Welcome to Capsaicinoia

The other little venture we have been working on alongside the quest for a B&B has been Capsaicinoia!  Capsaicinoia is going to be an on-line gift shop for chilli lovers, chill addicts or chillholics or people who have one in their life.  You might say a chilli emporium, a rich, exotic and enticing collection of chilli related products including, dried chillies and powders, chill sauces, pickles, jams chutneys and relishes. jewellery including earrings, necklaces, charms and cuff links, books, chocolate, drinks like beers and vodka, art work and ceramics, kitchen ware such as bowls, chopping boards, notice boards, aprons and so on....The list is potentially endless but all products must be high quality with a direct link to chillies.

Capsaicinoia is a combination of the words Capsaicin (the active ingredient in a chilli) and paranoia (a lay term often associated with craziness or insanity).  Hence Capsaicinoia - crazy for chilli!

So far we have bought the domain name, capsaicinoia.com and also from Namesco http://www.names.co.uk/ we have purchased their excellent value ecommerce package.  Honestly, for me as complete novice to web-design and commerce it seems to be very easy to use and great value for money.  For just over £8 per month or a total of just over £100 for the year you get a ready made but customisable on-line shop and everything else you need to run your business including customer management, product management and marketing tools.  It has taken me only a few days to get half way towards launching my web-site and opening m shop.

So the web-site is capsaicinoia.com and the business email is jackie@capsaicinoia.com and we hope to start trading by the end of April at the latest.

Product wise it has been really exciting!  We realised that the Spring Fair at the NEC might be worth a visit so wen popped along on Sunday and have identified some great products that we could use the get the business up and running with a bang!  http://www.springfair.com/ We came home and worked out a list of products that met the criteria for inclusion in our shop and we could purchase within our start-up budget and we are going back to place some of our first orders!  Yippee!!

The plan is to get the whole thing ready and fit for purpose before we launch the web-site and start trading.  We aim to start small and perfect the process before thinking about expanding the product range and implementing the full marketing plan.  We have lots of research and bits and pieces to sort out before we are ready to go including;

• choosing and engaging the right accountant
• product and possibly public liability insurance
• notifying HMRC and understanding tax and VAT implications
• registration as a sole trader or not
• delivery and postage processes and options
• packaging processes and options 
• finish the business plan
• finalise the logo and business stationary (with help from Matthew Bottomley)
• competitor research
• privacy and data protection
• consider joining relevant trade organisations

Initial ideas for marketing include;

• attending all the UK Chill Festivals this summer and handing out fliers and business cards
• getting ourselves on the various UK chilli information web-sites such as the chile foundry http://www.chilefoundry.co.uk/ and the ring of fire http://www.ringoffire.net/
• getting the whole Search Engine Optimisation thing right!

So watch this space.  I know we are really excited about this little venture and even if is never turns out to be a big money earner we will have learnt a lot of new transferable skills and and had a lot of fun along the way.

I have to give credit to my sister Vicky and son Matt.  I had a dream about this shop a few years ago and they both said to try it on-line before investing in a physical shop and all that that involves.  I was reluctant partly because I did not think I had the necessary IT skills but also as a concept I was unsure about it.  Matt at just 25 is always great source of creative and imaginative advice and Vicky has proved the potential of an on-line shop having run her own wonderful and successful little business for a couple of years now called Good Gracious - surprise your home.  Check it out and surprise yourself!
http://www.goodgracious.co.uk/

Bed and Breakfast Update

We are really starting to make progress now with the quest for a Bed and Breakfast.  Since our last post we have actually viewed a couple of businesses for sale in the Midlands almost as a sort of practice run for the real thing when we get up to Scotland.  Stepping inside a going concern was a big step towards making it feel like it is really going to happen and it also convinced us that we could definitely do it!

The first place we looked at was called Black Firs in Marston Green.  http://www.b-firs.co.uk/
It was a fantastic business with a lovely host and we almost fell in love with the first place we saw.  Thankfully, we were soon able to view it rationally in the context of our business plan and remind ourselves that it did not really fit with our criteria on a number of points namely location, budget and customer types.  This was essentially a Bed and Breakfast for business customers using the NEC or doing business in the Birmingham area.  However, it was very encouraging and actually quite exciting to imagine ourselves running a place like it on a day to day basis.  What was even more encouraging was the feedback from the owner who said she could see us running her business or one like it,

We went on to see another business further in to Birmingham and, while it was not the right place for us on a number of levels, again the owners were friendly and helpful and we could see that we had the right attitude and skill mix as a couple to easily run a similar business.   I hope we are not deceiving ourselves as we get so many negative comments from people when we tell them what we are planning to do in terms of what hard work it is with early mornings, physical hard work and being available 24/7.  We think that we have thought though all of these points but we are not afraid of hard work and we don't mind early mornings.  We are sociable and we enjoy entertaining.  We want and possibly need to work for ourselves for the next 10 years as we are certain that we don't want to continue to work as hard as we have been doing for someone else only to be cast aside without a second thought when we are no longer required!

The diary of viewings for the Scotland trip is pretty much full now so the only additional preparation to do for this is to familiarise ourselves with the details of the different business and their own web-sites and Trip Adviser ratings and comments.  We have also developed a template for the financial side of each business that we will view as a way of comparing the expected P&L for each one and looking at that in the context of our own expectations for income and expenditure.

Our house is well and truly for sale now with all the formalities attended to and our first viewing booked for tomorrow!

I think that's about it as far as the B&B is concerned.  The Business Plan is almost written - just a matter of pulling it all together now.

We had another meeting with our DBM consultant and as a result of that conversation, our detailed look at the expected revenues and the current economic environment we have reconsidered our decisions to avoid taking on any loans or finance and may consider as a option for the right business.