Business Startup Kits, Built for Your Industry
Business startup kits are the fastest way to skip the blank page. A business startup kit is every document you would otherwise build from scratch or pay a consultant for — business plan, financial projections, pricing calculator, permit checklist, marketing templates, supplier directory, and a grand opening playbook — bundled into one download and written for one specific industry.
Opening Day Kit builds around 47 done-for-you files across 7 modules for your exact business type. Built by a former Dickey’s Barbecue Pit CMO who has launched 10+ locations. One kit. One price. Yours forever. Standard $297, premium $497, 30-day money-back guarantee.
What's in a business startup kit?
A business startup kit is a bundle of the documents a new owner would otherwise build from scratch or pay a consultant for. Every Opening Day Kit contains the same seven modules, all written for one industry:
- Plan — business plan template and executive summary, pre-structured the way lenders read them
- Numbers — financial projections, startup cost worksheet, break-even and pricing calculators
- Legal & permits — permit and licence checklist, contract and insurance templates
- Menu / product — costing sheets, supplier directory, ordering and par-level templates
- Brand — logo and colour starter, signage specs, social templates
- Marketing — 90-day marketing calendar, launch promo plan, 50+ social posts
- Opening day — grand opening playbook, staffing and training checklists, first-week schedule
You will see the same idea sold as a business start up package, a small business startup kit, or a franchise starter kit. The difference here: nothing is generic and nothing is a franchise. You buy the one industry you are actually opening, once, and it stays yours.
Looking for free startup kits? Start with our free calculators and planning tools — startup cost calculators, break-even math, permit cost maps and concept quizzes, no email required. Then compare the food truck startup kit and the coffee shop startup kit below when you want the done-for-you version.
What each module in a startup kit actually contains
Most startup kits sold online are a business plan template and a spreadsheet with a nice cover. That is not what you are buying here. Every Opening Day Kit is around 47 separate files grouped into seven modules, and every file is written for one industry rather than adapted from a generic template. Here is what each module holds.
1. Plan. A full business plan template plus a standalone executive summary. The SBA splits business plans into two formats: a traditional plan, which is detailed and “can be dozens of pages long”, and a lean startup plan, which is “typically only one page” and can take as little as an hour to write (SBA, Write your business plan). Lenders usually want the traditional one. Your kit gives you both, pre-structured, so you fill in your numbers instead of inventing an outline.
2. Numbers. Financial projections, a startup cost worksheet, a break-even model and a pricing calculator. This is the module people skip and then regret. If you want to try the logic before you buy, the free food truck startup cost calculator and coffee shop break-even calculator run the same math in your browser.
3. Legal and permits. A permit and licence checklist, contract templates and an insurance checklist. Permits are the most location-specific part of opening anything. The kit tells you which categories you need and in what order. For live per-state numbers, use the free state permit cost map and the food truck permits guide.
4. Menu or product. Recipe and drink costing sheets, a supplier directory, ordering templates and par levels. Coffee kits cost drinks. Food truck kits cost plates. Same structure, different inputs. See the food truck menu price calculator for the free version of that math.
5. Brand. Logo and colour starter, signage specs sized for a truck wrap or a shop window, and social templates. It is not a full identity system. It is enough that you do not open with a stock default.
6. Marketing. A 90-day marketing calendar, a launch promo plan and 50+ social posts written for your industry. The calendar is dated backwards from your opening day, so it tells you what to do in week minus six rather than telling you to post consistently.
7. Opening day. The grand opening playbook, staffing and training checklists and a first-week schedule. This is the module almost nobody else sells, and it is the one that decides whether your first Saturday goes well.
Ready to download today
Food Truck Startup Kit
✓ ~47 done-for-you files
✓ 7 complete modules
✓ Instant digital access
✓ 30-day guarantee
Coffee Shop Startup Kit
✓ ~47 done-for-you files
✓ 7 complete modules
✓ Instant digital access
✓ 30-day guarantee
Which startup kit is right for you?
Two kits are finished and buyable right now: the Food Truck Startup Kit and the Coffee Shop Startup Kit. Both are $297 standard or $497 premium. Both are one payment, yours forever, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. The difference is entirely in the industry-specific content.
| Food Truck Startup Kit | Coffee Shop Startup Kit | |
|---|---|---|
| Best if you want | Low fixed rent and the ability to move to where the customers are | A fixed address, morning regulars and repeat daily traffic |
| Biggest cost to plan for | The vehicle or trailer and its build-out | The lease and the espresso setup |
| Hardest module | Legal and permits. Mobile vending rules change by city, by county and by event | Numbers. Rent and labour run every day whether anyone walks in or not |
| Costing sheets cover | Plates, portions and food cost per menu item | Drinks, milk and bean cost per cup, plus retail add-ons |
| Free tools that pair with it | Commissary kitchen finder, opportunity map, most expensive cities | Startup cost calculator, break-even calculator, menu price calculator |
| Price | $297 standard / $497 premium | $297 standard / $497 premium |
If you are still choosing between the two, do not guess. Take the free food truck concept quiz or the coffee shop concept quiz first, then run the food truck startup cost calculator and the coffee shop startup cost calculator side by side. Both are free and neither asks for an email.
A note on what is not for sale. You will see a dozen more industries listed further down this page as coming soon. Those are genuinely not built yet. If your industry is on that list, buy nothing today and leave your email instead. We would rather lose the sale than sell you a folder that does not exist.
What does a business startup kit cost?
Short answer: ours are $297 standard and $497 premium, one payment. Longer answer: that number only means something next to what you would otherwise spend, so here are the four honest routes to the same stack of paperwork.
Route 1: build it yourself from free templates. Cost: $0 and a lot of evenings. The SBA publishes a full business plan guide with downloadable example plans at no charge, and it is genuinely good. What it does not do is tell you the food cost on a $9 taco or how many kilos of beans a 60-cup morning burns.
Route 2: free counselling from an SBA resource partner. Cost: $0. SBA states that it and its partner network “offer free or low-cost counseling and training in your area”, and that it partners with SCORE to connect you with an expert business mentor “at no cost” (SBA, Get local assistance). Small Business Development Centers counsel too. If you have not used this, use it. It is the best free thing in American small business and most first-time owners have no idea it exists. What it is not is a folder of finished files. A mentor advises. You still build every document.
Route 3: hire a consultant. This is where the invented numbers usually show up, so here is only what can actually be sourced. BLS reports that the median annual wage for management analysts — the occupation category most small-business and restaurant consultants sit in — was $101,190 in May 2024, which BLS states as $48.65 per hour. The lowest 10% earned under $59,720 and the highest 10% over $174,140. BLS also notes that most management analysts “work as consultants on a contractual basis” and that self-employed ones are “paid directly by their clients, typically by either the hour or the project”. Read that carefully: it is what a consultant earns, not what a consultant bills. Billed rates are higher, because a billed rate has to cover the unbilled hours, and BLS does not publish billed rates. We are not going to invent one. What you can safely take from it is that a consultant’s time is not cheap before markup, and a business plan plus financials plus a permit map is not a two-hour job.
Route 4: buy the kit. $297 or $497, once. You get the finished files immediately and you edit rather than author. 30-day money-back guarantee if it is not what you expected.
| Route | What it costs | What you still have to do |
|---|---|---|
| Free templates, DIY | $0 | Write every document, and source every industry-specific number yourself |
| SBA / SCORE / SBDC counselling | $0 (SBA: “at no cost”) | Take the advice away and still build every file |
| Consultant | No published billed rate. BLS median wage for the occupation: $48.65/hr | Brief them, review their work, and pay again for revisions |
| Opening Day Kit | $297 standard / $497 premium, once | Edit ~47 finished files with your own numbers |
Which route is right depends on one thing: whether your scarce resource is money or time. If you have six free months and no cash, route 1 plus route 2 is a completely legitimate way to open a business and we will happily point you at it. If you are holding down a job while you open, the kit exists to buy the evenings back.
Does a startup kit actually change your odds?
Nobody can prove that a folder of templates keeps a business open, and anyone who tells you otherwise is selling harder than we are. What we can do is show you the real numbers, because most of the ones you have read are wrong.
The “90% of restaurants fail in the first year” line you have seen a hundred times is not in any government dataset. The Bureau of Labor Statistics actually tracks this. It follows every private-sector establishment from the year it opened and reports how many are still open each March. Here is the Accommodation and Food Services data, straight from BLS Business Employment Dynamics, Table 7.
| Establishments that opened in the year ended | Still open in March 2025 | Survival rate |
|---|---|---|
| March 2024 (after 1 year) | 49,090 of 57,581 | 85.3% |
| March 2020 (after 5 years) | 29,826 of 50,259 | 59.3% |
| March 2015 (after 10 years) | 19,587 of 47,077 | 41.6% |
So: roughly 15 in 100 hospitality businesses close in year one, not 90. About 6 in 10 make five years. About 4 in 10 are still trading after a decade. That is a hard business. It is nothing like the myth.
One more number, because it cuts against the story people tell about food. Across all private industries, establishments that opened in the year ended March 2024 had a 77.9% one-year survival rate, 769,449 of 988,310. Hospitality’s 85.3% was better. Food and drink is not unusually deadly in year one. It gets hard later, in years three through ten, which is exactly the stretch where pricing, planning and cash discipline decide it.
That is the case for doing the paperwork properly, and it is the only case we are going to make. A startup kit does not change the market. It changes how many of those documents exist before you sign a lease.
More startup kits on the way
Get notified when your startup kit launches
What's inside every startup kit
Business startup kit FAQ
What is a business startup kit?
A business startup kit is a bundle of the documents, spreadsheets and checklists you need to open a specific type of business, sold as one download. Opening Day Kit’s holds around 47 files across seven modules: plan, numbers, legal and permits, menu or product, brand, marketing, and opening day. You are not buying advice. You are buying finished files you edit.
How much does a business startup kit cost?
Opening Day Kit sells the standard kit at $297 and the premium kit at $497. One payment, yours forever, with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Pricing is the same for both industries currently available.
Are there free startup kits?
Yes, in two senses. We publish a set of free calculators and planning tools that need no email. Separately, the SBA and its resource partners offer free counselling and free business plan guidance. What no free option gives you is a finished, industry-specific document set. That is the gap a paid startup kit fills.
What is the difference between a startup kit and a franchise starter kit?
A franchise starter kit is issued by a franchisor and ties you to their brand, their suppliers, their rules and ongoing fees. A business startup kit is yours. You open your own business under your own name, with no royalty and no territory agreement. Similar documents, opposite arrangement.
Is this a small business startup kit or an industry-specific one?
Both, and that is the point. The structure is a general small business startup kit. The content inside is written for one industry. A generic business start up package hands you a plan template with blanks in it. Ours hands you a plan template that already knows what a commissary kitchen is.
Which startup kits can I buy today?
Two: the Food Truck Startup Kit and the Coffee Shop Startup Kit. Everything else listed on this page as coming soon is genuinely not built yet. Leave your email and we will tell you the day yours is ready.
How is the kit delivered?
Instant digital download after checkout. Files are PDF guides, XLSX calculators and DOCX templates, so you can edit everything in Excel, Word, Google Sheets or Google Docs.
Who built these kits?
Dustin Lack, former CMO of Dickey’s Barbecue Pit, who has launched 10+ restaurant locations. The kits are the checklists from those openings, cleaned up and made usable by someone who is not standing in the room with you.
