories You're Not Supposed to Hear from a Pro Wrestling Production Company Owner") in 2017 and was pumped to hear about this new book because it was said to describe the science of running a small business, which I can relate to.

Sean provides several valuable pieces of advice to entrepreneurs, and he uses stories from - you guessed it - KC programs to get his points across. I thought the sub-chapter, "Hire Yourself: Working While You're Working," was especially insightful. In it, he explains that if you're running a small business on the side, trying to glean lessons from your main shoot job is not a bad idea. Strategically acquiring feedback from your supervisors, and even your subordinates, can give you insight into what works and what doesn't work in the business world. In another chapter that builds on this one, he uses the example of a fisherman and makes the very valid point of how they are not only experts on fish, but also have knowledge of fishing lines, filleting, boats, etc. Becoming as knowledgeable about the building blocks of your main skill as you are about your main area of expertise itself is necessary to succeed in business, Oliver argues.

Another great idea is on page 94, where Oliver discusses how true pros are not afraid to share their ideas to the public because they know that nobody will ever be able to materialize those ideas like they can. As an example, he doesn't seem hesitant to share his negotiating strategies with wrestlers, perhaps because he is confident that even by giving away some secrets, talent will still be more impressed by KC's substance--that is, by their professionalism as compared to the treatment of those same wrestlers by other companies during video productions.

Anyone who has viewed a KC program knows that Oliver has a flair for creative pursuits. He is very talented at brainstorming show concepts, and you hear about most of them in here, including some that never saw the light of day. For instance, Oliver describes on page 115 how close KC came to launching a series called "House Show" where wrestlers would hang out with fans for a day, but it couldn't happen due to liability issues. Imagine New Jack coming to some white teenager's house and spending the day there, and it being filmed! Intriguing, isn't it?

One criticism is that I do wish there was more wrestling talk in this book. I don't know that the title of the book was perfect; it includes the words "kayfabe" and "wrestlers" and yet, especially in the first half of the book, it included a decent amount of non-wrestling talk. I do get that the non-wrestling chatter in many cases was necessary to drill home the points. So, this could leave me with two viewpoints - 1. that the title of the book shouldn't focus on wrestling so much, or 2. that it should talk more about wrestling. I choose the second option. There were definitely some good KC stories, but I was left wanting more, which maybe is a good thing because it leaves open the need for more KC-related books to be written by Oliver in the future.

All in all, this is a quality book if you are a small business owner looking for tips to be noticed and not just seen, and as Oliver describes starting on page 104, there's a difference between a business being seen and being noticed. If you like to read, it's of a digestible length, as it's possible to get through this entire book in a few hours. I definitely recommend purchasing this book.

It can be purchased from Amazon at https://www.amazon.com/Business-Kayfabe-Turning-Wrestlers-Secrets/dp/1795165804. For more info and a sample chapter, visit seanoliverbooks.com. More information on Kayfabe Commentaries can be found at kayfabecommentaries.com.

For more reviews, please visit jonbarber.weebly.com.

More books!

"The Millionaire Next Door" as I said is a must-read. For real estate, I actually learned a lot more just through Reddit and BiggerPockets than any books I read. Most of the books I read I would classify as entertainment rather than guides. I read this book on short sales after meeting the author on BiggerPockets and it's pretty useful. Tim Ferris' "The Four Hour Work Week" is a good book to read and steal mentality from, but with massive cautions; treat Tim as an eccentric madman and don't take his advice as gospel. He would tell anyone to just start an online business and then fly around the world blowing money. Trying to hype the reader up by encouraging rampant materialism is a big part of his writing style. Don't take the book too seriously, but there's a lot of really good mentality bits you can steal from it, specifically the stuff on the Pareto Principle.

I consider this book purely entertainment, but it was still a decent and easy read. I also read a book on Forex trading (this one) that taught me quite a bit on risk management and chart technicals, but I don't know that it's entirely relevant. I spent a few months trading Forex with extremely low-risk strategies and was averaging 1% a month, but I didn't like the disconnect I felt from the actual business, and I found I could make money faster in real estate (I'm doubling my net worth annually from buying the houses).

If you struggle with weight, read "Why We Get Fat" (or the bigger, harder read "Good Calories, Bad Calories") by Gary Taubes. It's the perfect book for INTJs and will completely spin your mind around on the concept of nutrition without being a dry read at all. It kept my attention the whole way through (Why We Get Fat, that is- GCBC is a dryer read and targeted at doctors, but even more informative). I would say "Why We Get Fat" is the book that had the biggest effect on my life. Even if Taubes simplifies things considerably, you quickly realize just how much nutrition advice is complete crap. I used to try to eat healthy by packing a bunch of bananas to work. No wonder losing weight was hard. (I am skinny now- didn't used to be.)


I'll send you anything else that pops in to my mind; this is just off the top of my head. I read a lot more online than actual books. FlyerTalk has the most credit card churning stuff, and BiggerPockets has the best real estate stuff. I subscribe to /r/investing , /r/realestate , /r/personalfinance , and /r/financialindependence.

Don't take anything as gospel; always analyze for yourself and ask "Why". If everyone tells you to do something a certain way, they're probably simultaneously right and wrong. It's probably the conservative option, it probably has the best risk/reward ratio, you probably can do better, but you'll probably get screwed if you try unless you're better than everyone else.

For example, most people shouldn't use credit cards for rewards. Why? The psychology aspect. It will trick you in to spending more than you would with cash or a debit card, unless you're disciplined enough to not let it. I am. So I use it. I wouldn't tell my poorer friends to get a credit card just for rewards...they'll screw up.

Common knowledge is like that. /r/investing will tell you to use nothing but index funds, or spread your money across 20 stocks. They're right to give that advice. Completely right. Most people try to be clever, but overcentralizing exposes you to too much risk and the vast majority of people who overcentralize in one stock get burned down in the end.

But when I suggested these real estate ideas with a throwaway to /r/investing, I was told "You aren't Warren Buffett" and that I shouldn't try and would lose everything. The groupthink becomes too strong.

My key advice:
Don't take advice as a law; figure out the principle behind that advice, and why that advice is given.


Oh! And learn to play Poker. Seriously...pick up a book or something, or find some serious players who will play serious games without money. (Don't gamble...but learn to judge risk/reward like a gambler. Poker is not true gambling. The best player will consistently win the majority of games.)

I realized a few years into my business that:
-I was not able to grow the business because it seemed I was always dealing with emergencies.
-I was not able to fix things right first time because there was another emergency
-I was spending lots of my time doing entry-level tasks
-I was getting older and my marriage was suffering because I was doing 100% of everything in the business.
-I was not performing preventative maintenance because I was swamped with "real work" to do.

I was 40 - still crawling around under desks, still doing 100% of the work, on call 24/7, not able to go after better business and not expanding margin. I was EXACTLY what I swore I'd never become.

Here's what I did:

I started by documenting and defining several easy-to-replicate procedures - software installation/update, new PC setup, disk usage clearing, backup troubleshooting, You should have ticketing, admin, and billing systems that work reasonably well. It can help to track your time accurately in a PSA tool so you have some idea how much time these tasks take.

I hired a good, trustworthy local kid with interest but no experience in IT. Started him part time "we'll try this for 30 days and see if it's a good fit - either of us can walk away with no hard feelings if it's not working out" - on some CompTIA training videos and working through the documentation I had made up. At first he was doing a lot of software installs, new PC setup, and very basic troubleshooting. Kind of like a doctor/resident relationship, I would explain my process and talk through every step I was taking and why...and I'd ask him to talk through his through process when fixing issues and guide him to the way I'd do it.

I also grabbed many of Karl Palachuk's SOP guides as a foundation, and the Best IT Service Delivery Book Ever by Simpson for him to go through.

He picked it up very quickly, and started spending some time fixing our automation and integrations - making us both far more effective. He started working with our backup vendor on fixing backup alerts, then patch management, etc.

A couple years later, he's had a couple raises, we're looking at hiring another 1-2 techs this year and an office admin. Cash flow is better, I've been able to land bigger clients than I could as a Single Point of Failure consultant.
Took a vacation last year for the first time in forever. The business continued to operate.

It hasn't been painless, but it's been pretty smooth and a great opportunity for both of us - I get part of my life back, he now has a career doing work he enjoys, and I have time for some of the higher-level work, like security architecture discussions with our bigger clients, and determining our path for more security consulting work.

What would I do differently?
I would have started sooner. I would have hired this guy back when I was working with Continuum and taught him to manage our interactions with their NOC. I would have had more processes documented and emphasized his role in maintaining and expanding those docs.

I did try working with a couple outsourced helpdesks but my clients wanted me or someone directly under my supervision - the outsourced helpdesks had too many exceptions and limitations for us to go forward.

I highly recommend David Finkel's "Build a Business, Not a Job"
https://www.amazon.com/Build-Business-Not-David-Finkel/dp/1450709842

and Chris Ducker's "Virtual Freedom: How to Work with Virtual Staff to Buy More Time, Become More Productive, and Build Your Dream Business" - most of his concepts also work with an outsourced NOC, SOC, or helpdesk.
https://www.amazon.com/Virtual-Freedom-Become-Productive-Business/dp/1939529743/ref=sr_1_5_twi_pap_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1519146561&sr=1-5&keywords=virtual+assistant

It might be that blogging isn't for you, and if that's the case, there's nothing wrong with that! You know you enjoyed writing a book. I think if the main factor holding you back from working in another (even if just for fun), is feeling you shouldn't do it yet, maybe you could try and identify your reasons for feeling that way. Are the reasons for not doing it as strong as the sense of purpose you feel when writing? Is it because you truly don't want to work on another book until you hear from your editor, or is it because you feel like you're supposed to wait to write until you hear from the editor? Several of my favorite authors have books that were released after they became well known, but were written before their actual first published book. So I don't know if there's any clear should/shouldn't in your situation!

I have a few books (both regular and workbook style) on planning out a blog saved to my wish list.

I have a small, 4 year old blog with a small following (around 200 views a day on average during times I'm not actively writing on it). It mainly was built by connecting with other bloggers and commenting on their blogs, as well as by learning about how to get my blog to show up in Google searches (I only had to learn it once, do it, then haven't messed with it since, although I probably should). At first, it was only read by my family and friends. I am considering these books because I haven't felt like writing lately, and want to put more thought into the structure of my blog.

EPIC BLOG: One-Year Editorial Planner

The Ultimate Blogger To-Do List

How To Style Your Brand

Blog, Inc.: Blogging for Passion, Profit, and to Create Community - I borrowed this one from the library yesterday.

If money were no object, I would get this one because I really like parts of it, however the parts about taxes and employees and the like wouldn't be of use to me! I also don't know why it's for women not men... Marketing, I suppose The Conquer Kit: A Creative Business Planner for Women Entrepreneurs

This is my favorite of the guided journal type books I purchased. Design the Life You Love I am only a little into it, however I think it is perfectly suited to our personality type.

Edited: formatting and forgotten thoughts

Entrepreneur Reading List

1. Disrupted: My Misadventure in the Start-Up Bubble
   
2. The Phoenix Project: A Novel about IT, DevOps, and Helping Your Business Win
   
3. The E-Myth Revisited: Why Most Small Businesses Don't Work and What to Do About It
   
4. The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything
   
5. The Four Steps to the Epiphany: Successful Strategies for Products that Win
   
6. Permission Marketing: Turning Strangers into Friends and Friends into Customers
   
7. Ikigai
   
8. Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition
   
9. Bootstrap: Lessons Learned Building a Successful Company from Scratch
   
10. The Marketing Gurus: Lessons from the Best Marketing Books of All Time
    
11. Content Rich: Writing Your Way to Wealth on the Web
    
12. The Web Startup Success Guide
    
13. The Best of Guerrilla Marketing: Guerrilla Marketing Remix
    
14. From Program to Product: Turning Your Code into a Saleable Product
    
15. This Little Program Went to Market: Create, Deploy, Distribute, Market, and Sell Software and More on the Internet at Little or No Cost to You
    
16. The Secrets of Consulting: A Guide to Giving and Getting Advice Successfully
    
17. The Innovator's Solution: Creating and Sustaining Successful Growth
    
18. Startups Open Sourced: Stories to Inspire and Educate
    
19. In Search of Stupidity: Over Twenty Years of High Tech Marketing Disasters
    
20. Do More Faster: TechStars Lessons to Accelerate Your Startup
    
21. Content Rules: How to Create Killer Blogs, Podcasts, Videos, Ebooks, Webinars (and More) That Engage Customers and Ignite Your Business
    
22. Maximum Achievement: Strategies and Skills That Will Unlock Your Hidden Powers to Succeed
    
23. Founders at Work: Stories of Startups' Early Days
    
24. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make Competition Irrelevant
    
25. Eric Sink on the Business of Software
    
26. Words that Sell: More than 6000 Entries to Help You Promote Your Products, Services, and Ideas
    
27. Anything You Want
    
28. Crossing the Chasm: Marketing and Selling High-Tech Products to Mainstream Customers
    
29. The Innovator's Dilemma: The Revolutionary Book that Will Change the Way You Do Business
    
30. Tao Te Ching
    
31. Philip & Alex's Guide to Web Publishing
    
32. The Tao of Programming
    
33. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values
    
34. The Inmates Are Running the Asylum: Why High Tech Products Drive Us Crazy and How to Restore the Sanity
    
    

    Computer Science Grad School Reading List
    

    
    

35. All the Mathematics You Missed: But Need to Know for Graduate School
    
36. Introductory Linear Algebra: An Applied First Course
    
37. Introduction to Probability
    
38. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions
    
39. Science in Action: How to Follow Scientists and Engineers Through Society
    
40. Proofs and Refutations: The Logic of Mathematical Discovery
    
41. What Is This Thing Called Science?
    
42. The Art of Computer Programming
    
43. The Little Schemer
    
44. The Seasoned Schemer
    
45. Data Structures Using C and C++
    
46. Algorithms + Data Structures = Programs
    
47. Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs
    
48. Concepts, Techniques, and Models of Computer Programming
    
49. How to Design Programs: An Introduction to Programming and Computing
    
50. A Science of Operations: Machines, Logic and the Invention of Programming
    
51. Algorithms on Strings, Trees, and Sequences: Computer Science and Computational Biology
    
52. The Computational Beauty of Nature: Computer Explorations of Fractals, Chaos, Complex Systems, and Adaptation
    
53. The Annotated Turing: A Guided Tour Through Alan Turing's Historic Paper on Computability and the Turing Machine
    
54. Computability: An Introduction to Recursive Function Theory
    
55. How To Solve It: A New Aspect of Mathematical Method
    
56. Types and Programming Languages
    
57. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Elementary Algorithms
    
58. Computer Algebra and Symbolic Computation: Mathematical Methods
    
59. Commonsense Reasoning
    
60. Using Language
    
61. Computer Vision
    
62. Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
    
63. Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid
    
    

    Video Game Development Reading List
    

    
    

64. Game Programming Gems - 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
    
65. AI Game Programming Wisdom - 1 2 3 4
    
66. Making Games with Python and Pygame
    
67. Invent Your Own Computer Games With Python
    
68. Bit by Bit

VijayAnna, I don't know what stage the startup you're joining is at, but be very careful when choosing what type of content to read. Startup Marketing strategy (Growth Hacking) is nowhere near the same as Corporate Marketing strategy.

As a preface, I'd recommend reading Full-Scale which will give you a good idea of some of the challenges/differences between the two worlds and how to successfully scale a startup using the right data.

Here are three blogs I wrote at my previous company that I tend to share when people want a good foundation to start doing social media marketing:
The Ultimate Guide To Content Curation

How to Use Buffer to Share Like a Social Media BOSS

Three MUST-USE Tools to Optimally Time Your Social Media Posts

Some of my other posts on that blog will also be beneficial when you want to dive deeper into the nuances and "tricks" of individual social networks.

Disclaimer: My previous startup offers digital marketing courses online. I managed their internal profiles and trained/consulted external clients on their behalf. They offer individual courses for FB, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc that cover everything from beginner concepts (how to set up a profile) to the more advanced concepts (interest-based ad targeting). Check them out at SMMU.com and if any of the courses catches your eye, lmk and I'll see what I can do to get you a promo offer (or better).

To hell with the Career! Identify a problem you learned in the years you have put in so far, design a solution and build it up while helping your son grow too!

The ugly truth is - careers are an illusion used to convince people to use up their most precious years. So they can retire at 70, die a few years later with no time to use the money they saved.

Please do not look at this change as a negative thing! Join a group of entrepreneurs (real ones - not some MLM bs), learn how to a) find a problem to solve, b) create a solution c) listen to your customers d) maintain control.

Takes about three years to take a viable idea to reality - your son will still be young, and you will not have missed the chance to spend time with him. And if you succeed, you'll make more money than your husband :D

Surround yourself with people who do the things you need to succeed with your new focus

Evidence:

https://www.amazon.com/Disciplined-Entrepreneurship-Steps-Successful-Startup/dp/1118692284

https://www.amazon.com/UNSCRIPTED-Life-Liberty-Pursuit-Entrepreneurship/dp/0984358161

https://www.amazon.com/Millionaire-Fastlane-Crack-Wealth-Lifetime/dp/0984358102

https://www.startupschool.org

Stay-At-Home Parenting is not a prison sentence! It is an opportunity to break free!

Read stories of success, surround yourself with cheesy inspiration to keep moving forward. Whatever it takes - it's a process, start now and make this your "Eff this! I want a second house in the Cayman Islands" moment.

Write down your dreams, how much they cost, list the steps you need to obtain that money, and put dates on them. Then, go!

And good luck! You will fail at least once - regroup and do it again.

Unlike most things in life where one bad apple spoils the bunch - with entrepreneurship, one good crop feeds you for life.

100% - the only thing that matters to an employer is whether you can offer value.
For instance, the very nature of an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) is that you can create and apply processes to help the resource of humans stay within their parameters and produce an output - a bit like a factory - the key word is Administration meaning process and management.
The world's so uncertain today and for the foreseeable future, that you need far more than a degree nowadays; in fact I'd say the ability to innovate, take calculated risks and continue learning is all you need to show an employer - The Lean Startup and Platform Models should be part of everyone's learning for the future we face.
FYI - learning doesn't only take place in a classroom or at Uni - it's an industry in itself, so of course they want you to believe that the best learning goes on there, that's why you pay so much!
Read Ken Robinsons - Are schools killing creativity too, it's very enlightening about the human condition - TED Talk: Ken Robinson

IMO, when people ask to "improve a process" it's because they are dissatisfied with the amount of time something takes, and they are frustrated when certain steps in a process block or delay them.

For QA/QC that might be a difficult thing to hone in on. Your job essentially causes delays in that you find issues that need to be revisited. Perhaps they want you to find less issues. ;)

1. I highly recommend talking with everyone on your team. Determine what their pain-points are first and foremost.
   
   
2. From there, gather some loose ideas of how you can tackle those pain-points (and your own) while keeping things within your ideal process. Work with lead developers, project managers, and managers to refine this process, and to discover whether something even makes sense. Don't get tunnel vision.
   
   
3. Finally, document the shit out of it, and ask everyone for their input. Go back to step 2. You may be in step 3 for a few cycles while you work on other projects, wait for feedback, and refine processes.
   
   
4. Once everyone is happy, stick to the process, and work with managers to ensure other's stick to it. Some issues will come up with the process, so be open to revising it. Also, account for situations where the process will get in the way. Allow a lot of flexibility, without compromising the quality of the project.
   
   The "QA/QC process" is really more of a development process, and QA/QC is a part of that. This is highlighted by a simple situation: if no ticket system is used for development, how can QA/QC track and communicate issues?
   
   Read up on how other businesses handle development processes. Read research material and approach this smartly and professionally. You are likely to step on some toes because no one likes change, and no one likes processes.
   
   Here's a book I've found useful: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0321193679/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
   
   Look into how other companies have adopted Scrum or Agile. Look at Waterfall.
   
   Good luck!

Legitimate Work From Home Opportunities: A Phenomenal Collection of Verified Online Resources And Business Ideas

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07NCBY57M

FREE until February 7th

> “Is it really possible to work from home and create a decent income online?”

>It most certainly is. In fact, the trend to move towards freelancing and the gig economy is growing stronger and stronger, each passing year. And you are about to learn how you too can do it too!

>It doesn’t matter if you are new to the work anywhere concept, or you are a seasoned internet marketer. You will find tons of online resources and business ideas to boost your income for 2019 and beyond, in this book.

>There are several legitimate resources for performing simple tasks to earn a few dollars per hour (like typing, filling surveys, etc.) all the way to earning several hundred dollars per hour (like social media marketing), depending on your expertise and skillset.

Regulations can definitely be tricky. And then setting up a business account, registering as an LLC, filing taxes, etc... There is certainly a lot that goes into opening your own business, especially one that deals with food. An earlier comment recommended this book and there are tons out there like it that focus on specifically the business part of it. You know the baking part, so that's easy at least lol. But I, like you, am not quite at this point yet, so I try not to worry about it too much. I will cross that bridge when I get to it, and worrying about it now will only potentially prevent me from reaching that bridge, because I might get too intimidated to start. There are so many resources out there that can help guide you through the business and legal aspects. Good luck to you as well!

My strong opinion is that the most reliable and efficient (ie $/hr) way to do this is with development consulting (app dev, front end and back end)

Buy this book:

The Software Engineer's Guide to Freelance Consulting: The new book that encompasses finding and maintaining clients as a software developer, tax and legal tips, and everything in between. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N1TTJFK/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_wBTRzbR596M0F

Imo, because I've seen how long it can take people to find things they are deeply interested in, if you really want $10k, get there via consulting, and then just reduce your consulting hours and use your free time to work on things that interest you. And then you'll always have an income source you can scale up and down as needed.

Do you not agree that there are a whole load of really immature books about game design that are sold more on the fact that "its a book about games" than its inherent content ?

Even within the space of magazines I think it would be fair to call Nintendo power immature and something like EDGE , Games TM or Develop magazine Mature.

for someone starting from scratch you would get allot more by reading these books than by watching EC ( obviously can do both and EC is a nice starting pion for someone totally new to games)

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0465067107?ie=UTF8&tag=alwaysblack01-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0465067107

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0273693646?ie=UTF8&tag=alwaysblack01-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=19450&creativeASIN=0273693646

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Game-Design-book-lenses/dp/0123694965

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Theory-Game-Design-Raph-Koster/dp/1932111972

allso over view books on Game theory , the history of the microchip and computing , evolution and basic biology can be incredibly good in helping think about games as an art and the limitations in the development of software.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Fun-Games-Text-Game-Theory/dp/0669246034/ref=cm_lmf_tit_12

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0321193679/zx81orguk00

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0932633439/zx81orguk00

http://www.amazon.com/Computer-History-Information-Machine-Technology/dp/0465029906


I realise EC is just easily consumable general information and that's fine just wish they did it without the pretence , like I said in other comments I'm glad they make it even though it personally annoys the hell out of me its beneficial for games as a whole as there is a general lack of even moderately intelligent talk about games.

She should look into a business class at a local community college. It might be a little more costly than just getting a $12.99 book, but the practice bookkeeping, keeping track of inventory, and that sort of thing would be really good. In addition to this, she might get lucky and have a teacher made for the job. When I took a class on Entrepreneurship, my teacher was himself a mildly successful entrepreneur, and had lots of tips and tricks to offer about what hes learned over the years.

http://www.amazon.com/Knack-Street-Smart-Entrepreneurs-Handle-Whatever/dp/1591842212

This was one of our class books. If nothing else, buy it and memorize it. Remember that a business plan is the most important thing if youre going to become an entrepreneur, so that alone is worth reading about.

Banks are more business friendly in my experience.

Find a good LOCAL bank for the business.

And get a separate savings account at a credit union.

Use the separate credit union account as your PROFIT account.


Oh, and get the book “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz

Profit First: A Simple System to Transform Any Business from a Cash-Eating Monster to a Money-Making Machine. https://www.amazon.com/dp/0981808298/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_HPTZzb8X0N2BA

This looks similar to another thing I saw advertised on facebook, a tool to make your own marketing videos. But yours is geared toward silly memes.

The intro was funny, I almost laughed. But if I were you I'd be concerned about using celebrity photos. Where as satire is fair use, using their likeness in commerce is not. To argue wheather or not it is satire would cost you money.

I made an attempt at using it. It was not that intuitive. You would need a tutorial.

But before you get that far, you need to validate this platform and figure out how to monetize it.

https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Transforming-Economy/dp/0393249131

The book is still available for download for free at

https://www.amazon.com/FULL-SCALE-Grow-Startup-Without-Plan-ebook/dp/B00NTC5G28

You are welcome :)

Here are all the local Amazon links I could find:


amazon.co.uk

amazon.ca

amazon.com.au

amazon.in

amazon.com.mx

amazon.de

amazon.it

amazon.es

amazon.com.br

amazon.nl

amazon.co.jp

amazon.fr

Beep bloop. I'm a bot to convert Amazon ebook links to local Amazon sites.
I currently look here: amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.ca, amazon.com.au, amazon.in, amazon.com.mx, amazon.de, amazon.it, amazon.es, amazon.com.br, amazon.nl, amazon.co.jp, amazon.fr, if you would like your local version of Amazon adding please contact my creator.

You should be passionate about your ideas and opportunities - just not hostile.

Let me give you the only advice I needed to here when I was flailing around trying to get started.

Read.

The three books that helped me a ton are

1). Content Inc
2). Profit First
3). 7 Day Startup

These aren't lifestyle books like 10x rule (which is also a good one) nor are they sales books - they will give you ideas and the information to solve your own problems.

(I'd also advise you read them in that order)

The interesting thing about dating apps is the negative feedback loop embedded in the match algorithm. If you keep getting rejected by people who are more desirable you will eventually not see them anymore. This helps attractive people, liked by many, to continue using the service. Was quite the discovery to learn attractiveness is actually measured on matchmaking platforms. Described in more detail in this book if anyone wants to learn more.

I recommend this book for a good, easy explanation of your options: https://www.amazon.com/LLC-vs-S-Corp-C-Corp-Explained/dp/0981454275/ref=asap_bc?ie=UTF8

along with what /r/MuncherofMuffins suggested, this book - Homemade For Sale, has been a wealth of information that really helped me get it off the ground. They talk a lot about cottage food laws and the business/accounting/marketing aspects of having a home baking operation. And honestly just know that so much of it is learning as you go and just doing what you can with what you have right now!

We connect programmers with freelance programming jobs and we help businesses find freelance programmers.

This diagram explains how our business works for both types of customers: programmers and businesses.

http://imgur.com/a/dZpp9

Sometimes, our customers with hiring requirements pay us additional fees for business services that we have in-house expertise in, such as financing, marketing, operations and sales.

The books URLs are https://www.amazon.com/Code-Cash-Encompasses-challenges-everything-ebook/dp/B01N1TTJFK/ & https://www.amazon.com/First-Freelance-Programming-Client-Step-ebook/dp/B01N9RETLR/

I couldn't agree more. I even wrote a book a little while ago that talks about improving selling skills on Craigslist (https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BV5P4WN in case you want to check it out.) One of the only downsides I've found with trying to improve selling skills on Craigslist is there aren't many options to market your product. Most collectors online aren't living near me in order to pick up the product. Which is why I have also started to flip on eBay, at least there the product is in front of a global audience. I can also market on various forums and websites to get the product in front of high paying collectors who will then just have the product shipped to them.

I loved "The Knack"

http://www.amazon.com/The-Knack-Street-Smart-Entrepreneurs-Whatever/dp/1591842212

This is a book lawyers would use.
https://www.amazon.com/Practical-Guide-S-Corporations-7th/dp/080804107X/ref=sr_1_9?ie=UTF8&qid=1469495061&sr=8-9&keywords=s-corporation

However, this would be an ideal book to start for non-legal people https://www.amazon.com/LLC-vs-S-Corp-C-Corp-Explained/dp/0981454275/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1469495061&sr=8-1&keywords=s-corporation

Your local library will also have some books on corporations and s-corporation. They should do the job.

What you are discussing is a marketplace or platform app... you will need to bring together people with stuff to rent as well as people who want to rent things. These can be incredibly lucrative businesses, but are also very difficult to get going... largely because without one side of the market you cannot draw in the other.

I would suggest reading this book for some great insight: https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Transforming-Economyand-ebook/dp/B00ZAT8VS4

I thought this book was pretty insightful
https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Markets-Transforming/dp/0393249131

I'm not experienced enough to even remotely consider consulting, though this book is one I have bookmarked.

It's US-oriented(ish) though should be of some help to you.

Solve a problem

more broadly read this book

Unscripted: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Entrepreneurship https://www.amazon.com/dp/0984358161/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_boesDbEMD2BK9

also watch this for idea validation

https://youtu.be/DOtCl5PU8F0

Theres a book called Platform Revolution that focuses on this business model. Highly recommended
https://www.amazon.com/Platform-Revolution-Networked-Markets-Transforming/dp/0393249131

Honestly, keep it liquid in a savings account for emergencies or for when you find an opportunity to invest in a business or yourself.

This book is a must read. Although many people here hate it because it doesn’t follow the traditional path.

You’re way ahead of the game so far. Please don’t squander it away for 40 years for a rainy day.

• Beautiful Code
  
• Design Patterns
  
• The Pragmatic Programmer
  
• Refactoring
  
• The Mythical Man Month
  
• Why Programs Fail
  
• Professional Software Development
  
• Coders At Work
  
• Contextual Design

[https://www.amazon.com/FULL-SCALE-Grow-Startup-Without-Plan-ebook/dp/B00NTC5G28]

I second all four of these recommendations. Especially the personal MBA for aspiring business owners. I would also add a few more: Profit First, Lean Startup, and Will it fly?

https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0981808298/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1520524448&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=profits+first&dpPl=1&dpID=41dpPGpXR9L&ref=plSrch

Read this book.

I am with you!

This whole business structure is just time-wasting, and, in fact, demands and rewards time wasting!

I hate it so much. I was almost fired once for taking a 'it's too nice to work inside' day off - even though I'd worked for 4 years there, following all the rules. I won't give that kind of power to anyone again.

Life's too short.

You might want to read UnScripted, by MJ DeMarco. I cannot praise it enough for practical advice on escaping this shit.