Background- 12 odd years in construction (all phases) and 12 in the service/sales field. Always had "the bug" to start my own business. Had a home improvement and landscaping service for a while. Worked as a subcontractor doing finish carpentry for a while as well. Not "employee" material by any means. Always been a workaholic and never satisfied with the limits as an employee. I've always needed control that never seemed to gratify my inner self. Then it hit me last year when a friend who owns a salon contacted me about building a piece of furniture. I lackadaisically threw together a massive corner desk without much thought and put my tools away. Then the first calls started coming in about more pieces people wanted built. For the first 6 months it was a piece per month. Then it became one a week.
Out of providence or whatever you might call it I received a call from a woman whose father was a master furniture builder. He died 5 years ago and the family decided to liquidate his shop tools. So now I have a basement full of tools, customers nationwide and a crappy facebook page. Business has reached a point that I make more from it than my public sector job working for the state of Massachusetts. I'm turning work down because of time and travel. Not a bad place to be in. And not fastlane....yet.
At the end of June we are relocating to Lake Havasu City , Az. I have developed a decent pocket of high end clientele in Las Vegas and plan to fully exploit that situation. We will be looking for a retail space and a manufacturing space as well. Here is where it gets fastlane. In 8 years time I plan on retiring . My 40th birthday. By then this business will be tied in with every major furniture store, distributor and online order site with full lines of furniture across the board. I have no intention of outsourcing overseas as being made in America still stands for something and hopefully will mean more in the future.
It went from a $500 a month business to a $5000 a month business in 14 months with only about a $3000 investment in tools. I believe I can scale that to at least $500,000 a year within 5 years. if not faster. So I'll try to keep this updated as I go. It should be an interesting ride.
Out of providence or whatever you might call it I received a call from a woman whose father was a master furniture builder. He died 5 years ago and the family decided to liquidate his shop tools. So now I have a basement full of tools, customers nationwide and a crappy facebook page. Business has reached a point that I make more from it than my public sector job working for the state of Massachusetts. I'm turning work down because of time and travel. Not a bad place to be in. And not fastlane....yet.
At the end of June we are relocating to Lake Havasu City , Az. I have developed a decent pocket of high end clientele in Las Vegas and plan to fully exploit that situation. We will be looking for a retail space and a manufacturing space as well. Here is where it gets fastlane. In 8 years time I plan on retiring . My 40th birthday. By then this business will be tied in with every major furniture store, distributor and online order site with full lines of furniture across the board. I have no intention of outsourcing overseas as being made in America still stands for something and hopefully will mean more in the future.
It went from a $500 a month business to a $5000 a month business in 14 months with only about a $3000 investment in tools. I believe I can scale that to at least $500,000 a year within 5 years. if not faster. So I'll try to keep this updated as I go. It should be an interesting ride.
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