Shoreline Farm Supply- Down but maybe not out.

When I made the call to close the doors on the feed division of Shoreline Farm Supply, I received a lot of emotional responses back from our customer base.  Some people were shocked and upset, others gave an ‘I told you so’ kind of speech about the economy and how I have a flawed business model, and others just stopped responding to me.

I know it wasn’t fair for anyone.  We have worked hard to develop relationships with our clients and to bring in and stock what we believe to be the best variety on the market of feed and supplies.  As one client pointed out “You have real customers who rely on you”.  It is true.  We have our fans. 

Call it guilt.  Call it pride.  Call it whatever you want, but I want to explain a little bit about why I made the tough call to abruptly stop the feed supply.  It had nothing to do with business model- I still strongly believe that a business can and should start and maintain a zero borrowed money policy.  If you cannot afford to sell it, don’t.  It had nothing to do with the delivery model- this was a personal service that we offered out of our own salary as a service to the community.  It has nothing to do with stocking- we paid for what we offered up front and the product was good.  Still want to know why?  We missed a major milestone in our business plan.  We had lack of liquid capital in our business.  We were behind in the production and selling of chicken coops (a major money source for us) and there was no way to make it back up.  Our bank accounts were drained both company and personal and we felt that it would be irresponsible to try to continue as is. 

Where does this leave us?  Back to square one.  I really enjoyed the feed delivery, even my girls enjoyed it.  I need to build back up some capital before we give it a go again.  When we started the first time, we started with about $250.00.  Never borrowing or on credit, we built a pretty good business.  Problem is we experienced the common problem of small business- lack of capital.   We may be giving it another run, but this time we will raise the capital up front.  How much capital am I raising? $20,000.  Might seem like a drop in the bucket to some, but it is a mountain to us right now.  One step at a time.

I will give updates as soon as I get them.  Thanks.