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[Tellemurius]

As far as the getting credit for it goes, back when i was in high school there was a big push to get students involved with business management, which was usually sitting at a till in a little shop that sold school logo shirts, and pencils, needless to say it wasn't very involved with actual business development.  I think you'd have some pretty good luck if you go in with some data you've drummed up about demand at your school, doing some surveys of your classmates about if they'd be interested in having baked goods available after/before school.  You could show a health benefit (if you can find one) of eating a home baked cookie vs. a little debbie snack or candy.   Make sure you also do the math, run the numbers on how much your material costs will be, what your pricing would be, and what your baking schedule will be.  If you can show precisely how you will be run it successfully you'll show to the administrators that you're both serious and dedicated to this idea.

Its my experience that the people who run schools are so tired of dealing with kids that aren't living up to their potential that they'll jump at the chance of helping a kid that has some gumption and is trying to be successful.  See if you can find a teacher you like who is willing to supervise you for a self directed class. (We had these when I was in high school, I made up a film class where I studied(watched) films all hour, I'd write up my own papers and stuff like that to be graded,  I'm not sure how prevalent they are nowadays)

As far as the restaurant thing, it depends on the place, my girlfriend spent this last weekend baking tea-cookies with a lady she works part time with in a restaurant's kitchen.  When you're planning out business it absolutely never hurts to ask around.

the business program was called DECA at our school until they cut funding due to low number of enrollments( bullshit that teacher had a 100 students under him). i would also check into the department of health,  wouldn't want you to kill us. where are you anyway?

[Eagleon]

You need to know expiration dates, proper handling methods, packaging needs, nutritional information, and even labelling laws (they do exist) for this kind of thing if you're going to sell to the general public. A food science curriculum will serve you well (particularly for picking preservatives so that you can ship to a larger customer base and have much less spoilage, which is always helpful for food startups), but there's probably also resources out there for entrepreneurs to get started, though probably not consolidated in one place. It might not seem like this stuff matters much now, but the FDA don't play no games. Be very, very careful.

My suggestion - apply to a bakery position at a supermarket if you can. Leech their knowledge. Quit when you've learned enough to replace the managers (ask them questions that normal bakers wouldn't need to know. Say you're interested for cross-training purposes) Then start figuring out stuff for seasonal items if you already have a solid selection of recipes to start with - these catch interest in your product, because it shows that you're creative and dynamic or something. Really, all I know is that from working at <Name Redacted> Cafe, our seasonal bakery items go much faster this time of year and get people to try our other stuff.

[abculatter_2]

For those wondering, I live in a small town next to Oveido, FL, USA.

And I would love to get a job as a baker somewhere, but I have no experience anywhere, and I'm still in high school, so I have a limited schedule. Plus, there's the whole recession thing going on.

Currently, I'm trying to determine just how much it will cost to get all the stuff I need to start even a small bakery. I figure I might be able to serve the little town I'm in along with surrounding neighborhoods with fresh, brick-oven baked bread and pastries (from what I've heard, these two factors alone are enough to give a good footing) and likely I'll be able to set up some sort of catering and/or delivery service for locals. I could probably expand to cakes, cupcakes, scones, biscuits, granola bars, cookies, crackers, specialty breads, candy, doughnuts, and a whole list of other things without too much hassle, especially if I can get a successful advance-order system going (go in, place an order for what you want, get it later that day, tomorrow, or so forth).

There's also a small, house-sized office building for sale within walking distance of my house if this turns out to be really successful, though I highly doubt I'll be able to buy it before someone else does. Plus, there's always the chance I may find a better opportunity in some other industry by the time I finish high school.

[G-Flex]

Someone might have mentioned this (I skimmed the thread), but if you're selling people food, the kitchen itself will likely need to be certified and compliant according to local/state/federal regulations. This will undoubtedly cost money, even assuming your home kitchen fits the bill, which it very well may not.

[Tsarwash]

I would NEVER buy a cake or loaf of bread online. Some things need to be seen to be bought.  The only way for it to work would be to supply commercial outlets such as Pubs, Restuarants, Cafe's and Sandwich makers. Having ran a pub myself, being able to make / cancel a bread order at midnight is a useful thing.

[Muz]

Well, if you're going to do something as risky as an online bakery... at least give them a money back guarantee. If you're not willing to do that, people might be worried that you're selling them stale bread or rocks. You could probably double your customers with a money back guarantee and it gives you a nice start while you have no reputation.

[eerr]

If you advertise with a website, everybody who sees it over the internet will be nice about the bakery thing.

But first things first.
Try selling some bread.

You don't need to worry about buisness management or anything quite yet, and can probably get away with just selling bread and doing your own taxes.
If you don't make a significant amount of money, a multiple of 1000$ that I forget, you won't need to file taxes for youself.
That is to say, You can run this as a side venture without any worries. Just sell some bread online for now.

I'm sure if it's big enough, someone will eventually accost you and tell you that you need to do X, but you aren't sigificant and can get away with this.

Treat this as personal small buisness income if you do pay taxes. I am very certain you won't need to change this unless you start hiring people and become a real bakery.

[G-Flex]

That is to say, You can run this as a side venture without any worries. Just sell some bread online for now.

I'm sure if it's big enough, someone will eventually accost you and tell you that you need to do X, but you aren't sigificant and can get away with this.

Treat this as personal small buisness income if you do pay taxes. I am very certain you won't need to change this unless you start hiring people and become a real bakery.

So you're telling him that violating probably a large handful of health and safety regulations is just fine, even if he declares it as business income, because he's "not significant"? Not my first choice of options to take.

Also, I reiterate what other people have said: People aren't going to want to buy baked goods through the mail, unless you're acting as a supplier and the stuff is nicely packaged. Food is something people want to see before they buy it, and they want it fresh, not sitting in a truck for two days (if they're lucky).

[eerr]

I'm saying health regulations are for sizeable buisnesses, because of their size!
He is not a corperate entity!
I am not excusing him from following healthy procedure!
I'm saying he probably doesn't have to fill out any forms or invite a goddamn health inspector, As that would be completely silly for a tiny one-man buisness!

I also assumed he would follow proper health procedure on his own, but this apparently too high of an assumption for you G-Flex.

[G-Flex]

I'm saying he probably doesn't have to fill out any forms or invite a goddamn health inspector, As that would be completely silly for a tiny one-man buisness!

I also assumed he would follow proper health procedure on his own, but this apparently too high of an assumption for you G-Flex.

I didn't assume he wouldn't follow good safety procedures. Then again, I won't assume he will, either, because he's just some random high school kid I don't know on the Internet; for all I know, he has no clue what proper procedure is. Or maybe he does. I don't know, and you don't either.

I was referring to actually doing whatever paperwork and certification is necessary, which is something neither you nor I know, since we don't even know where he lives. Whether or not you personally think it would be silly is irrelevant to whatever the actual law is where he lives.

[Muz]

eerr's response touched a nerve, so I'm going to move from my forum troll form to my snooty know-it-all businessman form. Time for a lengthy rant.

If you're going to start a bakery in less than $60 (not including loans), forget it. I'll bet that it'll never get anywhere. If it lasts more than 10 years, I'll personally buy $120 of your bread.

I've got a bit of experience trying to start off a business from scratch. Got to the point of having a 'service' business that would rake in $3M in revenue after 5 years. The big problem was that with the amount of effort it takes, I could start a much more profitable business in another field. That's right, you can make millions off a small business, but you need to take risks.

First, don't be scared to start big. Statistics show that most business that start huge (100+ people) don't fail, and that you're most likely to fail by starting small. I could dig up those statistics, but too lazy.

This is for a good reason. Because people don't bother to take it seriously. Money needs hard work. If you're not willing to work very hard, you're going to fail. There's a lot of people with this retarded idea that they don't have to advertise, they don't have to hunt for customers, they don't even need an office or store or to pay for the tools they're using. And I meet these same people whining later that customers won't go to them, and that people don't want to review or look at their product.

That is to say, You can run this as a side venture without any worries. Just sell some bread online for now.

I'm sure if it's big enough, someone will eventually accost you and tell you that you need to do X, but you aren't sigificant and can get away with this.

Treat this as personal small buisness income if you do pay taxes. I am very certain you won't need to change this unless you start hiring people and become a real bakery.

While eerr's advice was well intended, this is the biggest newbie mistake small businesses make. If you start it as a side venture, you'll make pennies, and it'll be out of sympathy. If you really want a side venture, start a lemonade stand (or bread stand). Don't do it on the internet. The dot-com bubble burst a long time ago. People don't even look for bread on eBay, they won't look for it from your website.

If you want to make money, you have to spend money. This is the point where most noobs whine, "But I'm not a rich bread tycoon, I'm just a kid". No. Everyone's business starts from the 3F's - friends, family, and fools. Convince your 3F's to give you the money to start. If you can't convince yourself to ask them for money, then what makes you think that it's not a waste of time? If you can't convince them to give you money, then find ways of making yourself more convincing. This is where your business plan comes in. This is why you have to write a business plan, to convince both yourself and your investors.

If all your 3F's are dirt poor, then check around your country for SME loans. They give far more generous rates than banks, and if your country is supporting enough of SMEs, you won't even have to pay it all back. Then go to banks. And if it's still not enough, investors. Don't go to loan sharks. If you can't get enough money before loan sharks, you'll never make enough money to not get a leg cut off.

Food is a very recession proof business. People will cut down on buying apartments, cars, TVs, etc, but everyone needs bread. Government might inject money into businesses. Fairly skilled people will be desperate for a job.


Next, find all the regulations that apply, which I assume you have by now. Follow all of them. You don't want to be fined or anything. The fine itself won't hurt so much, but reputation takes time to earn and you need as much as you can get. Reputation is what brings in customers and it's what keeps them, even if your products stop being as good.

Find out how much you need to spend. Write it down. WRITE IT. It looks good on the business plan when you know how much you're going to spend and how much you expect to learn. Go and scout every equipment and place and people you need to pay for.

Don't spend too long on market research. The business plan is obsolete at the printer, or even long before that. What many business schools don't teach is that you'll never get everything. You're going to make a lot of estimates - just make sure you're being as realistic and objective as you can. With anything as risky and big as this, you want to know where you're going.


If you don't have time, don't start. It'll be very stressful. It looks good on college application, though, and it is possible to pull it off. In the civilized world where they don't have child labor laws, teenagers run food stalls all the time.

But don't just mope around. Spend your free time planning out the whole thing. A good business plan really helps. At the very least, it'll comfort you. You seem very nervous about doing this, and having a good business plan will clear that. Also contrary to what they may teach you in some places, business plans should be as short as possible, so keep it simple.

[abculatter_2]

Alight, I'm going to declare now that, as has been proven to me many times, an online order bakery simply will not work, and I'm no longer planning that.

Instead, I've been thinking of starting a local delivery service which sells, at first, fresh pies, tarts, cookies, bread, biscuits, and scones. I'm going to make a brochure I can pass out at school which lists all the stuff they can order, along with a phone number, email, and, if I can find a place to put the drop-box, an order form which I can pick up at the end of every school day. I'll then be able to fill out those orders and, in most cases, be able to bake and deliver them the next day, possibly also setting up a place where they can pick up their orders after school.

I'm planning on starting small, just within my school, since I can't handle too many orders at a single time. Once I've proven that people will actually buy stuff from me and made a fair profit (in comparison to how much money I put into it) I might be able to convince my dad to loan me some money so I could expand production and start passing out the brochures to the local area. Somewhere around here I'd probably have to hire someone to help with the baking (my brother or other family would probably be a good candidate for this, and I could probably find a few trustworthy people at school if that's not enough). I'd also be constantly expanding the menu, adding more items as I'm able to buy more ingredients and having a special-request option for people who have a recipe in mind that's not on the menu yet, and don't have the time/will to make it.

In any case, I should be able to at least get my feet wet with what I have now, and I'm not actually starting this until the 27th, when my cross-country season ends. At least, if I finally decide on a menu and prices...

[Sowelu]

You need a solid business model with these characteristics:
- Stable work and income that doesn't vary week-to-week
- Not much advertising cost
- The ability to scale up or down at will, because you will start SMALL.

Now, if you don't feel bad ripping off someone's awesome business model, let me give you an example of one totally awesome model I read about.  It was probably an article online, though for some reason I've got this niggling sensation that it might have been from Freakonomics:

Regular contracts with medium-to-large businesses.  This guy's business model was as follows.  He brings a box of bagels, and a tin with a sign that says "Bagels $1.00", and sets them in the lounge.  Yeah, that's it.  Honor system.  He talks to the secretary who talks to a boss and they say "Sure, we'll let you do that, you can come by every day or two".  Maybe one guy in four is going to rip you off, but you can eat the costs if you do it large enough scale (and if a company rips you off too much, drop them).  Make sure you bring the right amount of bagels:  There shouldn't be any left when you come back with more and pick up the money.

This business model is good because you spend your time doing two things.  1) making bagels, 2) driving, 3) nothing else.  You aren't standing around at a stand waiting for people to buy.  All your time is spent being active.  You won't get too-big or too-small orders once you get these 'contracts'; they're regular business.  And when business is very light you can do all the baking and driving yourself, but if it gets hectic, just hire another guy part-time to bake and/or drive on whatever days it's necessary.  Oh yeah--and bosses like this 'contract' because they are not on the hook for ANYTHING.  They don't owe you anything.  It's your stock, your money, it's transactions between you and the customers.  All they need to provide you with is a couple square feet of counter space, and two minutes of receptionist time every day or two.  In return, their employees will go outside for snacks less often.

Another bagel-related similar thing I've seen was more of a contract, more involved, but also more reliable with higher returns.  A bagel store that specialized in high-end cream cheese (schmear) actually came in every day at 9:30 AM with two employees, and set up a bagel line for oh, 15 minutes or so.  You get in line, pick your bagel and get it sliced (maybe optionally toasted), and you get your choice of extremely high quality and decadent cream cheese in various flavors.  Their bagels were extremely fresh because you always got them as soon as they showed up.  I think they charged $1.50 for the bagel and $1.00 for the schmear, and had about...I dunno, 20 customers a day from our company?  Let's say their two employees each needed half an hour in driving + selling per company.  Probably made $40 from one man-hour, minus material cost and the baking itself.  Not bad!

You get no bagel-theft from this option, and it's just as reliable of business because it's contract based.  OTOH, you need more employees, and it's a lot tougher to get business owners to sign up for it.  Your timing windows are probably trickier too:  most companies would want this at breakfast or lunch, whereas the buy-your-own-bagel option can happen at almost any time of day.

Neither of these options need a storefront at all, but the second option would work well with one (since people are likely to come in and buy their own boxes of bagels and delicious cream cheese).  You can do all the "advertising" by calling around to various businesses yourself.  Avoid having a storefront if at all possible:  Start out as a baking service, not a store.


Oh yeah, and there was an anecdote about the honor-system method.  At BIG companies with multi-floor buildings that segregated different employee classes (upper management had its own floor), bagel-theft was much more prominent among management.  Easy to notice, because you compare bagels taken vs. money left on a per floor basis.  They figured that upper management had more sense of entitlement.  The low-level workers almost never stole bagels at all.

[abculatter_2]

That's actually a very good business model, and I'd love to do that if I could, but there aren't any big office buildings I can sell them at, and I'm sure as hell NOT going to rely on the honor system at school or in general public. Besides that, I'd only be able to sell whatever I sell at school after school, otherwise I'd be competing with the cafeteria, which is illegal. Plus, now that I think about it, I'll probably be able to make a few extra bucks per-order in delivery costs if I deliver straight to their house, with the option of them coming to me if they don't want to pay that.

Plus, I'm not sure if pies would be very good for that system... maybe the other stuff, but I was planning on having a focus on pies.

Also, I have the last two of those three characteristics, though the first one's probably the most important. But on the flip side, I only have to fulfill orders if people make orders.

Also also, competing with a well-established business is going to be a bitch.

[Sowelu]

Pies are cheap at Safeway (if a little stale-tasting), and one of the reasons people like pie is making it themselves.

Make unusual pies to set yourself apart.  Orange pie!  Orange CREAMSICLE pie?

Delivering small orders to houses sounds like a bad idea.  Remember, the price of gas is about $0.10/mile for average cars, and when you consider the price of the car and maintenance, it goes up to more like $0.15/mile.  (This is why it's so important to tip your pizza guy.)