Read Online With Love and Quiches by Susan Axelrod - Free Book Online
Authors: Susan Axelrod
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business. Jill’s husband, on the other hand, advised her against continuing, as did the rest of her family. She had more children than I did, as well as more social responsibilities, and although she really loved what she was doing, she could not devote the necessary time to take the steps to make the business profitable.
In other words, she couldn’t get serious about Love and Quiches, even though I was very much ready to. With our visions of the future so out of line, I often found myself alone in the shop at the end of the day holding the bag. Out of sheer frustration at this, I would sometimes eat coffee cakes straight from the freezer, a practice I would not recommend to anyone else—especially since it doesn’t solve anything.
So, Jill and I found ourselves at a crossroads. We still had no real business plan or vision and, more importantly, there was no profit, although by that point we were doing just enough volume to cover our overhead. With no profit, a business cannot survive. We were learning that growth does not solve problems; it merely amplifies them if you’re not ready. We were not ready. Most small or start-up companies suffer from the same shortcomings: a lack of effective planning and enough capital to get through the first year or so. We had continued to make pivotal leaps forward, but all the while we were still doing everything wrong. We were so busy looking but not seeing where we were going. We didn’t recognize growth opportunities, make relevant decisions, or act on them. Luck can only carry you so far. Then it’s over. We had thought our venture would be an extension of our love of food and cooking, but experience proved us wrong.
Shortly after our two giant Le Snac orders, Jill came to me and said she wanted out. For her, it was over. Love and Quiches was going nowhere, and now my partner had cried uncle. The prospect of losing her overwhelmed me, but what could I do? I understood. It was over.
In March 1975, I bought Jill out for $12,000: $6,000 for her conception—the enterprise was her idea in the first place, and I will always be grateful for that—and $6,000 for her half of our expenses in fitting out the shop.
Jill and I remained friends during her departure and are still friends all these many years later. Shortly after she left, Jill started another business making rugelach (rolled cookies with various fillings in a cream cheese pastry dough), which she ran for a while out of her home. The work was just as hard, since the cookies were all handmade, but she could at least control the hours. No more all-night quiche-making sessions. (Many years later, after Love and Quiches had grown up, Jill told me that somebody at a party had once asked her if I had bought her out for $5 million!)
On My Own
As I surveyed the state of Love and Quiches in the weeks after I bought out Jill, I saw that I needed to shift my strategy. We had been gaining assets, buying more equipment with the proceeds from our sales, but we were also incurring liabilities. On balance, we were making no money, and ultimately we ran short. We weren’t far removed from the days when we’d kept records in our heads—we even kept track of our receivables that way. Incorporating should have lent structure to our enterprise, or at least made us aware that we had a commitment to succeed, but we never really took that next step. We “appeared” to be organized: our accountant set up our books, we did payroll, we ran the Silver Bullet, and we increased our sales to over $75,000. But we still didn’t know where we were going or how we were going to get there. I wonder, on occasion, why it took us so long to come to grips with our potential. Every time it became apparent that we’d better sit down and think, we’d be anxious to “get back to work”—as if planning ahead wasn’t work, but frying bacon was!
We hadn’t defined our goals and we weren’t controlling our costs, buying well, or pricing our products
In other words, she couldn’t get serious about Love and Quiches, even though I was very much ready to. With our visions of the future so out of line, I often found myself alone in the shop at the end of the day holding the bag. Out of sheer frustration at this, I would sometimes eat coffee cakes straight from the freezer, a practice I would not recommend to anyone else—especially since it doesn’t solve anything.
So, Jill and I found ourselves at a crossroads. We still had no real business plan or vision and, more importantly, there was no profit, although by that point we were doing just enough volume to cover our overhead. With no profit, a business cannot survive. We were learning that growth does not solve problems; it merely amplifies them if you’re not ready. We were not ready. Most small or start-up companies suffer from the same shortcomings: a lack of effective planning and enough capital to get through the first year or so. We had continued to make pivotal leaps forward, but all the while we were still doing everything wrong. We were so busy looking but not seeing where we were going. We didn’t recognize growth opportunities, make relevant decisions, or act on them. Luck can only carry you so far. Then it’s over. We had thought our venture would be an extension of our love of food and cooking, but experience proved us wrong.
Shortly after our two giant Le Snac orders, Jill came to me and said she wanted out. For her, it was over. Love and Quiches was going nowhere, and now my partner had cried uncle. The prospect of losing her overwhelmed me, but what could I do? I understood. It was over.
In March 1975, I bought Jill out for $12,000: $6,000 for her conception—the enterprise was her idea in the first place, and I will always be grateful for that—and $6,000 for her half of our expenses in fitting out the shop.
Jill and I remained friends during her departure and are still friends all these many years later. Shortly after she left, Jill started another business making rugelach (rolled cookies with various fillings in a cream cheese pastry dough), which she ran for a while out of her home. The work was just as hard, since the cookies were all handmade, but she could at least control the hours. No more all-night quiche-making sessions. (Many years later, after Love and Quiches had grown up, Jill told me that somebody at a party had once asked her if I had bought her out for $5 million!)
On My Own
As I surveyed the state of Love and Quiches in the weeks after I bought out Jill, I saw that I needed to shift my strategy. We had been gaining assets, buying more equipment with the proceeds from our sales, but we were also incurring liabilities. On balance, we were making no money, and ultimately we ran short. We weren’t far removed from the days when we’d kept records in our heads—we even kept track of our receivables that way. Incorporating should have lent structure to our enterprise, or at least made us aware that we had a commitment to succeed, but we never really took that next step. We “appeared” to be organized: our accountant set up our books, we did payroll, we ran the Silver Bullet, and we increased our sales to over $75,000. But we still didn’t know where we were going or how we were going to get there. I wonder, on occasion, why it took us so long to come to grips with our potential. Every time it became apparent that we’d better sit down and think, we’d be anxious to “get back to work”—as if planning ahead wasn’t work, but frying bacon was!
We hadn’t defined our goals and we weren’t controlling our costs, buying well, or pricing our products
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