Business Opportunity?

[Poetik92]

So as business has been decent for awhile I reached out to an contact I made before who has a shop in my area that is unopened. Its been unopened for probably a year and I first made contact with him as I was looking for work and wanted to apply. (His business does networking for businesses and government contracts. He occasionally gets contacted about residential break/fix but turns it down until he has the shop running) I've since then kept occasional updates with him since I launched my own startup.

My idea in reaching out was to inquire about making use of his building. I'm looking for somewhere affordable that I can work out of. This would provide a few benefits for me

• Bring my work out of the home,
• Provide a secure place for me to meet with clients,
• Hopefully bring in more business since I feel like the brick in mortar location would bring in foot traffic. As well as many I'm sure I'm forgetting.

As well as at least one benefit for him: Recoup some of the losses from the shop being unopened and unused month to month. (looking back maybe I need to find more that he gains from this?)

I pitched the idea and he heard me out and is truly interested. So basically I'm here trying to gather feedback as to weather or not this sounds like a good idea, or should I continue working out of my home until i can actually afford a real storefront.
He had a few questions

Who would customers that came to the storefront be doing business with. My business or his

• I feel as if I should be pushing for the answer to be my business because at the end of the day I'm looking to further my own business and not his. So if I'm doing work under his businesses name then that doesn't help me much. But what benefits are there for his side?

How would the money be decided

• Obviously the biggest thing here. Should I be offering a percentage of all work done? Or a flat fee (rent) for the space. Or are there other options we should also be discussing.

I feel like i need to make myself clear that I'm still aiming to remain my own business and no longer looking to be hired by him as a few of his comments sounded like he was looking to employ me: Supervision to ensure the work done is up to par for what he expects for work from his shop.

All in all i'm looking for feedback on weather or not i should proceed with trying with this idea. Good idea or no? And if so, then what are the benefits for both sides I should be looking to leverage and what things should I make sure to bring up in the discussion (Like the discussion about which business the clients are doing business with) I feel like this could be a huge opportunity for me if done right. We both understand that by doing this he would be helping me to grow into a bigger competitor (even though currently he doesn't even do residential break/fix) Sorry for the long post and let me know if I left out crucial details.

TLDR: Looking for imput on my idea to run my business out of a potential competitor's unused space.

 

[oldtech]

Seems like you are making a simple thing into a difficult thing. At the end of the day all you are looking for (if I understand correctly) is use of his space/building. Why not just lease or sublet the space from him and put your own name on the front? If his shop is closed ( not unopened by the way) it would be ludicrous to pay him a percent unless he is going to man the facility while you are not there or provide some other positive involvement. If he provides a customer list or something other than space then you would want to have further discussions.

TLDR: Would not leave his name on front and would just lease the space

 

[Poetik92]

Yea, I think you're right about me making this difficult would be so much simpler if I just leased the space.