Thread: Diary of Opening A New Business

I see a lot of these threads started by young entre's and thought I would start my own on a new business I am starting this week. I think it might be a good insight to what it takes to make it. Or what it takes to fail at it.

My goal. Turn a (hopefully only) $15k investment into a $10 million dollar a year business within 24 months. (last business I started with under $10k, we did $4.5 million in sales in 36 months and sold out to a major player in that industry). To do that I am going to have to go from zero employees (as of last week) to say 100 in under 24 months.

If you guys like I can keep an account of what is actually happening week to week. the trials and tribulations, the hiring's, the firing's, the bills, the sales, etc.

I am not going to tell you what business I am starting, (name or industry) but I will say, I am not reinventing the wheel here. This is a business a ton of people are doing and make a lot of money from, A lot on this site, I just THINK I have come up with a niche, and a different way to market it. So I am going to give it a try. (no need to reinvent the wheel)

Where am I at?

Expenses

- Just rented a small office last week, 800 sq ft. $1,500 down $750 a month (signed a month to month lease, with the ability to move up to 2,000 sq feet quickly, then to 4,000 sq feet, which is about the size I need.)
- Bought 5 used computers - $900
- Bought 6 Voip phones - $1,000
- Bought 6 headsets - $750
- Cable is going to be installed tomorrow. $220 a month
- Phone lines through a voip service $250 a month
- Incorp with proper books, $1,000 (lawyer on retainer)
- Talked to the CPA about becoming my part time book keeper ($200 a month)
- General liability policy $440 for the year. (once I have a few more employees, need to add some sort of workers comp)
- Set up payroll company
- Set up bank account

Office already had some junky old furniture that will do, but I am buying new chairs, some plants and pics. $1,000 bucks

Have main website almost done, as we will be charging on monthly automatic renewals, and sometimes taking payment info by phone, still trying to get the merchant account set up.

Employees,
- Tons of infrastructure work to do, hired a college degreed in marketing guy to be my right hand man. $3,000 a month to start, Add $1,000 a month every month to 9k a month as long as sales justify. (tons of work to do)
- Hired my sales manager, starts Wed, and we will start selling Thursday. She will help write the scripts, make changes and manage the sales force. ($17 an hour plus override comm bonus from sales team)

Goals for this week,

Make 1 sale, set up a sales system, finish website writing,(or just keep updating).

Goals for next week, (once we have the script down) hire 4 more salespeople, pay $13 an hour plus commission.

I am back in the game.... Now it is time to have some fun.

Note about me: I have been a serial entrepreneur for over 20 years, started a small business when I was 20, with no money (no parents money either, they asked me for money), it worked, thank god, (I have not had a boss for 20 years) I have owned a lot of businesses, from a bunch of retail stores, to a huge wholesale operation with 60 employees, then another wholesale operation in a total different industry just to see if I could. ( Also the bad, I have spent at least 1 million over the years trying businesses I should have never gone into, I did it because I thought I was smart, I lost a lot of money, but learned a lot)

Thanks for reading..

I am very interested in seeing you updating each week or when you can. Already this first post was a great read for me. I've never done anything with offline businesses, I have only started online businesses, so I'm extremely excited to see what you do.

I gave you speed as well!

looking forward to your updates!

Thanks everyone for the replies.

Today internet will be installed, happy about that, cause you can't make sales if no one can call you and you cannot call anyone.

I think the new sales mgr I hired is going to flake. Kind of bummed about that, but ohh well. Lots more where she came from. Back to craigslist.

Lot of work to do.

Originally Posted by Sparlin

Welcome to the forum Jack and thanks for sharing your story. I'm sure many will be interested to see how it develops.

Thanks, I am interested in seeing how it develops also. Time will tell.

Originally Posted by LightHouse

now THIS is what im talking about. Where did you get all the used equip from? Is the space you rented NNN and already built with offices or what?

I bought the computers from a used computer store, Dells, paid $119 then $89 for a 17in flat screen monitor. Then nego down to $900 all in for 5 of them.

The rent on the space is all in. It is in an office building not a normal retail space. Space was already built out. Hopefully we will be out of this space in under 6 weeks, (to a 2,000 sq footer in the same building) it is really to small to do anything in, but one piece of advice, never sign long term leases and do not take space that you do not need.

Finally got the internet going, all the computers are set up, Voip phones and Headsets should be in tomorrow.

Manager girl did flake after all.

But, I Hired a new sales manager, (someone who worked for me in the past) nice girl, not my first choice for the position but she will do for what I need. Or at least I hope she will. Paying her $750 a week.

Also have another old employee (sales person) starting Friday.

Next weeks payroll will be a min of $2g's plus, then you add rent and phone, and misc, we need to start making some sales, here real quick.

Hoping to still sale our first deal by the end of the week.

Thanks for reading.

Going to follow your posts carefully, im confident that there is going to be pearls of wisdom in this thread!

End of last week, we ran into a few problems, oh well.

First girl starting at 12 today. Hopefully get our first sale today.

Besides that, We have been doing a ton of logistic work, rewriting scripts, getting the crm software going.

Have hired two more sales people, hopefully get them started in the next few days.

Please keep updating. I think, that i can learn a lot from your diary. Very inspirational!

Wow, speed+thanks!!! I almost missed this thread -- lots of action, can't wait to see the updates!!!!

Originally Posted by LightHouse

Jack, Where are you hiring from? A job posting site or craigslist or just folks that you know through a network? What do you look at when hiring people?

Thanks everyone for your responses.

Right now I am just hiring a few people that have worked for me in the past, I have been taking out ads every few days on craigslist, If I don't get the 2-3 good salespeople I need in the next 2-3 days, I will probably take out an ad in the free bee employment papers. But those ads are $250-350 a week, and don't even get me started on Monster.com and the others, $$$.

I am offering some great money to start, just getting a ton of people who are not closers, or wait have never sold anything in their lives, I am looking for people with the same type sales experience. I could train, but why.

Yes I am being picky. I have two that are pretty close. Just need a leader/closer type.

Funny story, I actually had a girl tell me "I can close" when I worked at Mcdonalds, I closed every night... Love that one.

Today was a good day, I do believe the first sale will fall in the am. And hopefully we will have our core 4 salespeople by Thursday. 7 people total, So that will be a burn rate of $600 bucks day. (3 of us are working free)

Bad side today, had a hell of a time today with the voip set up. nightmare really, I miss regular old phone systems.

Jack