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As I ponder on if I should come to North Dakota to try my luck at finding a good and stable job there in or near one of the Oil Rush cities there, I also am thinking about trying to have a side-plan or backup-plan while waiting to find a stable and suitable job.
Based on all of the reading I have been doing on Oil Rush cities in ND the past few weeks, it seems that most cities have all of the “needed” services that any city would have. Just for fun, I took a look at the “businesses for sale in ND”, and I did not see anything that was unique or provided services that is not already being provided by a decent amount of businesses in the Oil Rush cities already. Plus it seems that these cities have an abundance of food vendors and catering trucks to cater to the oil worker crowd.
I was just curios to know “what” or “if any” services that are lacking in those Oil Rush cities? I tried to put myself in the shoes of a typical oil field worker that works 60 to 100 hours per week. The only thing I could come up with is the following list of wants/needs (that would keep me happy and comfortable when I come home from work “if” I were an oil worker, who did not have my family there with me):
1. A nice homemade hot meal waiting for me each night, with the luxury of not having to clean up the kitchen or a need to go grocery shopping, where the refrigerator and pantry would contain most of my favorites at all times.
2. Knowing that I have fresh clean clothes available whenever I want, without having to do my own laundry.
3. To have my bed made up daily, along with having clean and neat living quarters (includes bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom), without having to ever clean my living quarters myself.
Best of all, I would want all of this in a bundle package, since I figure I’m making very good money working in the oil patch, I would not mind paying a fair price for this service. However, I’m not sure if people living in man camps pretty much get all of these services or not.
Yet Ideally, I would love to hear from some of your people that have recently moved to an Oil Rush city in ND and have you please tell me what service or services that seem to be lacking where you are. Hey, who knows, I might be able to move to ND to provide a valuable needed service that is not there or a service that is needed more of. Yet it would be so great to get some feedback.
As I ponder on if I should come to North Dakota to try my luck at finding a good and stable job there in or near one of the Oil Rush cities there, I also am thinking about trying to have a side-plan or backup-plan while waiting to find a stable and suitable job.
Based on all of the reading I have been doing on Oil Rush cities in ND the past few weeks, it seems that most cities have all of the “needed” services that any city would have. Just for fun, I took a look at the “businesses for sale in ND”, and I did not see anything that was unique or provided services that is not already being provided by a decent amount of businesses in the Oil Rush cities already. Plus it seems that these cities have an abundance of food vendors and catering trucks to cater to the oil worker crowd.
I was just curios to know “what” or “if any” services that are lacking in those Oil Rush cities? I tried to put myself in the shoes of a typical oil field worker that works 60 to 100 hours per week. The only thing I could come up with is the following list of wants/needs (that would keep me happy and comfortable when I come home from work “if” I were an oil worker, who did not have my family there with me):
1. A nice homemade hot meal waiting for me each night, with the luxury of not having to clean up the kitchen or a need to go grocery shopping, where the refrigerator and pantry would contain most of my favorites at all times.
2. Knowing that I have fresh clean clothes available whenever I want, without having to do my own laundry.
3. To have my bed made up daily, along with having clean and neat living quarters (includes bedroom, kitchen, and bathroom), without having to ever clean my living quarters myself.
Best of all, I would want all of this in a bundle package, since I figure I’m making very good money working in the oil patch, I would not mind paying a fair price for this service. However, I’m not sure if people living in man camps pretty much get all of these services or not.
Yet Ideally, I would love to hear from some of your people that have recently moved to an Oil Rush city in ND and have you please tell me what service or services that seem to be lacking where you are. Hey, who knows, I might be able to move to ND to provide a valuable needed service that is not there or a service that is needed more of. Yet it would be so great to get some feedback.
Thanks Everyone.
Nick
HeeHee, are you related to me? My brother and I have been talking about doing something similar to what you have listed above for 2 years, but we just can't iron out how far out we'll go, what to charge, what services exactly we would offer, etc,etc.
We know alot of guys who are working in oil, whether right around us, or further out west, and you are absolutely correct about what they want. They do not have the time to do all this other stuff that a wife or significant other would normally take care of for them (okay, alot of guys are totally capable of doing all this stuff on their own and they do, but most of them don't wanna ), when they are off, they have other things they would like to do with their time.
There is already one company based in Minot that drives out west and picks up oil field clothes (no matter how dirty), brings them into Minot, washes, dries, folds, etc, and delivers them right back out to the field. I haven't seen any of the personal shopper type of services advertised, but I'd be willing to bet mucho dollars that some people are already doing it - and it probably spreads pretty fast by word of mouth. I was just in Wal-mart yesterday and there were tons of guys in there with their work gear on grabbing their necessities and I saw dollar signs. I'm sure a person could make a mint on the alcohol runs alone.
HeeHee, are you related to me? My brother and I have been talking about doing something similar to what you have listed above for 2 years, but we just can't iron out how far out we'll go, what to charge, what services exactly we would offer, etc,etc.
We know alot of guys who are working in oil, whether right around us, or further out west, and you are absolutely correct about what they want. They do not have the time to do all this other stuff that a wife or significant other would normally take care of for them (okay, alot of guys are totally capable of doing all this stuff on their own and they do, but most of them don't wanna ), when they are off, they have other things they would like to do with their time.
There is already one company based in Minot that drives out west and picks up oil field clothes (no matter how dirty), brings them into Minot, washes, dries, folds, etc, and delivers them right back out to the field. I haven't seen any of the personal shopper type of services advertised, but I'd be willing to bet mucho dollars that some people are already doing it - and it probably spreads pretty fast by word of mouth. I was just in Wal-mart yesterday and there were tons of guys in there with their work gear on grabbing their necessities and I saw dollar signs. I'm sure a person could make a mint on the alcohol runs alone.
Norsk/Deutsch/Polska, LOL! Thank you for checking-out my thread. I enjoyed what you wrote. I think once you settle on a spot (city or area) to set-up business, then I would think it would be easy to set prices (based on what the competition is charging). Yet with that being said, the real hard part is like you said when you said “what services exactly we would offer, etc,etc.” LOL! Thus far, there does not seem to be any voids to fill or any type of niche business or services that are needed in those Oil Rush cities, that I can find as of “yet”. However that one company in Minot that does laundry, that sounds like a pretty cool gig.
Thus far, I have much more homework to do , to see if I can make my idea come to fruition, as I am sure that people would want such services that I posted in my original thread, yet I’m not sure about how much demand there would be though. “The plot thickens!” LOL!
Not sure if this was an interest..........But there has been a severe shortage of day care providers. I suppose opening a day care, that the state qualified for being open non-traditional hours as well would be a decent venture. There are women that work in oil, as well as oil related jobs, and single parents of both sexes needing childcare. Anyone coming who has a significant other in the fields, that has decent housing would benefit by checking w/ the proper agencies to see what it might take to open a viable daycare.
I would think taking in laundry, having guys drop it off and pick it up themselves would work too. I had thought early on of doing and also of a lunch pickup.....maybe a weekly run. There really are plenty of needs...a really smart person would start asking folks in person. But make sure you have all the state licenses needed.
Back in the early 70's when I worked in the oil field around Gillette Wyoming, there was a little mom and pop restaurant that made a killing.
This little place would seat about 20 people. It was there before the Oil Boom. But where it made it's big money is that it offered a lunch bag any time of the day. You would go in for coffee and some breakfast (also served 24/7) amd when you ordered your breakfast, you'd tell them you wanted a lunch. You didn't have much choice, but there was always a couple different sandwiches, roast beef, meet loaf, tuna, egg salad, etc... But you would get a couple of good hardy sandwiches, a apple or orange, a container of juice, a can of soda, a couple cookies, some veggie sticks, some chips, maybe some pudding, and a big candy bar. There were people lined up getting lunch bags.
I wonder if a person could do anything with a little portable trailer and offer lunch bags, 24/7. I don't know, but when I was working the oil patch, I hated getting up and spending a half hour trying to put some kind of a lunch together. It was so much of a relief to just stop in for coffee and grab one at the restaurant.
20 years later, I was working down at Jim Bridger Coal in Rock Springs. The Subway Sandwich opened at 4am and did a slam up business early in the morning doing the same thing. Again, people were lined up at the drive thru picking up a lunch bag.
While I was in San Diego in the Navy, there was a place on Rosecrans called "The brown bag" that did an outstanding business doing nothing but making sandwhiches. They even took orders by phone for pickup.
I know that most bigger towns are desperate for daycare and most of them were desperate even before the boom hit - but daycare is not for me. It takes a certain type of person to do daycare (bless their hearts) and it isn't me.
The brown bag idea sounds wonderful! In our area and westward, there are little diners, corner convenience stores in the middle of nowhere and restaurants in tiny towns that are willing to take orders for lunches that people can grab and go, most of them like you to phone in your order in advance.
Oddly enough on this subject of phoning in orders to go: recently we were in Minot for a fast errand and didn't want to sit down and eat, so we called one of the truck stops that always used to take orders via the phone and have them ready to go when you got there - we were told on the phone that they no longer do that, they are to busy to do phone orders anymore - wah! Their food was great!
RigPig, LOL! That is a great idea, however since I don’t live there, I could not help anyone, trying to provide a needed service like that :-(
JanND, that is a great idea. However with the wave of local child molestation stories that we have here in Southern California alone (which is often as of late), I would not touch a job involving taking care of children in any capacity (babysitter, teacher, daycare worker) for all the tea in China. LOL! Years ago, when my brother and his wife started a family and hearing how much they had to pay for daycare for their 2 children (it was about $750 per month for the 2 of them, back in the mid 80's), I thought that would be an excellent business to start, however before I could get my funding together and put a business plan together, more and more “true” and “fraudulent” claims of child molestation was making our local news. So at that point, I abandoned that idea. Yet it seems that child care and daycare is a VERY lucrative business. On a side note, they just did a story on Dateline NBC (with Chris Hansen) about 3 weeks ago, uncovering the perverts and criminals all working at daycare centers, that unsuspecting parents did not know about. Yet that laundry business sounds like that would be a thought.
Elkhunter, I loved the lunch bag idea. I remember where I used to work in the corporate world back in the early 80's, though where I worked, our office was about 1 block away from over 30 to 50 types of restaurants (from fast food to fine dining, in a 1 ½ to 2 mile stretch), however we had someone come into our office daily with 3 ice chests full of homemade sandwiches (with pickles on the side), homemade salads (green, macaroni, potato), homemade cookies (chocolate chip, oatmeal, macadamia nut & white chocolate chip & coconut), with milk, with a variety of canned soda, with a variety of juice, with fresh fruit (apples, oranges, bananas), and they would pull all three ice chest in on a hand truck. Those people seemed to do a pretty good business with our office. Though I did not buy my lunch for them every day, however I would usually buy lunch from them once or twice a week. It made for a nice change from my brown-bagging it (I hated making my lunch each day), plus it was cheaper than going to the fast food places down the street . . . but best of all, all of their sandwiches, salads, and cookies were homemade and had a great taste. Yet we also had a catering truck that would come out 2 times per day (morning time, and lunchtime), so I will admit that I loved getting hot and greasy “made to order” food on occasion. Now with that being said, I have heard that there are already a lot of catering trucks going out to the oil fields feeding the workers, along with a lot of food venders selling food in the Oil Rush cities and towns. So it seems that the market may be over saturated with people providing food to the hungry workers out there. Plus I have seen various ads out there, placed by catering truck businesses, looking for locations and inviting people to contact them if they want their catering truck service at their places of business . . . so I would imagine those people already have TONS of business going out to the oil fields directly, thus giving the oil workers the luxury of never having to drive anywhere during their breakfast or lunch or dinner breaks . . . so the workers have more time to relax and eat while on break. Yet “maybe” my niche customer base would be for those smaller locations that do not have that big customer base that the catering trucks go after.
A half inch thick cut of roast pork or beef, on a hand cut thick piece of bread. Crisp lettuce, a slice of real cheese. Thin slice of tomatoe. Big dollup of mayo. hmmmmmmmm. hahaha
With this a person would want to park and let them swing through a drivethrough. You wouldn't want to run to the rigs or anywhere else. Most places out in the field are only going to have a crew of about a dozen people. Lots of gas spent to sel 4 burrito's and then head for the next rig.
Get a trailer and park it wherever somebody would let you and just stay put.
The best Mexican restaurant we have in town is a lunch trailer parked at the bowling alley parking lot. Today I drove by it and I'll bet there were 12 or 13 cars parked there and people lined up at the little window. I know the guy that owns it. He put it together so he could be mobile and go to the industrial park, and then down town, and then..... He said he never made a dime until he parked it and left it set there.
A person could put one in Williston, one in Watford, one in Standley, etc...
A half inch thick cut of roast pork or beef, on a hand cut thick piece of bread. Crisp lettuce, a slice of real cheese. Thin slice of tomatoe. Big dollup of mayo. hmmmmmmmm. hahaha
With this a person would want to park and let them swing through a drivethrough. You wouldn't want to run to the rigs or anywhere else. Most places out in the field are only going to have a crew of about a dozen people. Lots of gas spent to sel 4 burrito's and then head for the next rig.
Get a trailer and park it wherever somebody would let you and just stay put.
The best Mexican restaurant we have in town is a lunch trailer parked at the bowling alley parking lot. Today I drove by it and I'll bet there were 12 or 13 cars parked there and people lined up at the little window. I know the guy that owns it. He put it together so he could be mobile and go to the industrial park, and then down town, and then..... He said he never made a dime until he parked it and left it set there.
A person could put one in Williston, one in Watford, one in Standley, etc...
Million dollar idea right there folks...
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I tried to put myself in the shoes of a typical oil field worker that works 60 to 100 hours per week. The only thing I could come up with is the following list of wants/needs (that would keep me happy and comfortable when I come home from work “if” I were an oil worker, who did not have my family there with me):
), when they are off, they have other things they would like to do with their time.
, to see if I can make my idea come to fruition, as I am sure that people would want such services that I posted in my original thread, yet I’m not sure about how much demand there would be though. “The plot thickens!” LOL!
