Case Study: The Gathering Place

Shania Jackson finds herself with an exciting opportunity of possibly opening up her very own coffeehouse. Amid all of her excitement though are a number of issues that must first be considered, such as her choice of organizational form, whether or not she should be part of a franchise, the name of her coffeehouse, and who she should include in the business with her. In the end Shania should organize her business as a limited partnership without franchising, also considering altering the name slightly to bring more clarity to what the business is about, while including all those she wishes to work for her. The first issue at hand is the type of organizational form that Shania’s future coffeehouse should take. According to the case study, Shania has considered many of the different organizational forms such as a sole proprietorship, some type of partnership, corporation, LLC, and others. Without knowing much more about Shania’s long term goals and basing a decision off of only the information provided in the case study, it would seem best for Shania to organize her business as a limited liability partnership. The main reason being for this conclusion is

The closest one being The Gathering Place, Inc. While she is probably alright to go ahead and have her business be named “The Gathering Place,” since she is going to organize it as a type of partnership rather than as a corporation, she should still consider that there are several other businesses that use a similar name and that may confuse her potential customers. While the name seems like it would be a decent name for what Shania wants to do, even the name itself might not be informative enough to let people know what the business is, as it doesn’t include anything about coffee in the