When should I get in touch?
As early as possible, and ideally before the lease is signed and before the first heavy financial commitment.
The earlier the work starts, the less the corrections cost. A concept can be reworked in a week while it is still on paper. Once the site is signed, the works have started and the equipment is ordered, the same correction is paid for in months and in cash. If you have already signed, nothing is lost, but the room for choices narrows and the work bears more on running the business than on the project.
How long does launch support last?
As long as the project, from concept validation to the first weeks of trading, with an intensity that varies a great deal from one phase to the next.
Framing the project and preparing the opening demand a sustained pace, the works period far less, and the opening itself close presence again. The format follows that rhythm rather than a single package: consulting days spread over the period, with fixed checkpoints at the moments when decisions are made.
Do you write the business plan or help me write it?
I build the model with you and you keep control of the numbers, because you are the one who will have to defend them to a bank, a landlord or a partner.
A restaurant business plan written by someone else is spotted in three questions, and the funder always asks them. So I work on the structure of the model, the price and margin assumptions, the break-even point and the cash of the first months, then I have you hold your own numbers until you can explain them line by line without the file in front of you.
Do you work with founders who have no capital of their own?
Yes for the thinking and the framing, but with no capital and no identified funding, a physical retail project does not get past the premises stage.
In that case, the useful work usually consists of shrinking the starting format, testing the concept in a lighter form such as a corner, an event, a market stall or an online shop, and building proof of market before going back to a funder. The path is longer, but it exists and it produces a far stronger case.
Do you stay involved after the opening?
Yes, and that is often where the work counts most, because the first weeks reveal what the plan had not anticipated.
The gaps show up quickly on average spend, real cost of goods, customer flow by time slot and team rotas. This tuning phase sometimes continues as fractional operations leadership, when the need goes beyond the launch and bears on how the company is organised.
Can you support an opening in Portugal?
Yes: I founded and ran a company in Lisbon and I still work there, so the Portuguese market is not theoretical ground for me.
The differences that matter are concrete: how leases and works are handled, administrative lead times, pressure on hiring, tourist seasonality and the weight of local word of mouth. On Portuguese legal, tax and accounting matters, I work with local specialists rather than standing in for them.