A little nervous and excited. I opened my shop in October 2010, we do cupcakes daily and then custom cakes as well, we do okay as far as business but the market in my town is just down starting to expand to accept paying $2.00 for a cupcake and 3-4 per serving on cakes.

Anyways, a new donut shop opened last week and we have gone a few times for our morning pick me ups, and have gotten on good terms with the owners sister in law who owns two donut shops in a larger town. She comes and buys cupcakes nearly every day.

She approached me about going in together to open a cupcake shop in the town where she lives, It is considerablly larger, has a very good market, and there is not a cupcake shop there ( which is really surpirsing) . The lady has an incredible business sense, but she said cupcakes are not her style of baking and then the decorating ( we make ours fairly fancY). Right now we are just looking to see if there are suitable lease spaces available. Where we are looking at is about 1 hour from where I live ( but only 15 minutes from my parents) but once the shop is staffed and up and running I wouldnt have to be there all the time. So i am just thinking and praying and gonna see what happens. Who knows, maybe one day i'll have my own franchise....lol( doubt that, dont think i'd want it but it would be cool)

There is a lot to consider here. First you are going in to business with someone else. If I were you, I would separate your current shop from the new one, so that in the event things went sour, your current shop is safe. That means a new name too. The only exception to this would be if the other party is merely an investor and your maintain control. Another big thing to consider is quality. If you give the new shop the same name, will you be able to maintain quality in both locations. Quality of ingredients as well as quality in decoration. Nothing spreads faster than news from an unsatisfied customer. Your new shop has the potential to ruin the reputation for your old shop. Is there someone you trust enough to come in, run the new shop, and decorate to your standards? A sure fire way to kill your small business is to outgrow your current capabilities. You will now have book keeping for 2 stores, inventory, production, etc. Ask yourself this, can you remove yourself from your current location for a day? A week? A month at a time? And have things run smoothly?

that is one of the things that makes me nervous, a new shop would definately be a seperate entity from my current one, but i do worry about quality control. The new location would be cupcakes only, not cakes, and my location now I have two girls that are amazing and i know i can leave them with the shop because they have run it for a week without me a couple different times when i was on vacation and sick. I am nervouse about a partnership and would definatelt have to get to know the lady better, however just from other family members experience i do know it is better to go into business with someone you just know rather than a long time friend. I do know she is a sucessfull business person, she owns two donut shops and helps with several others that her family owns, she doesnt work full time, just when needed.

My biggest thing i think would be training people fro the new location ( i am a bit of a control freak) only because i have a certain way i think my recipes should be done and decorating should be done, and i am not a good teacher. I might have to get my current girls to go teach if we went ahead with it, i think it would be great to branch out and want to eventually but i am nervous becasue i dont know that i am ready when i am still new in my first shop.

Hi!! just a thought can you have production in just the first shop, and decorations in both or as is needed. I have seen cupcake shops in which they have regular flavors for their cupcakes and a special flavor for each day.
that way you centralize quality.

To my experiences it is better to go at it alone.

CIAO

don't know, i also thought about telling her if she wanted to open a shop, i could be hired as a consultant to get the shop up and running and train staff, but i dont know what to charge for that and i hate giving out my recipes i have worked to perfect without seeing any of the profits ( horrible i know), so i dont know, i think it would be awesome to have a second shop ( and wouldnt mind a business partner to share work load) but it is just a big decision where i need to thing of all the pros and cons and figure out all the details/aspects before making a final decision.

it just helps to get other people perspective because you guys can bring up issues i may not have thought about that need to be taken into consideration, Thanks!