New business ideas??

poopshovel wrote:

SVreX wrote: I'm a fan of mobile oil change/ car wash service. Better yet, a 25 point basic vehicle check. Go to businesses and change oil in their parking lot for employees during the work day. No lost time. Offer discounts for volume, and specials for businesses that sponsor. Low overhead (no building), meets a needs, ability to charge a premium, easy to train, franchise-able. Make sure to have the ability for customers to place orders/ pay through their smart phones.

That's a fan berkeleying tastic, franchisable idea, IMO. Hell, why not offer tires too!? Weather is a big issue for mobile detailing for most folks not as fortunate as you and I. The oil change thing is great...also assuming you're as fortunate as you and I (living somewhere where the EPA isn't going to randomly, anally interrogate you.)

Some time back a board member proposed this idea to the group, prompting a discussion of the potential pitfalls. Could be worth digging up.

gamby wrote: Mobile bicycle repair--do housecalls for tuneups/repairs

This is an interesting one, Gamby. Not something I've heard of before, either, (not in this small city, anyway).

You'd probably need to work out of a van, with repair stand and a good stock of old/new/common/obscure parts on hand. Could have a lot of appeal to the high-end roadie set...pulling up to an office block during business hours, quick gear adjust on some dude's Pinarello...charging labor + call-out fee as you go.

gamby wrote: This is my new venture: www.stringwerks.net

Good to see you get this off the ground!

I think a portable stand, a few toolboxes and a good case of basic spare parts would go in a Honda Fit without much issue. The only question would be how much liability insurance would cost. Also, in my area, this would be a 6-month business because of winter. This also carries the pre-req of being a decent bike mechanic.

Thanks for the props on the stringing biz, Luke.

I'm giving it a pretty decent push in another month (before outdoor tennis season begins). We'll see what happens...

I've had the urge to be a business owner instead of working since I was in college, and now at 28 I only know a bit more. One thing I did learn afer I tried a business of my own at 22 (a very small internet/warehouse based car dealership) then stopped and entered a real franchise dealership (but only AFTER)....

There is a big difference between "being self employed" and growing a 'business empire'. (ok so empire is a bit of stretch even for most successful businesses)

I actually know two people in the same town with technically similar professions.

One is a commercial truck driver that owns one truck and hauls vehicles for dealerships. He is a truck driver. He talks about when he left his previous employer (a trucking company) and started his trucking business years ago. He wears his company shirt and hands out cheap looking cards likes hes 'marketing'. Nice enough guy, makes a living. But he is a self employed truck driver.

The second guy owns a trucking company with about 20 trucks and moves farmers food and other products. Makes good money and now that Im aware of the name and logo I see his stuff a lot of places around here.

I would say that Guy One is a self employed truck driver that has to fight for his own health insurance, pay his road fees, maintenance, and hope that he has enough work to keep the truck moving at all times or the efficiency of the whole thing quickly stops looking like a good idea.

Guy Two might have been a terrible truck driver even, but noticed that he was good at talking to farmers and getting their business, and he was good at logistics and keeping the trucks time on the road as high as possible before he got another truck and so on.

Different skill sets obviously, or atleast different goals. Which one do you want to be?

Before anyone entertains the idea of starting a mobile bicycle repair business (or whatever service business), I would think long and hard what I actually wanted out of this enterprise. If I wanted to be a bicycle repair person above all else, because thats what I was good at, I would go to the best bicycle shop in town and get a job instead of becoming a self employed repair guy. And then later if I had the traits that a business thrives on, I bet the business owner would recognize and offer a better paying position there. And THEN when I realized that 'Hey, if he needs my business management skills, and business growth skills, maybe I could do this for myself!" But only then. Or atleast go into your business knowing that the 'thing itself' is not the problem. The hardest part about a bicycle repair business is not fixing the bicycles.

A very good 'honest lawyer' (I swear they exist) once told me that the law wasn't a problem... whatever case a client brought him he felt very confident he had the skills to take care of one way or another.. the only problem he faced in his law practice was simply getting more and more customers. The law he could take care and solve his customers problems just fine. It ended up turning into a marketing, customer retention, referral question not production question.

Mobile food service, van or trailer. Set up in empty lots on high traffic roads for starters. Hot breakfast sandwiches and coffee, dogs and kielbass for lunch w/ a side. Move around till ya find a good stationary location, drive thru style.

I dunno, I can't boil water...

Fast food/munchies delivery service, use the square program for the iphones make sure you get the credit card # first and don't mess around with cash.

Oh another idea is putting together survival kits and sell to local businesses. The biggest fear for a lot of people are still terrorist attacks, H1N1 stuff, and stuff in-case of natural disasters, mass shooters, car crashes. Play off of others fears...yeah I know it sounds bad but heh it worked for Bush Jr for years.

In reply to rickr84:

Of your two scenarios, I am definitely #2. I am fairly confident that I can talk to customers and get buy in. I have done some sales/sales support work and feel pretty good about my abilities to get people on board. While an empire would be great, I want to start a business so that I can have financial freedom, as well as, control of my own time.

I had a opportunity drop in my lap yesterday that could turn into something quite large so I think that I am going to pursue that for the time being.

You guys have lots of great ideas though and hopefully some of them turn into businesses for other aspiring entrepreneurs.

I mentioned this a couple times before: Go around finding old glass out of cars, refurb them (what ever that means?) and start an online vintage car glass company. Send a couple of people around looking for rotting cars and collect the glass. All you need is a way to refurb them (buffing?), a place to store them, and a way to ship them.

Why I thought of this? A guy at work bought an old rusted out '80s Alfa that needed a new windshield. I almost pooped my pants at the prices!

In reply to RossD:

That is a great idea! If my other stuff blows up in my face, I may look into that. It requires very little money to start and there are tons of people that need that kind of stuff. I can't imagine what a rear window from a '65 Barracuda would bring.

singleslammer wrote: In reply to RossD: That is a great idea! If my other stuff blows up in my face, I may look into that. It requires very little money to start and there are tons of people that need that kind of stuff. I can't imagine what a rear window from a '65 Barracuda would bring.

Saw a resto show where they dropped and broke one of those. Per the profanity laced tirade of the shop owner, it was a $900.00 part from a specialty junkyard. That was with the "frequent customer/old buddy of mine" discount.

Ouch, I don't have the space to store whole cars but I could stock a E36 M3 load of glass parts in my basement.

kazoospec wrote:

singleslammer wrote: In reply to RossD: That is a great idea! If my other stuff blows up in my face, I may look into that. It requires very little money to start and there are tons of people that need that kind of stuff. I can't imagine what a rear window from a '65 Barracuda would bring.

Saw a resto show where they dropped and broke one of those. Per the profanity laced tirade of the shop owner, it was a $900.00 part from a specialty junkyard. That was with the "frequent customer/old buddy of mine" discount.

That's what I thought of. It was Desert Car Kings. I'm guessing that was staged, too. I wouldn't be surprised if that was the class from some other random car.

"Whatever you do, DON'T break this glass!!! Very RARE!!!"

(leans windshield against pole)

Reality show scenario ensues

Most small businesses fail. Make sure you have some kind of backup plan ready.

In reply to rotard:

Back up plan is find another job. I should be able to get part -time work quickly and I have several contacts in town that I might be able to swing into a full time job closer to my field. I am aware that stuff doesn't usually work, precautions are in place.

My neighbor and good friend owned his own business. His dad did the same thing, but worked half as many hours because he had employees. The employees cost a lot, so his dad's cut was less, but he still worked half the hours. My neighbor, his son, worked full time, but didn't want to hire employees because they cost so much.

What I learned from this was the benefit to working for yourself should be 1) the ability to determine your own schedule and still make a living after taxes, insurance etc, or 2) the ability to hire just enough people to run the business for your, and go do something else while it grows.

SVreX wrote: ...and Kroc wasn't in the hamburger business. He was in the real estate business with an ownership stake in the finest commercial property on every busy corner in the entire country, masquerading as hamburger joints.

I heard/read this in...was it "You can Negotiate Anything"?

But yeah... I remember that fact.

singleslammer wrote: Ouch, I don't have the space to store whole cars but I could stock a E36 M3 load of glass parts in my basement.

Not E36 M3loads enough to be profitable, I bet...

In reply to ClemSparks:

touche

My daughter lost her hospital job to a downsizing two years ago. At the same time, her "boyfriend" (I have trouble saying that- he's 52!) owned a body shop that was tanking. She has always been a Foodie, and the two of them came up with a very interesting concept. They call it Sports Meals of Miami. (You can Google it) They make healthy,low fat, low sodium, meals that are really good. Healthy and tasty. They deliver to the gym or to the home. Take orders for a week at a time,you pay at the time of ordering. No collection problems. Through hard work and a high quality product, they are now up to over 200 meals a day. Daddy is proud. BUT- they work 16 hours a day.

My father in law has separately purchased 2 foreclosed properties to flip for cash, or renovate and lease/rent . Both were FILLED...to the roof in one case...with every form of junk imaginable. He rented roll off dumpsters from the waste collection company and paid a fortune to have them dumped. During the clean up (which I helped with), we found a few hundred dollars worth of either scrap metal, or valuable stuff - working DVD players, unopened video games, odds and end antique nick knack stuff etc.

The whole time I was thinking that if we owned a box truck or a pickup and a dump trailer, we could take that stuff to the local dump, and drop it off for WAAAY less than the trash collection people charged, and on our timeline.

I then started to think...hey theres a lot of foreclosed properties right now...and probably soon to be a lot of new owners who need to be rid of tons of crap. Id bet some of those new owners out there will be willing to pay good money to someone to clear all that junk out of their new property and take it away for them. Not to mention that if you get your hands on old washing machines and cast iron bathtubs, you can turn that stuff into cash at the scrapyard.

There are places near me that do that already - 1-800-GOT-JUNK is one that comes to mind - but they charge almost as much as the trash people. Perhaps theres not that much to be made - maybe theres no market there. Who knows, but Id bet its worth looking into.

4cylndrfury wrote: I then started to think...hey theres a lot of foreclosed properties right now...and probably soon to be a lot of new owners who need to be rid of tons of crap. Id bet some of those new owners out there will be willing to pay good money to someone to clear all that junk out of their new property and take it away for them. Not to mention that if you get your hands on old washing machines and cast iron bathtubs, you can turn that stuff into cash at the scrapyard. There are places near me that do that already - 1-800-GOT-JUNK is one that comes to mind -

Singleslammer has too many teeth for this idea to work out well

2) the ability to hire just enough people to run the business for your, and go do something else while it grows.

I've personally never seen that one work. When the cat's away, the mice will play. They'll rob you blind, often without ever taking a dime out of the register. Obviously the CEO of GE isn't assembling lightbulbs, but I don't think we're talking about GE here either, you know?

1) the ability to determine your own schedule and still make a living after taxes, insurance etc

The great thing about being a small business owner is that YOU get to pick which 60-80 hours a week you want to work! Shot in the dark, but I'm guessing the old man had another source of income.

In my experience, the more you're there, the less headache you'll have in the long run. Sure there are people capable of running your business with your best interest in mind. They are few and far between, expensive, and typically smart enough to eventually say "Hey wait a minute. Why am I making all this money for this shiny happy person when I'm the guy doing all the work, establishing relationships with customers, working long hours while he plays golf and jerks off all day."

rickr84 wrote: I don't think food is a terrible idea. Its one thing every person on earth needs, wants, enjoys, and often sees the value in premium versions. Also, there's decent markup.

Yes the markups are good.

Food services do not struggle with markups. They struggle with volume, and sustainable customer base. Additionally, it is very hard to develop barriers to entry, and competitors will be crawling out of the woodwork every other weekend.

I owned the best coffee shop in town. Markups were over 500%. Who cares. Any idea how many cups of coffee you have to sell each and every month to sustain a business with $10K per month in overhead, a staff of 12, and a desire to still take home a decent check when it is all over?

Long hours, low volume, and 2 years without a paycheck.

If the only thing you are looking at is markup, don't go into business.

SVreX wrote:

rickr84 wrote: I don't think food is a terrible idea. Its one thing every person on earth needs, wants, enjoys, and often sees the value in premium versions. Also, there's decent markup.

Yes the markups are good. Food services do not struggle with markups. They struggle with volume, and sustainable customer base. Additionally, it is very hard to develop barriers to entry, and competitors will be crawling out of the woodwork every other weekend. I owned the best coffee shop in town. Markups were over 500%. Who cares. Any idea how many cups of coffee you have to sell each and every month to sustain a business with $10K per month in overhead, a staff of 12, and a desire to still take home a decent check when it is all over? Long hours, low volume, and 2 years without a paycheck. If the only thing you are looking at is markup, don't go into business.

While that's actually a decently good point, I still think that high margins are much better for small business startup. Hell, even on the stock market people pay attention to markup/profit margin, gross margin and things like that.

If you wanted to make $10k a month, and your profit margin is 500% on coffee, with an overhead of $10k a month, you can quickly calculate how much you need to invest to get this thing going for 6 months.

On the other hand if you wanted to sell computers at retail, where margins have been squeezed to no end, you'd have to buy and then sell $200,000 of computers to make $20k. Sounds like a different kind of business. With an average ticket price of $500 you might have to sell fewer of them a month, but it's still very different in my opinion due to the margins.

And like you said, and I agree, volume is really the only issue. If you could have somehow sold 2x the amount of coffee a month, all problems would have been solved, just like with many other businesses. Except that not everyone even has the cash/credit to obtain another $200,000 a month in computers or whatever high cost/low margin business theyre in, while in the coffee business scaling it wouldnt be that bad.

You can't run any business without the appropriate margins AND volume. PERIOD.

No amount of increase in markup will ever overcome an inability to generate sufficient volume.

But, if you don't want the advice of someone who has been there (and knows dozens of other people who have also), then go ahead. Start a food service business.

You've been warned.