
Ask HN: What's the business and finance model behind new retail stores? - andrewstuart
Say I have an idea for a great new bricks and mortar retail store.<p>What does that cost?  It can&#x27;t be cheap to do properly - to fit out a beautifully designed space - minimum $50K to $100K?<p>Say you had an idea for retail that was going to cost $250,000 to create the retail environment..... what are the options to finance that - are there angels who specialise in retail or do you just have to have a house and get a second mortgage?<p>Where do people get the money to do that?  There&#x27;s so much retail out there but not alot of that side of business gets discussed.
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rossdavidh
So, my wife has a (very small) retail clothing store, started about 15 years
ago. Since then, she has compared notes with many other owners of retail
stores. The number one feature that is shared by those who are still in
business five years later, is not taking on a bunch of debt.

There is a cycle: spend, see results, learn from that. If you take on a bunch
of debt, it's like you're doing all the spending at first, then getting the
results, then doing the learning (for your "our startup went bust, here's what
we learned" blog post). In a way, a business loan is sort of like a waterfall
software project. Don't do that. Do agile.

Rent a small space, probably subleasing from somebody else, and see what
works. Then do more of what works. It is harder at first, but a lot of people
who take out big loans, don't realize how much they don't know yet, and spend
the money on all the wrong things. What are the right things? It depends on
your market, your product type, your customers, and therefore the best way to
find it out is to do it on a small scale and watch carefully what works.

