Update on Starting a Business

It's been a month since I alluded to a new business opportunity I am pursuing. It's been a busy month, but there's still more work to do. Here's what I've been up to:

• Site selection. We had second thoughts about the original location we had selected and spent most of November looking at alternatives. We are getting very close.
• Formalizing the business. The LLC has been formalized and I got the paperwork back from the Secretary of State. This is important because it means our name did not conflict with any other LLC in the state.
• Funding the Business. Our silent investor had some hurdles to jump through to access the funds. This has been the biggest obstacle thus far as we cannot sign a lease until there is money in the bank. Worse, the investor is only able to fund about half what we originally discussed. Not a deal breaker but definitely not the news I wanted to hear.
• Networking. I met with the CFO of the company I used to work at and he gave me some good advice. He also did a sanity check of my projections and overall he thought my calculations were reasonable.

I'm still holding back on revealing the business we are creating. I don't know why I think it's bad luck to do it now since I'm not usually superstitious. Here's a hint. It is a retail operation: we will be selling to individual customers, not businesses.