Pivoting / Evolving your small business

[Daniel Courtney Gallery]

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Hi Guys,

I’m wondering if anyone here has pivoted or evolved their original small business as circumstances or conditions change? Or have you all just stuck with what you originally wanted to do until it succeeded?

We have a Fine Art Gallery, and while we did really well over Christmas, our traffic numbers and turnover has crashed into the New Year.

Our temporary lease is finishing soon, so we have to make a decision whether to keep at it, and if we do keep at it, where we do so.

In the search for premises to move to, a spot came up that was already food approved with Cafe equipment, and that is a suitable size to suit the gallery also. Best of all, the price of it is within what we thought we could afford just for the gallery.

We are in the process of lease negotiations now but expect to go forward with a combined Gallery and Cafe. It’s super scary because we never had a dream to open a successful cafe, just a successful gallery. However we don’t think the Gallery by itself will be viable in the short – medium term. The businesses will sync well, I’m just looking to see if anyone else has sort of been dictated by circumstances or something else to do something that they weren’t really passionate about, and has it worked out for you?

Dan

[Johny]

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Done with a decent amount of thought, I reckon the gallery/café concept is a great match. Not my thing, but I can see some logic in the meeting of the two above just diversifying the income stream.

My business (Hong Kong based) has traditionally been involved with sourcing products out of China. For the last couple of years some circumstances have arisen that have taken us in a completely different direction – importing some Australian foods into Hong Kong.

We are still doing the sourcing, but our business is evolving and we are doing more importing of a growing range of products.

I tend to think the basics are pretty much the same in every business (networking/selling etc), but it has involved a whole bunch of learning new things, developing new relationships and the usual.

A lot more risk in terms of us having to have stock available, but this new challenge is something I am really enjoying. Of course one thing is accepting the time it takes to get up and running and building some sort of trust within a new environment… but that’s part of the challenge.

Good luck and hope it goes well.

[Rowan@quaotic]

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My farm business was originally a market garden specialising in rare and unusual vegetables to sell fresh to local towns and close cities. When the biosecurity law changed for taking my produce over the border to my nearest city, really my best income source, and made it so much harder and more expensive I did some asking around and decided to grow my vegetables for seed instead.
It was the best decision I could make because not only do I like this business better now, but I am the only persona in Australia with a rare vegetable seed business – nearly all vegetable seed is imported and the import laws are getting so strict that seed companies are calling all the time to buy seed.

Being forced to change my business model worked well for me. I like the idea of a combines gallery and cafe so I hope it goes well for you.

[bb1]

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Daniel Courtney Gallery, post: 263738, member: 113302 wrote:

We are in the process of lease negotiations now but expect to go forward with a combined Gallery and Cafe. It’s super scary because we never had a dream to open a successful cafe, just a successful gallery. However we don’t think the Gallery by itself will be viable in the short – medium term. The businesses will sync well, I’m just looking to see if anyone else has sort of been dictated by circumstances or something else to do something that they weren’t really passionate about, and has it worked out for you?

Dany

Sounds like a good idea, and I have seen a few of this combination work.

But I thought of 2 very important questions when I read this.

1. Can you cook, and I don’t just mean food for dinner at night, something different and café quality, if not forget it.

2. Can you provide customer service, may sound silly but customer service for running a café is totally different to that for running a gallery.

[Peter – FS Administrator]

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Hi Daniel,

As a general comment I would say that many many businesses will pivot and evolve – often quite dramatically – away from the original vision. Sometimes this can be forced upon you by changes in circumstances and other times new opportunities crop up that lead to a new product or service that wasn’t previously on the plans.

So I do think there is merit in considering big changes, especially when you appear to have concluded that the gallery on its own may not be viable.

If the cafe addition enables you to pursue your passion for the gallery (which may otherwise not be feasible) then it has the potential to achieve the end goal of a profitable business that you are passionate about.

Having said that, as others have mentioned, you’d want to go into the cafe with as much thought/planning as possible. You don’t have to take the space just because it is in the budget. But any new business is a risk, especially a new offering, so it will also come down to what you are comfortable investing and how long you give yourself to get it cranking!

There do seem to be a lot of cafe / retail businesses around so it’s certainly worth a look.

Good luck and keep us posted!
Peter

[Zava Design]

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bb1, post: 263745, member: 53375 wrote:

1. Can you cook, and I don’t just mean food for dinner at night, something different and café quality, if not forget it.
They could employ a chef, no? I know of a couple of cafe owners that didn’t do the cooking themselves, worked out okay for them.

[Dave Gillen – Former FS Concierge]

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Hi Daniel,

Successful pivots are usually a change resulting from some insight learned about a market. Like what’s selling best or what customers are demanding.

This cafe idea doesn’t seem like one of those. It seems like taking a stab at something new, and it’s not informed by your inside knowledge of your market.
Is a cafe really what your gallery was missing?

By all means start one if you’re excited by the idea and lifestyle, but it’s probably a challenging proposition on its own. If you’re still keen on it, find some successful examples and meet with the owners to see if/how/why it’s working.

Hope that’s not too negative.
Dave

Dave Gillen | LinkedIn

[bb1]

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Zava Design, post: 263752, member: 34615 wrote:

They could employ a chef, no? I know of a couple of cafe owners that didn’t do the cooking themselves, worked out okay for them.

Yep I agree, but leads to 2 things, hiring a chef or even just someone who can throw together some decent food isn’t cheap, and Dan states that a café was never on the horizon, so would he even know what to look for in a chef/cook or where to start in setting up a café.

The other question is why is this space available with all the setup done, did it work previously or was it a failure, and Dan is just throwing away more money.

I agree it could work, but by reading the original post, there has being no research done (ok he posted here, I guess thats research), but is already in contract negotiations. Does that sound a good way to startup any business, but in particular a café with all it’s inherent issues.

[Zava Design]

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I’m not sure you can take from the OP there’s been no research done, and he isn’t really asking for advice for his particular situation, more if others have faced a similar kind of “pivot/evolution”. So I’d trust he is doing his due diligence on what he can control just seeing if anyone else has done something similar.

[Daniel Courtney Gallery]

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Hi Guys,

Thanks for all the awesome posts, including the ones where your business has successfully pivoted.

The Cafe is being heavily researched. Previous Cafe at the location that failed – The owner made multiple mistakes, including, not providing sugar for the coffee’s because it ruined the taste, sitting paying the lease for a year before opening to get food permits, leasing the entire 3 storey building and not subleasing the other floors out, and lastly, when he finally opened the doors, he had 3 days fo trade before the council shut down the main road to implement a Light Rail that killed all of the traffic. (since completed).

Hospitality and Cooking – I have a hospitality background, having been a chef 12 or so years ago. Saying that, we don’t think we want to cook much, if we can even get a permit to do anything serious food wise, we believe (and are confirming) that the permit is only to provide light meals.

Synchronous businesses – The cafe will hopefully pay it’s own way at least, and possibly provide a small profit. By paying it’s own way, it allows us to have the gallery open whether we are there or not (7 days a week staffing the current gallery SUCKS). The rent is reasonable, it could probably standalone as either a gallery or a cafe, hopefully with both businesses operating it the rent becomes a negligible cost.

Neither of us really had a passion or a dream of starting a Cafe, but we think we can make it work. We believe that treating it more as a business prospect than a dream we will actually make better business decisions about it.

We have other options – There is a property across the road that is up for lease for less than half of this premises, but it’s quite small and would only just be suitable for a Gallery alone – We just don’t want to be sitting there or staffing it with no-one walking through the door, at least with the Cafe we are hoping to drive traffic.

[Zava Design]

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Daniel Courtney Gallery, post: 263762, member: 113302 wrote:

The Cafe is being heavily researched.
…and there we go…

[Peter – FS Administrator]

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Hi all,
This is a great thread, and a good example of how shared viewpoints and opinions can help shape a decision. It sounds like you’re going in with your eyes well and truly open and solid experience.
Having the skills to run the food/hospitality side of things is a huge advantage, even if you shortly outsource these elements to a team. Understanding exactly what’s needed makes it much better to lead others.
I’d love to hear how things progress.
Cheers
Peter

[elissa.doxey]

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Hi Daniel,
There was a gallery space near me that turned into a cafe/gallery/gifts combo. Mary runs the gallery/gift space and another company runs the cafe. Not sure where you’re based, but Post Industrial Design is in West Footscray, Melbourne & they’re very friendly if you wanted to pick their collective brains.
Or let me know if you’d like an intro.

Cheers,
Elissa

[businesstrade]

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Run the numbers, do the figures to see if the cafe is viable alongside/standalone with the art gallery and go with your gut. You know your business more so than other members of this place, use your judgement.

businesstrade.com.au - buy or sell a business

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