By NICOLE S. COLSON Sentinel staff SentinelSource.com
Inspiration is sometimes just an encouraging word away.
The friend who’s quick to note that your brownies are the “best ever.” The family member who tells you that your pasta sauce is “amazing,” your homemade bread “out of this world.”
Such compliments have surely served to launch a food business or two.
The trick, of course, is getting the business off the ground.
Mary Ann Kristiansen, executive director of the Hannah Grimes Center in Keene, which offers resources for local small business development, said the biggest mistake people make in establishing a small food business — or any business — is failing to establish a strong financial, marketing and legal foundation.
“People say they have a great jam recipe but realize too late there’s a whole business end of things,” she said.
