1) Less than $2000 - Enough to purchase a handfull of games to start with. We're doing this part time and putting everything back into the buisness until it grows enough to start paying ourselves. We won't take a risk with a loan until we know that we're doing well with this.

2)Pretty hard to compete with huge retailers - But specializing in games and networking like crazy is going to help build a sense of community around our store, and hopefully the kind of customer base that we want. Clearly there are some good routes to go in order to build customer loyalty - discounts for multiple purchases, coupons or even a 'punch-card' system (but 10 get one free, stuff like that), and we'll use those. And we want to incorporate fun stuff too - gaming news updates on our site, giveaways and daily deals, contests etc.

But we're taking a lot of cues from some sucessful local game shops, and we want our place to be the kind of store that we would want to buy from, which means being a personable, knowledgable, and honest buisness.