There are some general rules in business, like 90% of new restaurants fail within a year, only invest where you have experience, and musicians can't get a loan unless they have a record contract. All those rules were upended when Zac Smith and Cheryl Roorda bought a building in Hot Springs, Arkansas, not sure what to do with it. She plays the accordion; he plays an E-flat helicon, an instrument that resembles a tuba. They raised two children by playing gigs wherever they could. The building they found was a wreck, and they spend ten years making it usable. Now it contains a pizza parlor, plus a microbrewery and a radio station, all successful. Their journey involves a lot of hard work, timing, and luck, as evidenced by their story of how they financed the project in 2007.
But this was before the collapse, when they were still going through cemeteries looking for bodies to loan money to. We were able to purchase our home as a tuba-accordion duo, and we were processing the loan, $32,000 on a foreclosure from Fannie Mae, and the strip-mall financier was all, “You know, this would be a lot easier if you took out a $100,000 loan,” and we were like, “What about tuba-accordion duo do you not understand?”
Strangely, the radio station came first, which built goodwill in the community. People will try a new locally-run restaurant, but they won't return unless it is good. Read the heartwarming story of how two musicians founded a quirky but flourishing business at Vox. -via Metafilter
(Image credit: SQZBX Brewery & Pizza Joint)