Egyptian Delights: A Lucrative Startup Business
Egyptian Delights is a recent retail company that will sell Egyptian sweets and coffee. The company will be based in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina, which is one of the region's strongest business centers. Because of the appropriate location and the uniqueness of the international product, it has the potential to be a lucrative enterprise. Smarts intends to include a mobile food truck that can go to various locations to market the goods, maximizing the number of customers served. To begin regular operations, the pair just wants a tractor, service furniture, utensils, staff, and a manufacturing stage. The zeal to open Egyptian Delights comes from Smarts' passion for baking. The unique Egyptian desserts inspired the couple, and they think they can sell them in the US. The business will help them subsidize their incomes from the North Carolina State University where they teach as college professors. They also want to start a small business to allow them to have sufficient time for travel, unlike the large companies that are quite time-consuming. Therefore, the enterprise will be in the form of a partnership that has minimal legal procedures that only include the acquisition of permit license, and at the same time only operates on a small scale. Nevertheless, the two will have to exercise effective management to integrate the resources and knowledge through the startup stage, finances, marketing, leadership and motivation, and team building.
Challenges Facing Startup Businesses
A startup business has several difficulties that the owners have to face and probably find solutions to ensure success. For the proposed Egyptian Delights, the Smarts will find it necessary to alter their lifestyle, a fact that might inconvenience them. The couple will have to dedicate some time to run the business outside their free time that they initially used for leisure and traveling. Besides, they will involve themselves in commercial research as opposed to only the academic-oriented activities that they did before starting the business. At the start of the café, they might also cut on some of their consumable commodities given that they will have to save as much money as possible to cater for the initial capital before the enterprise can start realizing profits (Exploring Business 2014, p.6). To an extent, the two will experience lack of sufficient time to spend with one another in their marriage since a partnership business will see them also engaged in the management of the organization.
Another challenge will be that of obtaining and managing finances at the beginning. Typically, the couple does not earn a lot of money to guarantee them much savings for the startup business. Therefore, it might be a problem in trying to obtain more funds that can be through loans or assistance from friends. At times the money that they source from outside might not take care of all the needs, thus hindering the ability to offer large-scale services (Productivity Teams, 2016, p.3). Moreover, the fact that the two have not been into any business will pose the challenge of how to manage the cash flow. Therefore, Smarts will be at the risk of losing money as a result of mismanagement.
Form of Business
Smarts need to startup a partnership business given that they will only require fulfill few legal procedures to obtain license. This kind of activity will give them an opportunity to manage the café directly and share the profits without payment of corporate tax (Exploring Business 2014, p.129). The fact that the business will be mobile further makes it suitable since a company might require them to have a permanent physical location regarding premises.
Marketing
One important concept of marketing that can apply to the café business is 4 Ps. The elements contained in this idea are the product, promotion, price, and place. The product refers to the item that the business will offer to the consumers. For effective marketing, the enterprise will have to provide a unique commodity that appeals to the buyers more than the existing ones in the market (Exploring Business 2014, p.20). Therefore, there is the need to do a thorough research on the proposed product and customize it to meet the consumer needs. Once the business commences, the employees need to ensure uniformity in the quality of the Egyptian desserts to help build a known brand.
The element of promotion concerns the use of adequate channels of spreading information to the targeted consumers. The couple needs to invest in the mainstream media such as radio and television to create awareness as well as the social media such as Facebook and Twitter to engage the potential customers by telling them about the product and inviting them to the café (Exploring Business 2014, p.13). Also, the workers should focus on enticing the visiting persons by serving them well and convincing them through word of mouth to come again and buy from the firm.
The pricing of the products should be within the market range for the alternative commodities that other businesses offer. Such an approach will see the business sell at supply and demand-sensitive prices, thereby, enhancing the consumers' ability to purchase. Also, the customers will have limited room to judge the products based on superiority or inferiority that often comes when the commodities are highly priced or charged low respectively (Exploring Business 2014, p.21). The business will have to sell at relatively higher prices when the demand increases and at reduced rates when the orders decrease. Typically, there will be a high supply to the buyers when the demand is high and vice versa.
Lastly, the place of sales will have to be in the areas where the business can maximize revenues. For instance, the food truck should visit the industrial areas where the workers are likely to stop by and have some of the pastry. Proper timing is required to ensure that the truck is available for the buyers when they have time to buy (Food Trucks Empire, 2014, p.1). For instance, it is necessary to drive to particular industrial places during lunch break and in the evenings, when people can visit.
Finance
There are several financing options that the Smarts might explore. The couple could use loans, savings, or small donations from friends and family members to finance the business. They can obtain loans from the bank though with a later payment with interest included, thus, minimizing the enterprise's profitability during the repayment period. The help from friends and family members is also a way of getting capital except that the entrepreneurs cannot know the specific amount that they will obtain, thereby, inconveniencing their plans. Therefore, savings is the best method because they will not be owing money to any third party or even subject to paying interests that lower net profits (Food Trucks Empire, 2014, p.2). Nevertheless, there is the need to allocate a particular source for additional financing in the cases of emergency. The suitable alternative is the loan because the two can easily access loans unlike the money from family and friends that has no reliability.
Leadership and Motivation
The Smarts can lead their employees through collaboration that allow the workers contribute their ideas towards achieving the set goals. Therefore, they will embrace team leadership that will give the two the opportunity to form productive groups that inspire one another and contribute ideas for success. Working as a team is of necessity as it will enable the owners who are also not experienced in this line of business to learn from the rest (Productivity Teams, 2016, p.3). Notably, a good leadership style is the one that facilitates the leader to influence the workers in achieving the targets effectively. Motivation is one tool that the couple will need to employ because it helps the employees to work with enthusiasm and focus on reaching the organization goals.
Building a Team
The Smarts need to hire workers from the beginning, because they cannot work fulltime in the business. Besides, they are not experienced in conducting such an undertaking. Therefore, the team of workers should comprise professional chefs as well as customer service personnel to enhance the quality of products and services (Productivity Teams, 2016, p.3). The couple needs to engage a recruitment company to help them obtain the suitable candidates.
Conclusion
Overall, Egyptian Delights is profit potential business that only requires effective management and integration of resources. However, the founders are likely to face the startup challenges that are related to change in lifestyle, compromise in marriage, and finance. The problems will come about given that the business will be a partnership where the Smarts will be all involved. Nevertheless, the prosperity of the enterprise will rely on the successful application of the prescribed concepts such as the 4 P's of marketing, team leadership, and employee motivation. The couple also needs to consider the use of loans for emergency cases where the savings might be insufficient.
References
Exploring Business (2014). Washington, DC: The Saylor Foundation.
Food Trucks Empire (2014). The complete breakdown of food truck operation costs. Food Truck Empire. Retrieved on 30th October, 2017 http://foodtruckempire.com/how-to/costs/
Productivity Teams (2016). 11 challenges startups face.Teamwork.com. Retrieved on 30th October, 2017 https://blog.teamwork.com/11-challenges-startups-face/
