Start your own business

[MarkSB]

I have an extended family member with a small landscaping business and they love snow because it brings in business more than spring/summer landscaping.

More business than in summer? Surely it must be because the summer business is slow, no?

Although, the past couple winters have been pretty good for snow. I plowed snow part time up until last year, I can remember a few wicked storms, one where I was out for about 14 hours. Of course, this is working for someone else, and using their equipment.

 

[Tamara224]

In an economy like this, if you have a small amount of money that you want to use to start a business, what would you do?
Discuss away...

Well, the most obvious for me would be my own law firm. And that will likely happen at some point in the future.

But if I wanted to do something different.... I'd open up a bar/pub/coffee shop/movie theater.

Bars around here are all the same... loud music, 100s of TVs on the walls playing sports (that no one really watches), 20-somethings getting drunk and hoping to hook up. I think that if there was an alternative, a lot of people would love it.

My vision is: comfortable seating - couches and stuffed chairs, foot rests, etc. Maybe a pool table or two and darts off in the back. And one section of the bar that is the theater where we would play old movies and sports and maybe take requests. That section might also serve for live bands on occasion.

I wouldn't have big screen TVs playing sports on every wall all the time. The music would never be so loud that you can't have a conversation. The atmosphere would be homey and comfortable.

I'd probably either get local breweries to supply me or start a micro in the bar. I'd have good coffee in whatever form. And good pub food.

I'd try to make it a place where people can go hang out with friends and grab a beer or a cappuccino and have a good, relaxed time.



OR.....

My other idea for a business is a private school. That's an idea my brother and I have tossed around. In our immediate family, we have enough expertise to run a fine arts school (music, art, literature, drama and dance). We've considered opening an academy that serves as a supplement to public schools.

 

[PeculiarTreasure]

I would open a music/book store.

 

[MacFall]

I would write until I could print, then sell my books.

Oh hey - that IS what I'm doing! Awesome.

Although I'm not exactly doing it full-time; I'm also scrapping metal and doing odd jobs for people on the side, and when the school year starts I'll be substitute teaching occasionally. But I love doing all of those things, and I'm not really working for anyone else except for my customers. Not counting subbing, but that's not the major part of what I do.

 

[puffca]

...
My other idea for a business is a private school. That's an idea my brother and I have tossed around. In our immediate family, we have enough expertise to run a fine arts school (music, art, literature, drama and dance). We've considered opening an academy that serves as a supplement to public schools.

Nice. If you need a science teacher, count me in.

I would open a music/book store.

Another book store...



O.K., so far we have 3 book stores, a coffee shop, a bar, a law firm, a private school, a pug daycare, a trading company, a recording studio, a touring company, a gun shop, a landscaping company and a publishing firm.
Not too bad.

 

[Tink]

Nice. If you need a science teacher, count me in.



Another book store...



O.K., so far we have 3 book stores, a coffee shop, a bar, a law firm, a private school, a trading company, a recording studio, a touring company, a landscaping company and a publishing firm.
Not too bad.

What about my genealogical research services company? GRRRRRRRRRR.

 

[puffca]

What about my genealogical research services company? GRRRRRRRRRR.

Added the pug daycare and the gun shop.

As to your "genealogical research services company"....it's a pure hobby, not a small business.
How much time and effort do you need to spend in order to make a full genealogy map? In this economy, how much would you pay for a genealogy map?

 

[Tink]

Added the pug daycare and the gun shop.

As to your "genealogical research services company"....it's a pure hobby, not a small business.
How much time and effort do you need to spend in order to make a full genealogy map? In this economy, how much would you pay for a genealogy map?

It could be a business if that's all I did all day. People generally pay by the hour for research and then a flat fee for the actual mapping.

You didn't say it had to be LOGICAL during the current economy.

 

[Wren]

More business than in summer? Surely it must be because the summer business is slow, no?

Although, the past couple winters have been pretty good for snow. I plowed snow part time up until last year, I can remember a few wicked storms, one where I was out for about 14 hours. Of course, this is working for someone else, and using their equipment.

Well, that's what the wife (husband/wife own it) told me in the winter 2009/2010. I don't know the details of it.

 

[acropolis]

If I could secure a loan massive enough to cover start-up costs I would start a materials fabrication facility, since there are a small number of optimized materials that are both useful to industry and whose exact method of production is known only to myself and a few other people. I may have to first murder those other people, but that's business, ya know?

Failing that, I renovate old houses as a hobby and if I was smart about it and worked hard enough I could parley that into a series of rental properties. But oh lord would that be a lot of work. I've come close to doing it before, but the first few years would just be so. much. work. Once I got a few houses in decent shape and with renters I could afford to sub out some of the renovation, which would let me get more properties faster and more renters etc. until I could finally turn over the entire operation to a general manager and just enjoy the profits. But of course a lot could go wrong. When you're only renting a few places it only takes a couple of bad tenants to destroy your wee profit margin. Plus I'd have to cut a lot of corners and sometimes be a jerk and evict people who don't deserve it but are too expensive to keep around. I don't want to be that guy. I've thought about this a lot.

 

[MarkSB]

If I could secure a loan massive enough to cover start-up costs I would start a materials fabrication facility, since there are a small number of optimized materials that are both useful to industry and whose exact method of production is known only to myself and a few other people. I may have to first murder those other people, but that's business, ya know?

Failing that, I renovate old houses as a hobby and if I was smart about it and worked hard enough I could parley that into a series of rental properties. But oh lord would that be a lot of work. I've come close to doing it before, but the first few years would just be so. much. work. Once I got a few houses in decent shape and with renters I could afford to sub out some of the renovation, which would let me get more properties faster and more renters etc. until I could finally turn over the entire operation to a general manager and just enjoy the profits. But of course a lot could go wrong. When you're only renting a few places it only takes a couple of bad tenants to destroy your wee profit margin. Plus I'd have to cut a lot of corners and sometimes be a jerk and evict people who don't deserve it but are too expensive to keep around. I don't want to be that guy. I've thought about this a lot.

So you're going to be a slum lord then?

jk... renovating houses is something that has always interested me, though I know very little about it apart from the occassional work I have done helping friends. It might be a good direction to go in right now though - I think the housing market may take a while to recover, so odds are there will be more people looking to rent.

 

[MarkSB]

Well, that's what the wife (husband/wife own it) told me in the winter 2009/2010. I don't know the details of it.

Maybe a sarcastic remark, or perhaps they really do pull in more in winter. *shrug* Though I'm sure the contractor I worked for made more in the summer.

I have no experience bidding jobs for plowing or for light duty landscaping (beds, plants and trees, lawncare, ect.) Plowing charges by the hour so it wouldn't be difficult to do, as for trees and plants and whatnot, I would have to bring other people in who have more knowledge in that area. The bulk of my knowledge lies in doing hardscape (brick patios, retaining walls, raised patios, ect.), which I've been told has a better profit margin. Although that's difficult to believe with the markup some landscaping places put plants and trees.

 

[acropolis]

So you're going to be a slum lord then?

jk... renovating houses is something that has always interested me, though I know very little about it apart from the occassional work I have done helping friends. It might be a good direction to go in right now though - I think the housing market may take a while to recover, so odds are there will be more people looking to rent.

You'd be surprised how easy it is to take a house that looks condemnable and make it into something people would pay money to live in. I just hate the business side of it so much that I don't really consider it an option. You're right about the rental market, though, lots of folks looking to rent houses since they can't buy for a while.

edit: another factor is that renovating for friends means I don't have to be overly concerned with building codes. If I'm renting/selling then I'd have another layer of BS to deal with.

 

[Obzocky]

The only business I know I could swing straight into would be dog grooming, and that's purely because I have a small client base who are itching for me to go back to doing it full-time and a lot of people are still willing to pay someone else to wash, dry and style their pooches. It's workable, the only challenge would be finding a suitable place for a "proper" business, what with all the legislation and planning permission and things.

The business I should probably aim for would be freelance ecological consultancy, but it takes time to build a name for yourself and it would be better to start off in a firm with a strong client base and build up a name whilst working for them. I would be reluctant to try and freelance immediately following graduation, even if I have all the beautiful certificates showing that i've done x amount of work meaning I get this beautiful certificate allowing me to handle great crested newts or hold a shrew license or any of that silly stuff. I need to get real, full on, consultancy experience before trying to make it on my own.

I will echo Amber though ... everyone I know who set up their own small business works 7 days a week, practically every waking hour, in order to make sure they're getting the business in and not losing clients. I honestly think i'm too lazy to do that, I could just about cope with grooming as ... well, it's different. It's stressful and awful and horrible at times but not really to the same level as dealing with big businesses who employed you because they had to carry out a survey to see if bats were roosting in the buildings, or whether there were in fact protected species living on the land you wish to turn into a car park ... i'm not sure I have the personality for that world if i'm honest.

Actually I don't think I have the personality for running a business at all

 

[Fremdin]

I'd like to have a crafts store/ soda fountain. Something touristy for the ladies who lunch where I sold my work and the work of local artists and had an old fashioned soda fountain.

 

[trentlogain2]

a Christian thrift shop. lol