In any new business venture, funding is key. No money, no business. It’s just that simple. All of the next steps I need to take in setting up the Megalith Brewing taproom – from getting the necessary permits, signing a lease on a space, and assembling my brewing setup – will require more money than I have at my disposal right now.

My original financial plan relied heavily on being able to secure a sizable loan from a bank, hopefully one backed by the insurance provided by the SBA. The remainder of the financing was going to be raised through a combination of equity partnerships, and reward-based crowdfunding. Since reaching out to a local SBA-backed bank, though, it’s been explained to me that traditional lenders don’t like lending to high-risk borrowers, such as a nonexistent start-up being operated by someone with a history of credit problems like myself. In my situation, finding equity partners and relying more heavily on crowdfunding for initial capital are going to be the only real solution for me.
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Starting a business is no small thing. Over the years, I’ve started (or been involved in starting) at least a few, including Lunarbistro.com and Stumptown Comics, Inc. Normally they were as simple as getting a dba account at the bank, and paying an annual license fee to the state. The most complex one was getting the Stumptown Comics organization incorporated. But none of those businesses involved seeking funding, or developing any sort of a business plan. In both cases I felt a business plan was unnecessary – the freelance design business was so simple in structure, and Stumptown (while considerably more complex) had been well-established and fairly well-defined by example. When I started the process of thinking about this brewery, though, I knew I wanted to do this one differently.
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…Like getting the rest of this site styled properly, and sweeping away the last of the stylistic remnants of the wordpress template it’s built on. I still have a number of pages I’ll need to build before I’d call the site ‘Final’ by any stretch, but there’s a lot that still needs to happen before I’ll have any content for those pages.

Speaking of those things, whenever I’ve shared with folks that I’m putting this project together, one of the first questions I get asked is “Where’s it going to be?” This is the question I’m most anxious to have answered as well, but unfortunately it’s going to be a while before I have the answer. Having spoken to a few retail real estate agents, it’s clear that first I need to get my financing in order, which means sharing my business plan with the bank and getting that ever-elusive ‘Small Business Loan’. I’ve been told they’re fairly easy to get these days, and that I have a strong business plan going into it, but I’m not holding my breath. My over-riding philosophy with this project is not to be too disappointed if it doesn’t happen. Until it’s real and I’m hosting my grand opening party, Megalith Brewing is just a really cool dream brewery. And the next step to making this dream a reality is securing the funding to sign a lease and start applying for my permits.

In the meantime, I’m going to do the things I CAN do right now, like developing the branding and style guides for the business (which I want to also include with the business plan when I talk to the bank), and continuing to make more beer for the Tasting Party coming up later this spring (details to come soon!).