Sometimes, someone starts a business by accident. A friend bakes cupcakes for another friend’s event, and they’re fantastic. People at a party ask for the recipe. Even better, they ask if she’ll make cupcakes for their party or corporate event. Before she knows it, your friend is baking up a storm, from her own kitchen, and bringing in money she wasn’t expecting. From such humble beginnings come the entrepreneurs of tomorrow.

Not so fast. This is a great start-up story, but it is destined to stop quite short if just one person gets sick from your cupcakes. As I recently wrote about keeping your home-based business legal, there are licenses needed for most business, especially ones that serve food. There are even different licenses for wholesale and retail sale in many states. And many of these licenses require equipment and procedures that would be financially prohibitive and keep our friend from starting her cupcake business in the first place.

That’s why kitchen incubators are all the rage. Take the Hot Bread Kitchen in New York’s Harlem neighborhood. Hot Bread is the anchor tenant,  but others benefit from their success. The two production kitchens, prep kitchens, and storage facilities provide space for people with small, artisanal and ethnic food businesses to make the transition from their own kitchens to a fully equipped professional facility. Training and assistance are facilitated in a city-sponsored arrangement that also provides access to staff to help with business plans, sales, operations and market research. Continue reading “Turn that Cupcake Business into an Empire” »