While thinking about starting to sell some homemade goodies under Florida's "Cottage-Food" law, I am finding out that there are more things to consider than just the recipes to select and the prices to charge.
For example: it only costs $20 to rent a space in the local farmers market, but that's every week, which would add up to $1040 per year. On top of that, each vendor must bring his own fire extinguisher (regardless of what's being sold - it's just a county requirement) and 10x10, fire-resistant tent/canopy. That's $130 I'd be spending right at the beginning.
Liability insurance is also required, but it's okay to use the liability coverage of homeowners insurance. Still, if someone were not to read the ingredient list on something and then have an allergic reaction, that could be a big problem for the homeowners policy, etc. That means it would be better to have a separate policy for the business (as small as the business may be). That's $400-600 per year.
For that matter, since many people, nowadays, will sue someone just because they can, it's also probably a good idea to get an LLC. That's $155.
Finally, I would have to make an initial purchase of ingredients to get started, as well as decent materials for packaging things to be sold.
By the time it's all added up, I'd need about $2200 (maybe a little more, just in case) to get everything going.
Overall, that's not bad for starting a business, but the nature of a cottage-food business is such that it is only allowed gross sales of $15000 per year (at least in Florida) and I'd be starting while still unemployed.
Thus, I'm thinking about trying to raise that starting amount through a crowdfunding site such as Kickstarter or IndieGoGo.
Do any of you have any suggestions for any of this, whether getting started, in general, or crowdfunding in particular?