The Business End, Part 3: The SBA and Doing My Homework

Who out there knew about the Small Business Administration? The FEDERAL AGENCY DESIGNED TO SUPPORT SMALL BUSINESS IN THE UNITED STATES?

All of you suck for not telling me sooner.

I have an appointment next week to meet with one of their counselors and talk about my business idea, practical issues regarding a food based business, and the resources available from the SBA.

Holly, my friend extraordinaire, has suggested that she would like to be a part of this venture. I will definitely need another set of hands and a better brain than mine on this. And it would be fun to do something with Holly, though I don't want to risk our friendship either. It will be a test of our ability to be open and communicate clearly with each other. Joseph also said he was interested and maybe he can provide some of the data management support.

Tonight, I'm reading Sell Your Specialty Food, and it seems at first glance to be an awesome resource. I'm going to follow the steps that it suggests, the first being to develop a vision statement of what I would like to achieve.

Here goes.

"Love and Caramels (working title) will make unique and creative organic artisan caramels. We will use only organic ingredients with as little refining as possible. We will strive to be aware of the sources of all of our ingredients and to forge relationships with the farmers and craftspeople who make them, creating an unbroken source of energy and love from the earth in what we make. As a company we will be environmentally and in all other ways responsible and impeccably honest in all of our relationships. Love and Caramels will be a way for us to bring joy to our customers, to our partners, and to ourselves and our families."

I know, it's a first draft.

And for a tagline:

"sweet disorder, judiciously arranged."

The Business End, Part 1: A Journey of a Thousand Caramels Begins With a Single Feh.

Now comes the nuts and bolts, the nitty gritty. There are many tasks in this business of starting a business that are creative and discretionary (what should I call it? what should I use for packaging? should I incorporate as an LLC?) But some questions are NOT. Some questions just need answers:

1. Do I need a food handler's license?
2. Must I use a commercial kitchen?
3. How can I get my caramels certified Organic Free Range Happy Caramels?
4. What do my labels have to say and will they need a barcode, or is that optional?
5. If I must include nutritional information, how do I find that out or can I do the math myself?
6. Should I just get a job at UW and forget about this?

Feh.

I need to do my homework, but feel free to weigh in with answers if you know them.

In the meantime, however, I shall make more caramels. Feeling uninspired to experiment, I think I'll whip up a batch of classic light butter cinnamon. Perhaps I will experimentally dust some of them with strange things and force my friends to try them.

Also, SEE THIS MOVIE.

Also, I need to figure out what to get everyone for my Birthday Party. Richard and Holly and Elda I have figured out. But Paul? Jack? Chad? Beth? Jessica? Joan? Hmmmm.

Nothing is better than a juicy logistical problem. It's fun to think about each person and try to sort out what they would like, what would be good. Besides caramels, because of course everyone will be getting those.

This Might Be A Mistake. Seriously.

What inspired this blogging thing was a combination of my friend Jessica, a fantastic writer of comedy and satire, who wanted to share a blog (and may ultimately join me here), and my friend Richard, chef extraordinaire, who has been working hard to make me swoon with his emails that I affectionately refer to as "food p*rn".

So I figured I would write some of my own food p*rn and share it more widely, probably post some of Richard's (with permission, of course), as well as review some of the weirder aspects of my life and see if I can make more sense of it in public, since it sure seems totally normal in the privacy of my own head but I am assured, by the few who know me well, that it is not.

This might be a mistake, in other words. But here goes.

Caramel, Part I: I Have Walked a Mile for a Caramel.

I love caramel. Did I say love? I have eaten caramel and left behind the ice cream it came in. I have gotten drunk on rum caramel bread pudding. I have followed caramel around, trying to get it to go on a date with me, until it called me a stalker and got an order of protection and moved to another state.

So here is the story of how I am starting a small business making caramels. It remains to be seen whether it will be successful, but hopefully it will be fun to watch.

Over the holidays, in an Obama-inspired glow, I decided to try my hand at making home-made caramels to give them as gifts. I found a few different caramel recipes, sort of melded them together using alternative (read, unrefined, organic, and as locally-produced as possible) ingredients that I liked, and casually attempted my first batch.

Ha. Ha ha. Sigh.