Has anyone started their own business? Options

[Oasis]

Specifically, starting a business that needed a financial backer/investor.

My best friend and I have been talking about going in to business together since we were kids. We've started one (landscaping) but we didn't need an investor. We just used $5k of my own cash as startup capital.

Now, we're talking about starting a much larger business. I don't want to mention specifics but we found prime land to open a business. A high traffic, affluent area that there are no similar businesses within several miles. It helps that the land owner is a family friend of both of our families.

We've never been able to open a large scale business because we didn't have the collateral. Let's face it, neither one of us have degrees and no bank is gonna listen to us asking for a half million dollar loan. My friend's dad agreed to back us as an investor for up to $500k. Only problem is, we need to come up with a rock solid business plan and financial report. The second we get finished giving our report he's going to start firing off questions left and right, and if we even so much as stutter for an answer he'll push the plan back to us and six months worth of preparation will go to waste.

I've written mock business plans in college and I helped a buddy write his last year, but I've never written one of my own. Any advice? Only thing I can think of is research the ever living shit out of everything, every potential variable or problem/obstacle, basically overprepare rather than underprepare. I will spend more time on this than anything else in my life. I've always wanted to start my own business and have ended up starting several smaller ones, but you can't make a living on those. This is big time so I don't want to fuck anything up

Our first order of business is figuring out zoning laws and whether we can even put a retail business at the location. Where can I find local zoning laws? I know I can go downtown to the county clerk's office, but are the laws available online?

Any other advice would be appreciated. We don't really have a time constraint, but we'd like to have a plan ready in three months, and both of us have jobs so we'll be doing this nights and weekends

[Mommy]

Gas stations may be making more than you think. The other day, there was a gas war in some small city and gas dropped to $3.48 (from $3.99) because of the competition between 2 stations. Then again, maybe not because Exxon is selling almost 2500 of their own gas stations because the profits just aren't flowing. *shrug*