Their financing success has as much to do with guts as it does with planning. All three have plowed their own savings into the project and have promised investors they won't draw a salary for at least six months to a year.

What that means in practice is that Kenneth Rader and Glassman have moved back in with their parents.

While they admit the project has taken "a huge toll'' on their social life, what keeps them going is that there's already a faint whiff of success in the air. Before they've even sold a single bowl of Kix or Trix, they've been getting queries from people interested in franchising opportunities.

``I got an e-mail about two weeks ago from [someone in] New Orleans interested in franchising, and I'm saying to myself, `Are you kidding me? The whole city is devastated,' '' recalls Josh. ``But I talked to him on the phone and he's interested and wants to get a group of people together and try to bring The Cereal Bowl to that area. . . . It makes you kind of happy and confident that you're on the right track.''

Expanding had been their dream all along, but the flurry of interest has them talking to lawyers that specialize in the issue.

They've also popped up on one radar screen they were hoping to evade a little longer - that of their competitors.

Chicago-based Cereality has been selling breakfast cereal in kiosk and cafe settings since 2003. With restaurants in Arizona, Chicago and Philadelphia, the company has applied for a ``business method'' patent that essentially tries to appropriate the entire cereal bar concept.

The Cereal Bowl and another independent cereal bar in Gainesville called Bowls - A Cereal Joint received letters from Cereality warning about trademark infringement.

The Cereal Bowl says it's well protected and their intellectual property lawyers have responded to the warning. ``We knew that proprietary information was important from the beginning,'' said Kenneth weeks before getting the notice, when The Cereal Bowl was trademarking some of its menu items. ``We don't want to be sued or have to sue.''

RISKING IT ALL

Risk is an integral part of running your own business. According to government statistics, The Cereal Bowl has a 66 percent chance of making it past the two-year mark, and just a 40 percent chance of surviving six years.

But those are odds the friends seem prepared to handle.

"No matter what you do there is a risk, but this is a huge thing that I wanted to be a part of,'' said Glassman. "God forbid anything [bad] should happen, but there's so much you get out of this experience that you don't get out of academia. So far, I've learned so much.''

And while the financial risk is in the forefront, Kenneth is also aware of the time and energy the partners are plowing into the project. While peers are going off to graduate school and starting to build nest eggs, he's going into debt.

``We are putting our future on the line by trying to make this our future,'' he said. "Josh has a steady job, but Mike and I are hoping this will be it for us. This is what we're doing.''

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