If you wanted to start a business (retail business, lawyer, profit)

[crystalblue]

where you could make a decent profit AND pay your employees a living wage, what could you do?

It often seems that for a small business owner, its one or the other.

I'm hoping I am wrong.

[jhlcomp]

Figure out what people need when times are good and bad.

We have our own business. Right now things have slowed down and we anticipated this and planned for it. This is our 15th year in business. I can not tell you have many times we have not paid ourselves so that our employees could get paid.

A friend of ours runs several businesses. One is a hobby store, one is an asphalt resurfacing business and I forget the other one. I know the last two are seasonal.

[Driller1]

Originally Posted by jhlcomp

Figure out what people need when times are good and bad.

We have our own business. Right now things have slowed down and we anticipated this and planned for it. This is our 15th year in business. I can not tell you have many times we have not paid ourselves so that our employees could get paid.

A friend of ours runs several businesses. One is a hobby store, one is an asphalt resurfacing business and I forget the other one. I know the last two are seasonal.

Agreed! That is why I choose water. Never hire anyone to do what you can do yourself. Be ready to never have a day off or vacation for a long time. I mean 18 hour days.

[crystalblue]

Originally Posted by Driller1

Agreed! That is why I choose water. Never hire anyone to do what you can do yourself. Be ready to never have a day off or vacation for a long time. I mean 18 hour days.

thats why I'm looking more for an investment type of business...

[Rcm58]

Its a knac for spotting a nitch, I have had several businesses over a 30 year span and have always made money. I am a small business owner and am always changing things to keep it profitable. I bought a union 76 station in 93 that was doing poorly adjacent to an industrial park, added a deli and delivery and was netting $2300 a day inside of 6 months, sold it for a profit in 2 years and opened a Skateboard Shop in a great location with no competition and netted $40,000 in just the month of December following our October grand opening and its grown over the last 4 years, I've added an online site that took awhile to produce but it only requires daily updating of inventory and it adds about $30,000 a year to our bottom line and earlier this month I added about 400 auctions a week on ebay which have been doing well for us, I did the research and discovered that certain clothing items sold well so I traveled and got hooked up with a company and am now closing 1/2 of everything I put up and netting an extra $173 a day and I never have to leave here to do it, USPS picks up for free and supplies the boxes for free....I love the net.

[NorthmeetsSouth]

Originally Posted by crystalblue

where you could make a decent profit AND pay your employees a living wage, what could you do?

It often seems that for a small business owner, its one or the other.

I'm hoping I am wrong.

Are you asking what type of business you should open, or do you have something in mind already?

[crystalblue]

Originally Posted by NorthmeetsSouth

Are you asking what type of business you should open, or do you have something in mind already?

I have nothing in mind.

I'm just looking for examples of a business someone could start, say with maybe 100k, and make a decent profit while also paying your employees a decent wage.

[Rcm58]

100K?, I'd stick with some kind of service buisness, honestly you can blow the first 7K on a sign to put out in front of a retail business and another $10 K for a small retail location before you ever get started., I payed $2800.00 a month for a tiny location in Fort Lauderdale Fla back in the mid 80's. I would never even consider going into business without 2 years worth of income in the bank for just in case.
If I was looking for something with $100,000 I would look to open with no more than 30k and one employee and that includes risk.

[NorthmeetsSouth]

It is so hard to say. there are probably dozens of businesses you could start but I think you should pick something that you are interested in. I started a construction company several years ago, but that isn't something I would recommend to most people. One thing that I do on the side is buy old fixer uppers and renovate them and rent them. If you like that sort of thing now is a good time because there are so many houses for sale. If you buy in an area that has a college then it is recession-proof because kids will always be going to school, and mom and dad will always be looking for a place for them to live. Just don't put too much into fixing it up because you will be redoing it every summer.

[crystalblue]

actually, I'm not going to be doing this for a while. I'm going to law school, and Im hoping to use some of that lawyer money to invest in a business.
It would have to be a business that requires minimum management...