Has anyone gotten so fed up with thier job that they quit and started their own Biz? (licenses, employees)

[h8cold]

I know I'm not the only one who has thought about this. Has any one done it? If so, what was or is the out come?
Wife and I are both mid 40's and have had our fill of working for some-one else. We have a few ideas, any advice?

[nicet4]

I did and it worked out great.

"A few ideas" and a dream won't do it. You need a full master plan and you must be master of whatever you are going to do or you will fail.

Take setting up a restaurant for example. Nothing is harder and few businesses exist where competition is so keen for the dining dollar. On every street corner there's a restaurant and they are all chasing the same customer as you.

Many failures, we've all seen it, where a new restaurant will pop up and poof, in three weeks they are gone!

Plumbing; you better be a master plumber that doesn't just know about being a master plumber but business as well. If you've never done it you've got licenses, insurances, workers compensation etc you can not yet fathom.

In short you must know your business better than anyone else.

Be prepared to work 80 hours a week. Being in business for yourself means being able to pick what 80 hours of the week you want to work and I ain't kidding.

You are going to need money and you better have a plan.

When I started it was with credit cards. Ran up a company credit card debt of $49,000 between charges and cash advances. I got cash advances to cover payroll for employees while I got nothing. Doing something like this and I had to succeed, the cost of failure would have been to high and for the first two years I worked hours most of you can never fathom.

A typical day would start at 5:30 which would find me heading over to a town 50 miles away to be a helper installing pipe. I was the gopher guy and we would quit at 3:00, I would be home at 4:00 to hit the CAD programs until 10:00, 11:00 or 12:00 PM preparing the next job.

Usually the weekends consisting of just work around the office (that was a pleasant break) except some weekends we worked plant shut downs.

I always carried a cell phone so my office was always moving.

I ain't kidding one bit when I say the first year in business I never had a week where I worked less than 70 hours. It gets worse, the first three to four months I had zero income because I had to get cash advances on my credit cards to pay the guys and I couldn't see doing that for me.

My income for the first year was less than $30,000 or just above minimum wage if you count all the hours. You know, my fair share and being lucky and all that.

At the end of the second year I had all the debt paid off, was taking discounts for fast paying my bills and I started to take Sunday's off.

At the end of the third year hours were still long, I took most Sunday's off and my income had grown to the low six figures but what was better was the perks I received as the owner of the business.

[YaFace]

Start a dog poop cleaning up business, or a roofing company. The latter always being something to start up, because roofing SUCKS.

[nicet4]

Originally Posted by YaFace

Start a dog poop cleaning up business, or a roofing company. The latter always being something to start up, because roofing SUCKS.

Don't knock roofing there's good money in it if you know what you are doing and are willing to work hard.

Contrary to what many MBA's might believe roofing is a job that does require skill or you will have water coming through cracks and seams. It is also a business that will always have a demand because regardless of how bad the economy is when drips of water come down in your house people will find the money to have it fixed from somewhere.

I had my roof done in June for $5,400. It's a small house.

I figure material ran between $1,000 and $1,400.

Throw in $500 for insurance and overhead.

Let's figure material on the high side at $1,400 which leaves $3,500 for labor.

Figure 4 hours mobilization.

Three guys three days working from 7:00 AM until 2:00 PM and they did take a lunch break so actual work ours were 6 hours per day. Time 54 man hours.

End of job clean up 1 man 6 hours.

Time to clean up at shop (unload truck) 4 man hours.

Total labor in job 68 man hours.

Labor per man hour $51.48 an hour.

What we have here is a small company where three unemployed roofers got together, pooled their resources, tools and two trucks one being a flatbed, to start their own roofing company.

They do excellent work I am very pleased with the quality. They are booked up solid it took them four months to get to my house after I gave them the go ahead.

They did two houses like mine during the week.

It is hard, hot work. Picture the deep south in the middle of summer.

But they do have all the work they can handle and in this area of the country they do and can work year round working 6 hour days in summer and 8 to 10 in winter when it is cooler.

Figuring 30 hour work weeks in summer @ $40 an hour that's $1,200 each week for winter or $31,200 for 6 months summer work.

Figuring 40 hour work weeks in winter @ $40 an hour that's $1,600 each week or $41,600.

Take 5 weeks per year vacation and time off they each have an annual salary of around $65,000 which beats Wendy's or Costco but I have a feeling they do better than $65,000 each. I got a feeling each does between $75,000 and $80,000.

What I observed is all three men knew what they were doing and all three were very hard workers . They only worked six hours but when they did they were all right with the program. In takling to them I learned all three were equal partners with all business conducted with cell phones out of a small metal building one of the partners own. They do everything (billing etc) by hand using ball point pens... they don't care how it looks only that the product is of high quality and they make money.

[f_m]

Originally Posted by nicet4

Don't knock roofing there's good money in it if you know what you are doing and are willing to work hard.

Yes, the roofer I used mentioned something about owning a few houses and looking for some more. Of course it's a semi-dangerous job. One slip and you could be permanently injured for life.

[Jesse69]

The Corporate World is still RACIST where the white man usually gets everything - the job and promotions. My brother worked at Citgo for 10 years and was tired of being passed over promotions by white people. So he started a side business building and selling computers and servers for businesses. At first he started selling computer to people but it's too hard to compete with Dell and Best Buy for that. His business must have gotten better selling servers and networking services to business as he purposely underperformed at work to get laid off and collect unemployment. He was self employed 3 years and that when I discovered his business wasn't profitable - he ran through his retirement savings and got major credit card debts and he missed 3 payments so now he's totally screwed by paying a 28% interest credit card debt. He worked harder self employed and slept less, so from looking at my brother I'd say it's better to work for a company than be self employed unless you gotta good business.

[foodie23]

Yes, last week I was too finished. I work with some very unhappy people and I talking about the staff. I have been working on a exist plan for a while. I have to dot some more i's and cross more t's. I will soon have a wonderful service to offer my future clients. I just use my present job to motivate me. It does make me a little nervous to step out, while all this 'stuff ' is going on. I am grateful to have a job. You just can not live for the check . It is interesting how life happens .

[CafeAuLait40]

Jesse,

Are you certain your brother was passed over due to his color or due to his performance? My best friend, who is married to a white man, has been passed over for promotion after promotion after promotion by other white people at the company he used to work for and we don't know why. However, we know it didn't have to do with his performance nor his race. So, white people get passed over also. Did your brother ever discuss this with his superiors? Maybe he should have.

At any rate, even though we minorities are still lagging a little in the corporate world, we have made great strides, but I refuse to blame all of our woes on white people. I don't believe that is a fair comment to make.

Being self-employed is not for someone who cannot be well organized and highly disciplined because it will eat you alive. It is definitely not for everyone. However, if you have the drive, are tenacious, know what you want to do with a good plan (even if it is only for your purposes), then you can make it work.

People have always told me, if you would do what you love doing for free and you are good at it, then there's your business right there!

Originally Posted by Jesse69

The Corporate World is still RACIST where the white man usually gets everything - the job and promotions. My brother worked at Citgo for 10 years and was tired of being passed over promotions by white people. So he started a side business building and selling computers and servers for businesses. At first he started selling computer to people but it's too hard to compete with Dell and Best Buy for that. His business must have gotten better selling servers and networking services to business as he purposely underperformed at work to get laid off and collect unemployment. He was self employed 3 years and that when I discovered his business wasn't profitable - he ran through his retirement savings and got major credit card debts and he missed 3 payments so now he's totally screwed by paying a 28% interest credit card debt. He worked harder self employed and slept less, so from looking at my brother I'd say it's better to work for a company than be self employed unless you gotta good business.

[CafeAuLait40]

If you are serious about starting your own business, your local SCORE organization just might be a wealth of information for you!