Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics > Business
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 01-03-2023, 11:27 AM
 
Location: North Idaho
32,480 posts, read 47,405,393 times
Reputation: 77676

Advertisements

The Small Business Administration offers classes in nuts and bolts business. They also offer SBA loans to get started, if you can qualify.

Business administration classes at a university are too much about theory, but some of the community colleges offer good small business classes.

Decide what small business you want to get into, and go online and join any forums for those businesses. Just hang out and listen and ask the occasional question. There are websites for just about any business you might be interested in.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 01-30-2023, 05:26 AM
 
66 posts, read 46,076 times
Reputation: 161
Taking a course is a good place to start. Yes, there are many things to learn and it might be challenging, but it's not impossible. I believe you'll find that you already have a foundation for some aspects of running a business. For example, you can do project management with Google sheets, you probably know your way around already. All you need are the templates that suit the purpose, and you're good to go. Automation nowadays will allow you to have two-way integrations at the highest level, which ultimately saves a lot of time. As for the legal side of running a business, keep in mind that you need to check the local regulations that apply, depending on the state. And one last thing, I agree about joining the forums, it's a great way to get tips and learn about the specific issues you might encounter and how to solve them. Take it one step at a time and good luck!
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 02-05-2023, 01:19 AM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
7,600 posts, read 4,500,720 times
Reputation: 12655
Hey OP. I went to business school (admittedly a few decades ago now) and took some courses in Entrepreneurialism. We spoke of business plans, and resources and management styles etc.



I'm not saying it was wrong...it was all good stuff, but then I married into an immigrant family of war refugees that had to flee their homeland. The matron, who cannot read and write in English, has started about 40 businesses....selling them in turn to other family members and getting new ones.



It's a lot easier to do it that route, which is...what can you sell that others will pay you for (forget what you want to do...that's later) and can you make it simple enough to order that you could make it a number selection on McDonald's meal menu?


If you can do that, you can hire a bunch of people like me that went to business school to perfect that for you. Because what I've realized is business school is not for starting businesses as much as managing other people's businesses.



Whatever you are doing, start with the service angle. Your labor is the cheapest part. As you get capital, you can move into other components. Work your booty off and....i won't say for sure it will be fine, but you'll be on the right track.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 02-05-2023, 07:10 AM
 
9,712 posts, read 7,534,804 times
Reputation: 24112
Quote:
Originally Posted by artillery77 View Post
Hey OP. I went to business school (admittedly a few decades ago now) and took some courses in Entrepreneurialism. We spoke of business plans, and resources and management styles etc.

I'm not saying it was wrong...it was all good stuff, but then I married into an immigrant family of war refugees that had to flee their homeland. The matron, who cannot read and write in English, has started about 40 businesses....selling them in turn to other family members and getting new ones.

It's a lot easier to do it that route, which is...what can you sell that others will pay you for (forget what you want to do...that's later) and can you make it simple enough to order that you could make it a number selection on McDonald's meal menu?

If you can do that, you can hire a bunch of people like me that went to business school to perfect that for you. Because what I've realized is business school is not for starting businesses as much as managing other people's businesses.

Whatever you are doing, start with the service angle. Your labor is the cheapest part. As you get capital, you can move into other components. Work your booty off and....i won't say for sure it will be fine, but you'll be on the right track.
40 businesses - that is impressive and fascinating. What sorts of businesses?
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 02-06-2023, 01:20 AM
 
Location: Silicon Valley
7,600 posts, read 4,500,720 times
Reputation: 12655
Quote:
Originally Posted by KaraG View Post
40 businesses - that is impressive and fascinating. What sorts of businesses?

Service businesses. Dry Cleaning, Hair Salon and Nail Salon mostly. She was a tricky one though....It was more than once where she'd sell a business and then set up a new one a block away. Ultimately that penchant for foul play undid her (well that and Parkinson's)...but there was no denying she was an able entrepreneur.



Another colleague I was cleaning things up for started in the phone repair business, later moving to accessories and rentals....then an agency, photography, interior design and finally commercial complexes. Went from delivering pizzas only on days he could rent a car of $9 for the day to having ownership stakes in $500M in real estate. Granted, he had some wickedness take hold of him as well, which is why he needed me, but there's no denying he was an able promoter of multiple things.



Another couldn't get a job so he started a jan san shop for overnight cleaning of offices. He turned those profits into condos, and when we last spoke he had 9 that were clean out the door.


Another did some sort of oven cleaning for restaurants. Trailer park kid with rough and tumble friends he organized. He now operates in 8 States and doesn't lift a finger anymore.



There's more. There's so many more. You go to any plaza and look differently, you may see them. At some point you stop figuring out what you want to do, and you just look at what people are willing to pay for that you can do, or can get people to do. And you have to have yourself inline. Keep off the drugs, bad habits, indolence and envy. Know up front some stuffed shirt is going to lord it over you....never knowing you make 4-5x what they do in a year.



Next time you drive up and you see some dude with a couple things of flowers trying to sell them to you while you're in your car....look harder. Off in a ditch you'll see more flowers. Get there at the right time and you'll see a guy dropped off that's part of a bigger organization. One that's figured out how to move excess flowers without additional lease expense....and forget sales tax...while consuming Ricardo's time even though he's been in country for 2 weeks.



Someone figured out that waxing buttholes is something people pay to have done. Sounds gross and degrading right? Now figure $50 for 20 minutes worth of work. That's $1200 on a full day. Say you've got 2/3 of that, or $800 a day. Lot of these places are open 7 days a week. That's crazy, but...it's not like there's stress. Besides, that's $5K a week or $20K a month, drop $7K on rent and consumables and that's still $13K a month...or $150K a year....net of tax effect, that's about the same as an internal medicine doctor's starting wage....and they're poking and prodding buttholes as well, but on sick people after spending 10 years in college.



One couple started painting crappy ceramics to sell at fairs. They got so big they outsourced the work and just ran the fair circuit selling things....to the tune of $10M a year.



The key is simply finding something people will pay for and having the team to actually do it. The rest is noise that you'll hire people to make better. Don't worry about that until you've figured out the first step.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:


Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > Economics > Business
Similar Threads

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top