November 4, 2015
Today was my first meeting with my mentor Kristen. We met at 11:30 am after school at The Early Bird itself for lunch. Not only did we go over and make a solid plan on what I would be working on for my Capstone project, but she gave me some basic information on how it all started. Kristen explained to me that both her and Daniel were trained chefs at the Omni hotel in Broomfield Colorado. She explained that that is where they met 15 years ago. It is evident that the hotel industry is a 24 hour a day company being because the need for room service. Both Daniel and Kristen were working 90 hours a week, and began to know each other very well. She explained that they began to be interested in each other on a different level, and they both came to the conclusion that they strived to aspire in opening a business together one day. In September 2000, they got married and moved to Chicago together. Daniel got a job in the Park Hyatt occupying as a chef. It was explained to me that the scenery and thousands of little breakfast places gave them idea to themselves oepen a breakfast joint rather than any other business. They fell in love with the city, and wanted to bring a little taste of it back to Colorado. Eight years later their Daughter Isabelle was born. They decided to name their business The Early Bird no matter what they ended up doing due to the fact that Isabelle was premature.
This soon lead to Daniel and Kristen having to work separate shifts. One am shift had to be covered by Kristen, and Daniel had to take the pm shift in order for their new born to be under intense supervision at all times. After a few years had gone by, Kristen got a job at Johnson and Wales and quit the hotel industry business. The couple was somewhat financially stable, but the dream of being young entrepreneurs was still in the back of their minds. Kristen and Daniel found the location by simply driving by and deciding to walk into the empty space. Unusually, they found the space before they were even one hundred percent positive of what they were going to incorporate in the open space. Kristen and Daniel were so excited about the new piece of property they had found, that they automatically made an offer. Unfortunately the space was too expensive. The landowner gave the couple the advice to look at a failing pizzeria down the street. At first they declined the offer to the fact that the space was 3 times smaller than their original plan, but they ended up signing the lease anyways. Kristen actually is thankful their first offer got declined, fearing that their business would've failed if it was any bigger considering there would be more expenses. Once Kristen and Daniel signed the lease, they now had to decide what they were actually going to make this empty pizzeria into. They landed upon the idea of a good breakfast joint due to the fact that they and almost everyone they knew were tired of traveling to either Denver or Boulder for decent food. Kristen was ecstatic to finally have a basic plan. She began to make a dream board with ideas from magazines, cut outs and other ideas that could give her a base to designing the restaurant into what they hoped to be a city like, modern farm house theme. The couple soon began working with the small business development center through small business administration. They helped Kristen and Daniel develope a business plan through Front Range Community College. In Addition with working with this business, they also began to come up with financials. An obstacle that they came across not including the money situation, was the business aspect. Kristen made me aware that there were some days when only 10 customers came in. She came to the conclusion that this was because their marketing was weak. They didnt chose to adverstse at firs because of the financials. This made customers unaware of this new breakfeast jackpot in broomfiled colorado. Kristen and Daniel invested 50k themselves at the begining ofd this project and borrowed 140k from the bank. This in reality, is very inexpenisve for starting a business. Although this was inexpenive for a new busines, the couple was very aware about their finacials. They began by buying plates, glasses and silverware from garage sales, and closing local coffee shops. They would then paint over the logos and cover it with chalk paint, allowing them to wrote their own logos on the cups. They paid no more than 50 cents per piece of silverware. Kristen and Daniel were very wise about money causing them extreme success in the future. At the end of 2009, the economy was extremly bad, causing them to take 2 years to oepen a business. It was several times they came across banks that would staright up tell them no to lending them money. This was very disheartening to KristenThey signed the lease May of 2012 and The Early Bird finally opened Augusyt 15, 2012, their three year aniversay being this past August. Studies show that if a business makes more profit than put into opening the business after three years, it is 100% bound to be sucessful. Another brilliant apspect on their part was the fact that they made sure to get a restarunt with overhead and appliances bc of expensives. Overall, Daniel and Kristen are very wise and creative,. They are productive thinkers. They decided to do breakfast because of the theory that although a dinner plate might end up being 30 dollars, 20 of it the restaurant pays for, while breakfast is 12 but only costs 2 dollars. This makes profit margins much higher. Another obstacle these sucessful entreprenuers came across was that they constantly had to redo their business plan because their business planner determind there wasn't focused enough. She was too creative and had too many ideas on how spectacular this business could be. He told her she needed top speciafically focus on the plan itsef, and this was a great learning experience for her. Another issue was keeping their workers. Teo and Jenia are the only workers that are still present from the day The Early Bird opened.They kept their head up, set goals, and are not very successful. It was not too hard for them to find employees but finding professional cooks that soon one day aspires to be chefs was the unsettling part of this process. Because Kristen taught at Johnson and Wales, she had students come and work for free. They would intern and work for a day again, saving them money. The couple also hired an architect but they prefered to be hands on. They also hired an energy artist at the beginning of the process in order to make sure the energy throughout the restaurant didn't go in through the front and out the back. The same theory was implanted with curtains. Punctuating energy was important. Shiny things could only be in one corner, will dull things in another. I have learned that starting a business is not nearly as easy as it seems had a ton of different aspects come along with it. Recently, Kristen applied for a liquor license and is waiting to hear back. They are attempting to look for their profits to increase 30.% According to studies, their business has grown 20-30% each year it has been open. Not only does this successful couple have a successful business, but Daniel does consulting too. He has helped create the flavors and produce products for annie's mac n cheese, qdobas queso and more. He works with the culinary consul and incorporates things into catering. This also lead to another problem. The couple attempted to do some sort of corporate catering like einstein's, where you can buy things such as a dozen bagels to go, but they just couldn't get it right. Not only is food a product they sell, but they sell sweatshirts, shirts and longsleeves. Overall, starting a business was very difficult but all in all worth it.
In addition to learning how the business started in general, we also determined what I would be working on, and we picked a day to work every week(Wednesdays) I will be......
taking pictures of all items we are going to sell
promoting insta and Facebook
coming up with a plan
pre opening a marketing plan
making a timeline: who why when where how
come up with packaging instead of just throwing in a box
making a card to throw in a box
advertisement
creating room service plan (delivery to million dollar homes)
help with opening next spring
going down to the new location before and after (pictures)
going for elegant modern farm house
helping decorate
