NotKindle.com ( No Worries ) . 100% FREE

taxes, and you also pay the building insurance, and you also pay for the maintenance of the common areas. Oh, and if the roof leaks? That's on you. If the plumbing fails? That's on you. If the HVAC system, which is older than your employees, finally breathes its last breath on the hottest day of summer? That, my friend, is a $15,000 problem that you own. I had a landlord once who was a lovely man. He seemed so reasonable. We shook hands on the deal. Then the furnace broke in February. He said, "It's not the building's furnace. It's the unit's furnace. The tenant is responsible." I had to pay $8,000 for a new furnace, which I couldn't afford, which meant my café was freezing cold for three weeks while I begged and borrowed money to fix it. The lesson? Get a commercial real estate lawyer. Not a friend who does divorces. A commercial real estate lawyer. Spend the $1,500 to have them review your lease. They'll find the hidden clauses. They'll negotiate the repairs. They'll protect you from the owner's cousin who "accidentally" puts a property maintenance fee in the contract. It's money well spent. And here's another thing: negotiate. Everything is negotiable. The rent is negotiable. The length of the lease is negotiable. The personal guarantee is negotiable. The improvement allowance is negotiable. The right to sublease is negotiable. The exclusivity clause is negotiable. What's an exclusivity clause? It's the thing that says the landlord can't rent to a competing business in the same building. Without that clause, the landlord can put a coffee shop in the unit next door. I've seen it happen. I've seen landlords do it. They don't care about you. They care about the rent. Protect yourself. Finally, I want you to think about visibility. Can people see your café from the street? Is there a sign ordinance that limits what you can put up? Is your café on the first floor, or do customers have to go upstairs and walk through a hallway to find you? If I can't see you, I can't walk into you. It's that simple. I once visited a café that was below street level, with a tiny staircase and an even tinier sign. It was a lovely space. It was also empty, all the time. Because people walked right past it. Location is everything. It's the one thing you can't change after you open. So take your time. Be picky. And remember: the perfect space with the wrong rent is the wrong space. Walk away. There's always another one.