How do I handle this situation? (Long, sorry)

Hi fellow CCers!

I have recently come across a difficult situation, and I'm not too sure how to handle it.

I am in the process of moving, and opening my business when I get there. My mom has shown a lot of interest in my cakes and really wants us to go into business together. I really like the idea of working with family, and a couple of my other family members have offered to help me in the kitchen when I need it.

I will, of course, be offering cakes, cupcakes and cake pops. My grandmother also offered to give me her yeast bread recipe which is really popular among our friends and family, so I think I'll be offering other "bakery items" as well.

My mom likes to do canning stuff, like jams, jellies, bar b que sauces and stuff like that, and she wants to incorporate those into the business as well (I don't know how the bar b que stuff will work in the business, but she says we will figure it out).

Well, I was talking to her today, because I already have some possibilities for shops and/or kitchens I am looking at. I asked her what "official part" she would like to play in the bakery. She very adamantly told me "Well I'm not going to be an employee for sure!" So, I figure, ok, she wants to be a partner.

But here is my problem. I'm not saying anything bad about my mom, but I kind of have a feeling that a majority, if not, all of the costs to start and run this business are going to fall on me, with the exception of her canning stuff. I will also be teaching her my recipes, as well as teaching her how to decorate and so forth.

The last thing I want to do is hurt my mom's feelings. But, I'm not sure if I like that arrangement while splitting all the profits and decisions down the middle. I hope that doesn't sound terrible.

Does anyone know how I should handle this situation? Some of the ideas I have ran through are: Make her a partner with limitations and a % of profits. Or I was also wondering if it would be difficult, if at all possible, for me to not make her partner, but that we each pay the other whatever amount since she will be helping me and vic versa.

I hope I haven't confused anybody. It's difficult not to, when I'm confused myself. Lol. I really want to make this work, but I'm just not sure how.

If anyone has any advice or suggestions, I and my sanity would be forever thankful. Lol.

Wow! First I want to say a huge THANK YOU to everyone's advice. My mom and I have been talking about doing this together for over a year now. The idea has only recently begun to become a reality, so until now, it was just that...an idea. I don't think either of us thought about the negative aspects of going into business together..Until today of course, when I realized I might be running nearly an entire business myself, but giving the profits away for free.

Sorry it took me so long to respond. I was on the phone with my aunt, and reading her some of your comments. Of course, she agreed with everyone, and said she really enjoyed Ms. Debi's comments (I told her that's pretty common around here, lol). She suggested that I work this out with my mom immediately, before it gets too far. My mom and I are really close and my aunt was concerned that if we didn't get on the same page like NOW, we were going to have some problems.

So I called my mom, and we stayed on the phone for a while, trying to figure out something that will allow us to do this together without running into all of these problems that could potentially ruin our relationship.

Maybe it's "little kid-ish" but I am actually really excited that my mom wants to be involved in my business. And I want her to feel important in it, because she is. During our talk, she told me that she wasn't really worried about selling her canned goods to consumers right away. She thought it would be a better idea to work on one thing at a time. So the bakery would be first. She even suggested that, instead of selling the jellies and stuff to customers, that we make them to use in the cakes, so if someone wants strawberry preserves for filling, then we can offer them some of our very own preserves. I think that sounds really cool, using them as a flavor of filling exclusively for our kitchen.


To the PP who said that I need to be comfortable with these kinds of conversations with my mom (Sorry, computer is crashed, I'm doing internet stuff on my Wii, and can't see your name, lol), you have a point. So, I explained to my mom that we really needed to have this conversation, because it was important to me that we work it out before it gets ugly.


I asked her exactly what Ms. Debi said, and explained to her that, as partners, we would have to share the financial burden, the workload, and would have to discuss things that probably wouldn't be comfortable for the both of us. I explained to her that we would need to find an attorney to draw up a contract to help us decide what we would do in the event one of us failed to fulfill our responsibilities. I explained that we would be equally responsible for all the bills, equipment, ingredients and taxes associated with being partners.

Then, I gave her other options. If she was to be employed under the business, we would need to register for her to receive wages. Then at the end of the year, instead of paying taxes, she would be able to get a refund.

So after talking about it for a while, and working some numbers, here is what we worked out:

I will be the sole business owner, and she will be employed as the "business manager" (If there's a better title, please let me know, lol). Even though I would have the final say so in all decisions made for the company, I don't have a problem discussing them with her first, and getting her ideas and opinions. So, in a sense, we will still be "partners" per se, but I will still have the final say on my company. After all, the bakery is my dream, and the cannery is hers. We also talked about, after the bakery is established, she could apply for her own business license and make her canning business separately. Home based foods aren't allowed in Texas, so she would use my kitchen and give me a part of the profits.

Ok, I'm sure this is really long already. We also discussed some calculations on how it would work. Of course, this isn't set in stone, but I think we have at least a good start.

Ex. $100 Cake
-20 Cost
=80 Profit
-40 50% for business
=40
$20-$20
From there, the rest of the profits would then be split in half. So that would mean that we each made 25% of the profits after bills, and the money that will be put back into the business.

What do yall think? I know this all may seem a little oversimplified, but the jist of it is that the company belongs to me and me only. I think that 25% commission on each cake for her is fair and reasonable. This, of course, is providing we both work on an order together.

Does this sound like a good solution?

Thank you all again. I am so thankful for all of yall's help. It does seem to be a conflict between doing business, and trying to keep your mom happy. Lol.