The Dojo of Karate

A lot has happen since my last post, but at the same time not a lot.

Yes, I know. You’re probably thinking, “how’s that possible?” Well, my landlord has already received the check for my space, which covers my first month’s rent and a deposit - which I can probably kiss goodbye ’cause how often do you ever get your deposit back?

Anyways, I do not have full access to the place because, A) State Farm is still in there, and probably won’t be out until March 1st, and B) Blockbuster needs to approve my business with a written statement. A verbal “yes” isn’t gonna work. This is just killing me! I just found out about this two weeks ago. Yeah, this is beginning to get VERY annoying. Otherwise the space is mine.

As for my lender, I already sent a copy of my lease last week, as they need to “bless” it. And, they also need proof of insurance. I think the insurance should be taken care of by this week. I’ve received a few quotes and found a company that seems to be comparable to other providers, at a reasonable rate. After that’s done, I get my SBA loan fully injected into my account.

Now that most of the logistics and immediate paper work has been ironed out, I’ve got one big task to take care of… getting a general contractor, an architect, and builder permit(s) in the next few days to two weeks. I may already have a general contractor though. A co-worker of mine - her husband is a general contractor and does great work. Talked to him and he’s willing to take a look at the space and put in a bid. He also knows an architect that can probably stamp a design for the city to approve. From there, I guess he just needs permission from the city to do work in Westminster - and pay some sort of fee. That’s another thing… there are all sorts of fees in starting your own business at a brick and mortar location. This is something I definitely didn’t take into consideration. Anyways, if I can get a builders permit soon, and once State Farm leaves, we can start doing the demo and make finalizations to my place. I think I’m now looking at late March, early April. About 6 weeks behind schedule, but I guess I can’t complain, right?

As for talking to my manager about starting my own business… well that went really well. She’s quite happy for my decision, but some changes have taken place at work, so this may become a difficult transition. This is a topic I can not talk about… mainly because I want to keep everything in my blog about The Dojo.

Well, I hope I make more strides this week!

Subscribe to The Dojo of Karate by Email