Have you worked in the trade before venturing out on your own?
Speaking from direct experience, I'd spend at least a year in the trade working for someone else before taking it on yourself - it can be a real eye-opener without the financial devastation if you're on somebody else's dime.
Been there, done that
And no disrespect intended, but most of us LFS types are pretty protective of our sources - there is only so much livestock to go around and once we hit on a great source, we're not about to share it with somebody else - lest you go and buy up all the good stuff we were going to order this week
The great advantage to working for someone else is that you'll learn firsthand who the good suppliers are, as well as the not-so-good ones.
It's a tough business - my advice is to work in it for a while, write a solid business plan and expect to starve for the first 5 years
Cheers,
Jenn
__________________
Member of the "J" Crowd & the BRW Crowd!
LFS Owner:
Imagine Ocean
Just keep skimming, just keep skimming, just keep skimming, skimming skimming! What do we do? We skim, skim, skim!
