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I'm kind of interested in how many people on this board are small business owners. This could be a place to swap some stories and share best practices. Please, don't post any links to your actual business in this thread, keep it vague.

I am part owner (with my wife) of a small baking/decorating business for cakes. We have been doing it for about 8 years. We have a partnership with a local restaraunt which allows us to use their facility. This allows us to be a fully licensed and insured bakery by the Departments of Agriculture and Health. Due to our limited size, we focus on exclusivity and word-of-mouth/internet advertising. We actuall turn away a lot of orders, but we also can charge higher premium prices due to the demand.

We looked into getting our own store front, but the costs were prohibitive, and the size of our local community would not be able to support the project. However, this probably saved us during the recession as many of our local competitors went out of business as the cost of materials rose dramatically during this time. Our competition simply could not keep up with the inflating costs of materials and the store front costs.

Anway, I'm curious who else out there has a small business that they operate either on the side or as their main income driver. I have a feeling we have a few people that run games related businesses, but what about other businesses?

Not me. I work for the man, 40 hours a week.

My wife and I ran a martial art school for 15 years but we closed it when I took a job that was not compatible with running a business on the side. Running a small business is damn hard, I wouldnt do it again.

Does being head of department count?

I have owned businesses in the past and am starting up on my own again.

I will also be supplementing income by taking part time employment until I am sufficient enough.