Those who know me here at Read.Cash know that at some point I started my own bakery from my home. Production was small: we produce between 400 and 500 loaves per week. However, this small production under good management led us to grow rapidly. Every time we had more clients and I received many congratulations from my neighbors for the good bread that has been lost in Venezuela due to the crisis.
I couldn't continue producing because the oven where I cooked the bread was borrowed. A friend of my partner had loaned them to us. She took them off and we stopped producing. But my biggest mistake has not been starting the business with a borrowed oven, no, that wasn't my worst mistake. The problem now is that I never clarified the business with my friend, we never put the terms of society on the table and now even our friendship is at risk.
At first it all started as a small friends business. However, as time went by as the business matured, the differences between us began to appear. The first difference is age: she is a 60 year old woman and I am a 26 year old young man. I really admire her spirit of not giving up in the face of adversity, her youngest daughter left the country and the eldest does not help her much. I needed an urgent money inflow. Instead, I want to start a company, create a business. This implies not making a profit during the first days. And a lot of sacrifice. She does not have the capacity for this.
The bakery demands a lot. Get up early and have plenty of energy to knead by hand. We do not have the ability to purchase a kitchen helper. We were only able to buy two extra trays (the others were on loan). At his age it is very admirable that he persists in making bread, however, it is not enough. The difference between her and me is abysmal in terms of product finish and time to make it. I am very patient with her and I understand her. But otherwise it would not be so, I am very demanding with myself and therefore with my collaborators.
The most important difference between her and me is the vision of the business. I want to grow it to very high levels. It is my dream and I am ambitious. She wants to live on it right now. And doing that here in Venezuela is complicated because small businesses do not survive hyperinflation, so it is logical to take the profits and continue investing to find a balance point where you can really take the profits.
I am determined to end society, until now only in word, but I am a loyal man and who can be trusted, I would not like to make her feel that I am betraying her or doing her any harm, but business is business. But I also have my ambitions and I do everything to go after them. Right now I find myself in a dilemma: I want to end the relationship without ending our friendship, I would not like her to feel bad about my decision, but I must also move on. Particularly, what prevents me from this is the terms of separation: we buy some things together, and I would like to buy your part to continue with the bakery once I have an oven and that she does not feel helpless. I also wouldn't want to make her feel like she wasted her time, but this is deeper. It is deeper because from the beginning it was my dream and she turned it into hers too. Now I think it could break your heart, because our business started as friends and not as partners.
To move forward, I am thinking of starting a fundraising campaign to start my bakery from my home. Already more mature and with clearer objectives. I will be developing the approach and I hope to receive your support as soon as I do. Thank you very much to all who have supported me from the beginning, I will not disappoint them.
Post-data: If you are going to do business with your friends, sit down and make everything very clear from the beginning !!
Whenever there is money involved, everything must be clarified, and if it is written better, I hope that your friendship does not end, let him know that you did not use it to pursue your dreams of creating a bakery, good luck ...