Figured I'd ask here. You guys want another thread like this, this time starting a retail business in California, the so called 'worst business climate' state?
My wife and I are going to be opening a small (1100 sq ft) retail boutique in a Sacramento suburb selling woman's cloths, gifts, small home items, candles ect. Think Anthropologie with a little lower price point. I'll be covering financials / inventory and helping with store design once we get in our space. Our lease is signed but we won't start working on our space until February because they still need to put up walls. We've got all our wholesalers picked out and are heading down to LA in Jan to one of the bigger trade shows to get hands on some of the inventory we want. Wife will obviously be working at the store full time (I'll keep my day job). We're self financed and based on our business plan have enough funds to stay open a year and pay all our business / personal bills assuming 0 sales. So pretty much, if within the first year we aren't netting about 3k a month (or about 8k gross sales), we're done.
If you want another thread I'll probably start it in Feb once we start work on the store. I will say, working with the bureaucrats in CA (getting licenses, sales/tax accounts, incorporating, questions answered) has surprisingly been a pleasure. Everyone I've worked with has been nice and goes out of there way to make sure I do shit right. I couldn't believe it at first.