update June 3

Well, I'm back in front of the screen after 3 computer-free days. We were visiting friends in Belgium for the long weekend, and they do have a computer there that I can use, but it isn't QWERTY and that makes me crazy. So I took a book.

Although this doesn't really have anything to do with our house or our plans, I do have to write one paragraph (or two) about that book. "Stern men" by Elizabeth Gilbert. I didn't like it. Of course, I had to finish it, because I'm like that... if I walk into a room and there's a really stupid TV show on, I always get sucked in and end up watching to the end. But with a TV show, it's usually just an hour or two that's wasted. For this whole book, it was 6 hours or so, wasted. Very depressing.

Why didn't I like it? It was well-written, sure. But the plot was centered around a community of lobster fishermen, most of whom were small-minded, distrustful, arrogant, ignorant, etc., including the heroine. In the last chapter, the heroine makes a transformation, which in turn tranforms much of the community -- a "feel good" ending, even if it isn't very believeable. But 274 out of 287 pages were pre-transformation. Ugh. Nothing uplifting or thought-provoking. Just page after page, with me reading as fast as I can, hoping that one character or another will stop being so clueless. But no. Sigh.

My life, I'm happy to say, is full of transformations. It could be said that there are too many transformations, too much chaos, too many interests and activities. But at least I'm not in a rut, doing the same thing over and over again, expecting sometime to get a different result.

With the house in Bunnik, it even looks like the changes and developments are actually leading somewhere useful. And it looks like (with some adjustments to our planning) we'll still be able to do it with a new baby. THAT was quite a transformation -- after 5 years of trying to get pregnant, we finally gave up and decided to focus on other things, and then, surprise! I'm just 8 weeks along, and anything can happen, but so far I feel great.

On May 20th, we met with our contact at the Rabobank. He had read our whole plan and had a sheet with comments on it to share with us. First he said that the plan was just about the most comprehensive and detailed plan he had ever seen. If anything, it contained too much information -- only because of the time it took to read it. (But the parts that we could have left out, as far as a bank is concerned, are just the parts that make it unique and interesting to a private investor, so I don't feel like it was a waste of time to write it all.)

His comments were all useful and it won't be too difficult to make the changes. Some things, like a month-by-month liquiditeitsprognose for the first two years, need to be written up by an accountant. But happily, Koert-Jan (our investor-finder helper) is also an accountant and he said those tables wouldn't be hard to do. It will help, though, if we first figure out the exact worth of the house with an appraisal. So I am working on that now. Once we have an appraisal, we can figure out the execution value of the house (what it would raise in a forced sale). That is typically 85% of the fair market value, and the bank is prepared to loan 90% of that (or 76% of the fair market value). The rest (24% of the fair market value, plus our investment costs, plus or minus any difference between the fair market value and the price we agree on with the owners) is what we need to raise ourselves (with help from Koert-Jan.)

Now, because we are a start-up business, there is some extra help available from the goverment in the form of a state-guaranteed loan, which the Rabobank could arrange for us. It won't cover the whole remainder (we still need to bring in around 30%) but it could add a few 100,000's so that we would need less from private investors. The conditions are rather strenuous -- you have to be able to show that you can pay off all the bank and state-guaranteed loans within 12 years. Our projections show that we could do this -- but, our projections need a little more support, according to the Rabobank. They would ideally like to see a list of users who are willing to commit ahead of time to renting various rooms. I'm working on that part, but it is a bit troublesome. How do you get companies and organisations to commit to renting a space that they haven't seen and that doesn't even exist yet? I've got one guy, though, through LinkedIn, who says he's willing to "commit" to 50 days per year for his trainings. Apparently, they book all their trainings at least 6 months in advance and still have trouble finding locations sometimes and have to cancel their programs. So, I am hopeful that I can put together a list.

In the meantime, I've also talked with a few contacts (again through LinkedIn, what a useful forum!) about other possibilities. A woman who is an artist and trainer (Mieke) told me how art expositions typically work. In a building like Het Huis aan de Brug, we could set up new exhibitions every 6 weeks or so. We would arrange the lighting, etc., the publicity, the opening (which we could combine with a concert or other activity), and then we could ask for 15-20% of what the artist earns on sales. She also knows a woman who organizes art fairs, where many artists come together in one location, with booths and displays and such. That all sounds like a lot of fun, as well as a way to add a little income. And also a nice way to meet artists who might like to do a course or workshop in one of our rooms.

After talking to another contact, Sander, we've decided to set aside one of the rooms as a practice room and rent it out specifically to other therapists. At first I thought this would be a problem, because of course you can't ask a therapist (doing several one-on-one sessions with people for maybe 60 Euro per session) to pay as much as a business holding a team-building activity. But, I found a practice room in a location in De Bilt where they are doing just that: morning, afternoon, and evening blocks, 7 days a week, with therapists signing up for a particular block and commiting to 3 months of use. Their room is *completely* booked (except for some openings on Saturday and Sunday) and they have a waiting list. So.... we might not earn as much per block as we would from businesses, but we can make up for that with a very high occupancy rate. And then it would work, financially. This is very cool, because I really like the idea of having different therapists working together under our roof (sharing ideas, clients, advertising, etc.)

The last "transformation" happened yesterday, when Paulus was talking with our friends Edi and Annelies at the Ledig Erf. I sent them the link to the latest version of our plan, last week, and they've had a chance to look at it... and they are seriously interested in investing with us! Wow! For them, I need to do a bit more research, because they see a lot of unused potential. With their help (specifically guidance on how to hire people and run a cash register etc.) we could create a sort of tea house in the large downstairs hall, next to the terrace. It could be open from, say, 10 to 5 -- after the B&B guests have had their breakfast, and not in the evenings when we would do things like house concerts, expositions, lectures, etc. *IF* we are allowed to do this, by the city, it would probably be more profitable than renting that room out to businesses, simply because of the occupancy rate. So... I'm curious. I sent a long mail to the proper authority at the Bunnik city hall, asking what we are allowed and not allowed to do.

And when I hear back (from the City, from the appraiser, from Koert-Jan about other potential investors) I'll write again!