1. Getting Away from a Non-compete Agreement. They are in the Chicago area, and their first consideration was getting out of the "non-compete zone" demanded by their former employer. When they worked for this company, they signed a non-compete agreement, which restricted them from setting up their new business within 3 years and 15 miles of their former employer's location. That still gave them plenty of places to choose from. To do this, they used "Radius around Point" from FreeMapTools.com. http://www.freemaptools.com/radius-around-point.htm
2. Finding a Community. They researched different cities using city-data.com to find one with a diverse ethnic mix. Since they are a bi-racial couple (Mario is Hispanic and Eleanora is African-American), they wanted to find a city where they would be made to feel welcome and where there were other bi-racial couples. Mario also speaks Spanish, and he wants to practice in a Hispanic community. They settled on Evanston, Illinois.
3. Finding a Neighborhood. After they found the city where they wanted to live, Mario and Eleanora spent a lot of time wandering around and looking and talking to people before they settled on a part of town to start looking for property. They watched people coming and going to downtown Chicago on the train and by car; they looked at where people buy, paying particular attention to grocery stores. They found that the kind of people who went into Subway stores were the kind of people they wanted to have as customers.
4. Finding an Office. When they had a feel for neighborhoods, they started looking for "for rent" signs and they found a commercial real estate broker who took them to see property. They said they had one broker who only showed them property his company represented, so they quickly found another who showed them property from different management companies.
It takes time to do all of this, but don't rush it. Spend the time to be sure you are in the right place. It's too expensive to find you chose the wrong location.
