G
Guest3722A
Guest
In the late 1990s, I had a business idea that just wouldn't leave me alone. The idea was to lease out a commercial building with a decent amount of square footage so that I could partition rooms and rent them out on a monthly basis to the local band and musician community. Initially I got the idea from seeing bands renting spaces in neighborhood storage units, but with that type of space, the musicians still had time restrictions and eventually the storage unit businesses weren't allowing this anymore. Meanwhile, while I was dreaming and mentally putting it all together, I was also visiting home depot doing calculations to get my costs in line and driving through commercial and industrial districts to get an idea of what was out there. And over (procrastinating) time, my plan transpired to opening the business with a friend of mine, John, because at the time I figured taking on one of my best friends as a partner would be a good idea.
At this point I had a basic idea of costs and other things related, but like many, I didn't really have the guts to actually put myself in a situation of that scale that I had to make work. I've never done anything like this before so it was easier to dream about it and talk about it than to just do it. Now this next little part I'm gonna mention is something that most only see on tv but from where I'm from, these types of events hit close to home for many in my surrounding. In December of 2000, one of my good friends was shot and killed while he was sleeping. Obviously this was very devistating for all of us and mine and my buddy John's thoughts were that life was too short to not take chances. But then it got worse because sadly and horribly, three procrastinating months later, my best friend John took his own life. This was the last straw that caused me to take immediate decisive action regardless of costs and my cautious demeanor. I had blinders on and didn't care about anything else except living and following my dream.
Within the next week I called the owner of a building I had my eye on and metaphorically burned the bridge by signing on the dotted line, and handing over a sizeable chunk of my savings for a building. I say burn the bridge because by spending the money and signing to a lease commitment, I had no way back.
After signing, my plan was to build and power four rooms, 2 big and 2 small, rent them out with first, last and security, which the thought was that it would be enough to pay the next month's rent with a little left over to build one more room, and pay utilities. But, to my surprise, NOBODY wanted to be the first to rent space. So I was stuck with an ad in a popular musicians publication, which got my phone ringing, but no takers. At this point I was 3 weeks in with a lease payment coming up and desperate so the next thing I did saved my arse! What I did was when I had the next prospect show up to look at the rooms, I had turned a radio on in one room and locked the door and in another room I had set up my drums and played while my girlfriend showed the two open rooms. One big one, and one small one...your choice! And wouldn't you know it, they signed!!! After this point the remaining rooms were claimed, as well as an office that was in the building, and I was in business. The next month I built 5 more rooms and filled them, and then after the next couple months I had 18 rooms built and 100% occupancy, with a waiting list months out.
Then the day came when I showed up and had a letter on the door from the City... As I'm sure many of you were probably wondering, the letter in so many words said that I needed a Certificate of Occupancy and to cease operations until I had inspections. To be honest, prior to this point there was no way I could've afforded to pay for architects and inspections and the only reason why I didn't lease an existing office space with rooms already in it was because the cost per sq. ft. for office space was at around $7-12+ on a nnn whereas industrial footage could be had for $2.50-$7+ gross. Many can argue that the costs would've balanced but maximum monthly cashflow is what I wanted in a lease situation.
Anyway, I can still remember the day the inspector showed up and wouldn't you know it, it was on the day that my heaviest speed metal band was in there rehearsing with their cookie monster vocals and their drummer double bassing a mile a minute. So what does the inspector do? He gets a big smile on his face, lights up a smoke, and decends into the abyss. And what did I do? I walk next to him and played stupid the entire time. Now I know this isn't the proper way to go about establishing a professional and responsible presence, but when you have nothing, you improvise and do the best you can with what you have to work with and build towards getting things right. And at this point in the game, almost two years later, I had accumulated enough to pretty much buy the entire building and start from scratch, had I chosen. Which then leads into the next chapter... buy the building which in total was almost 13000 sq ft ( I leased half and there was a neighbor) or move to something bigger that could minimize my waiting list.
To make this long story short, I ended up moving to a new location that was almost 19,000 sq. ft because the problem with purchasing the existing building was that the current owner wanted to write into the purchase agreement that I had to take the neighbor along with the deal because the neighbor bought, and was still paying for the landlord's previous steel-shop business. Sure it would've been rent money, but I still had a waiting list and could've quadrupled what he was paying in rent, with my business expanded into that space.
At the very end when it was all said and done, I had done everything from putting a sewer line in, to clearing a half acre of trees for a parking lot, to tapping the power lines on 8 mile road so that I had 600 amps in the new building. All of this coupled with a 20 camera surveillance system with infra-red, 2 keyed plus room key plus key code entrance for security, not to mention I built my entrances with chicken wire and osb sandwiched between the 5/8ths drywall, and I also built a quarter operated game room that had a pool table, dart boards, video poker and a juke box. In addition my vending machines sold guitar picks, strings, cords, drum sticks and drum keys, and on occassion I would have a flat bed from a semi backed in there as a stage and threw some massive parties. On top of this I've had an MTV video shot in there, and my tenant list had guys from Bob Seger, Sponge, Chad from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, guys from Uncle Cracker and many many others.
In the end I lost it all because it ended up in court simply because the landlord wasn't willing to fix some water issues and broke the lease constantly, for which I was literally on the stand for hours getting drilled by attorneys. I won in court, but lost my business, my home, my vehicle and myself. Currently I am classified homeless in the state of Michigan, and on Government aid, food and medical, but I'm fortunate to have good friends, one of which who gave me a job in his shop for which it enabled me to save two years of living expenses. To all of you reading this, going from entrepreneuer to having to work for someone to make ends meet feels awful and is not easy. You do NOT want to do this. Be the driver and not the passenger in your ventures if you can help it!
Currently, my spirit is far from broken as I'm waiting for an ss4 # for a group of small investors who have seen me make a 200% return in 6 months in a stock account I've been trading for a friend. Under contract with this investment group, I am to receive 40% of all capital gains, with no recourse should it blow up, to trade their funds. And my goal is to build it up so that I have the minimum $5000 required to trade proprietary, for which I would get 100x's buy power to scalp trades with.
Ultimately, I'm going to be the one who WILL show a viable system to reduce poverty in America. I know it sounds crazy, but I believe it
I have the system, and seeing that I am poverty stricken, I am going to be the "proof". The problem, is that I'm also thinking about how easy and relatively inexpensive it would be to open an indoor bikini car wash, with mirrors on the walls, and music blaring... the inspector who inspected my first building said he would be my first customer.... hmmmmmm
Decisions decisions... save the world, or bikini car wash :smxG:
Anywho... have a good one, and thanks for reading!
-Topher
At this point I had a basic idea of costs and other things related, but like many, I didn't really have the guts to actually put myself in a situation of that scale that I had to make work. I've never done anything like this before so it was easier to dream about it and talk about it than to just do it. Now this next little part I'm gonna mention is something that most only see on tv but from where I'm from, these types of events hit close to home for many in my surrounding. In December of 2000, one of my good friends was shot and killed while he was sleeping. Obviously this was very devistating for all of us and mine and my buddy John's thoughts were that life was too short to not take chances. But then it got worse because sadly and horribly, three procrastinating months later, my best friend John took his own life. This was the last straw that caused me to take immediate decisive action regardless of costs and my cautious demeanor. I had blinders on and didn't care about anything else except living and following my dream.
Within the next week I called the owner of a building I had my eye on and metaphorically burned the bridge by signing on the dotted line, and handing over a sizeable chunk of my savings for a building. I say burn the bridge because by spending the money and signing to a lease commitment, I had no way back.
After signing, my plan was to build and power four rooms, 2 big and 2 small, rent them out with first, last and security, which the thought was that it would be enough to pay the next month's rent with a little left over to build one more room, and pay utilities. But, to my surprise, NOBODY wanted to be the first to rent space. So I was stuck with an ad in a popular musicians publication, which got my phone ringing, but no takers. At this point I was 3 weeks in with a lease payment coming up and desperate so the next thing I did saved my arse! What I did was when I had the next prospect show up to look at the rooms, I had turned a radio on in one room and locked the door and in another room I had set up my drums and played while my girlfriend showed the two open rooms. One big one, and one small one...your choice! And wouldn't you know it, they signed!!! After this point the remaining rooms were claimed, as well as an office that was in the building, and I was in business. The next month I built 5 more rooms and filled them, and then after the next couple months I had 18 rooms built and 100% occupancy, with a waiting list months out.
Then the day came when I showed up and had a letter on the door from the City... As I'm sure many of you were probably wondering, the letter in so many words said that I needed a Certificate of Occupancy and to cease operations until I had inspections. To be honest, prior to this point there was no way I could've afforded to pay for architects and inspections and the only reason why I didn't lease an existing office space with rooms already in it was because the cost per sq. ft. for office space was at around $7-12+ on a nnn whereas industrial footage could be had for $2.50-$7+ gross. Many can argue that the costs would've balanced but maximum monthly cashflow is what I wanted in a lease situation.
Anyway, I can still remember the day the inspector showed up and wouldn't you know it, it was on the day that my heaviest speed metal band was in there rehearsing with their cookie monster vocals and their drummer double bassing a mile a minute. So what does the inspector do? He gets a big smile on his face, lights up a smoke, and decends into the abyss. And what did I do? I walk next to him and played stupid the entire time. Now I know this isn't the proper way to go about establishing a professional and responsible presence, but when you have nothing, you improvise and do the best you can with what you have to work with and build towards getting things right. And at this point in the game, almost two years later, I had accumulated enough to pretty much buy the entire building and start from scratch, had I chosen. Which then leads into the next chapter... buy the building which in total was almost 13000 sq ft ( I leased half and there was a neighbor) or move to something bigger that could minimize my waiting list.
To make this long story short, I ended up moving to a new location that was almost 19,000 sq. ft because the problem with purchasing the existing building was that the current owner wanted to write into the purchase agreement that I had to take the neighbor along with the deal because the neighbor bought, and was still paying for the landlord's previous steel-shop business. Sure it would've been rent money, but I still had a waiting list and could've quadrupled what he was paying in rent, with my business expanded into that space.
At the very end when it was all said and done, I had done everything from putting a sewer line in, to clearing a half acre of trees for a parking lot, to tapping the power lines on 8 mile road so that I had 600 amps in the new building. All of this coupled with a 20 camera surveillance system with infra-red, 2 keyed plus room key plus key code entrance for security, not to mention I built my entrances with chicken wire and osb sandwiched between the 5/8ths drywall, and I also built a quarter operated game room that had a pool table, dart boards, video poker and a juke box. In addition my vending machines sold guitar picks, strings, cords, drum sticks and drum keys, and on occassion I would have a flat bed from a semi backed in there as a stage and threw some massive parties. On top of this I've had an MTV video shot in there, and my tenant list had guys from Bob Seger, Sponge, Chad from the Red Hot Chili Peppers, guys from Uncle Cracker and many many others.
In the end I lost it all because it ended up in court simply because the landlord wasn't willing to fix some water issues and broke the lease constantly, for which I was literally on the stand for hours getting drilled by attorneys. I won in court, but lost my business, my home, my vehicle and myself. Currently I am classified homeless in the state of Michigan, and on Government aid, food and medical, but I'm fortunate to have good friends, one of which who gave me a job in his shop for which it enabled me to save two years of living expenses. To all of you reading this, going from entrepreneuer to having to work for someone to make ends meet feels awful and is not easy. You do NOT want to do this. Be the driver and not the passenger in your ventures if you can help it!
Currently, my spirit is far from broken as I'm waiting for an ss4 # for a group of small investors who have seen me make a 200% return in 6 months in a stock account I've been trading for a friend. Under contract with this investment group, I am to receive 40% of all capital gains, with no recourse should it blow up, to trade their funds. And my goal is to build it up so that I have the minimum $5000 required to trade proprietary, for which I would get 100x's buy power to scalp trades with.
Ultimately, I'm going to be the one who WILL show a viable system to reduce poverty in America. I know it sounds crazy, but I believe it
I have the system, and seeing that I am poverty stricken, I am going to be the "proof". The problem, is that I'm also thinking about how easy and relatively inexpensive it would be to open an indoor bikini car wash, with mirrors on the walls, and music blaring... the inspector who inspected my first building said he would be my first customer.... hmmmmmm
Decisions decisions... save the world, or bikini car wash :smxG:
Anywho... have a good one, and thanks for reading!
-Topher
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