Handmade - handyman`s progress thread

[Maxkaz]

Hello everyone!

I`s been a month since I consider myself to be a "true" entrepreneur. I literaly started 0n the 1st of January, not because of some fancy New Year Resolution, but because my friend immigrated to my country on 29th of December and we both found and bought an old 2002 Ford for $1500 on 31sh of December which allowed us to switch to b2b clients.

Since my FTE in summer 2023 I`ve been part-time entrepreneur - I worked full-time blue-collar job and in my spare time served my local community with my screwdriver, wrench and occasionally - with my 3d-printer. This business of mine was more of a necessity - my FTE put me in a position where I could not support myself with job alone and I had to create an alternative cash flow.

3 people during 2023 impacted my vision.

First was an elderly entrepreneur (possibly a scammer though) from Russia. He had a huge vertical farming equipment project on late development stage tailored for a specific niche - he wanted his buyers to use vacant office space which was generated by pandemic and everyone going online. He needed me as a speaker for the project (as I professionally speak on public). Eventually the start-up died but I learned a lot about international production as we were studying the opportunities to mass-produce our product.

Second was an entrepreneur from Ukraine who was stranded overseas when the war started. He had a farm back in Kharkiv region and was using it to develop automated farming equipment. He came to me to use my 3d-printer as he was living nearby and was working on a new incubator. I not only printed some details for him but was also able to develop some parts in Fusion 360, so I am grateful for an insight into an inventor`s mind and into the RnD process.

Third one was a local entrepreneur, who does house cleaning in the local area. He shared his business details and some customers with me as being a sole proprietor he suffers from lack of free time and wanted someone around who could help him with his work while he goes on vacation or smth like that. Although it is the lowest possible business in my area it is still a business and I am able to learn accounting and b2b processes while earning $30 per hour instead of $10 per hour I was earning at a factory. So while it is something without Scale or Time commandments in sight, it still grants me valuable skills and time to develop my next stage.

NOW FOR THE ACTUAL PROCESS

On the 1st of January I had a job which brought me something around $2500 per month and a side-hustle with around $500 monthly income. I also had a friend and a car to expand my Empire with. We had a working model for business and a mentor to guide us through. And we leaped head first. Not knowing how to do marketing, we designed a simple printed ad with some free internet clipart and put my personal telephone in there. As I worked night shifts and due to language (most calling was done in Hebrew and my friend does not know it) my friend woke me up each time I had an incoming call. And while I was not asleep, i made cold-calling.

It was hard, but it brought fruit - from our first week we had some clients coming and signing the deals with monthly payments. I am really surprised how fast it all started. This month I got $500 in payments from b2b clients, $500 from b2c side hustle and $2500 coming from work. But during all this time I was signing b2b contracts, starting immediately or from 1st of February, so by now I have signed papers for a total of $2000 per month. Lower than my salary, but it takes only a fraction of a time which my work took. So I considered my options and made another leap of faith - yesterday I quitted my job. With all that free time I can focus on marketing and add more clients to the fold. On Sunday I have a meeting with one old lady with a potential $500 monthly deal which would even me in terms of income with my not-so-good job I left.

WHAT IS NEXT FOR ME?

I really do not see myself moping floors for the rest of my life. It is an honest job and I do it willingly and professionally, but I see it as a temporal solution to pay the bills. So I came with an escape plan. I know where I eventually want to end up and there are several possible roads which will lead me there.

I will continue working on my cleaning business. I want to completely fill 2 days of the week - Monday and Friday, with stable customers. Knowing my speed and price, it is safe to say that one full day brings at maximum about $3000 per month. $6000 a month will cover all the taxes, living expenses and will give me enough money for risky experiments.

For the other 4 days of the week (due to extravagances of my country of residence it is not viable to plan any work for Saturdays), there are some projects I can work on here. Option #1 - I can do more cleaning job but I do not want as I want to keep those days free of stable commitments. Option #2 - I can expand my handyman side-hustle to a more profitable house repair and remodelling business. It is more profitable than cleaning and more risky as no monthly payments are involved. It is also harder in terms of Entry. Option #3 - I am thinking about establishing a production facility for some outside lighting and advertising structures. It is something I made back in Russia fro some time and I have knowledge, but do not know local market at all. The upside is that I will have instruments for big plastic-metal-electronics projects I dream of and those instruments will not just wait for my inventions but bring cash on the way.

And during this development of this sweat manufacture, I also plan to work on some physical tangible products. I am familiar with Fusion 360, Arduino and PCB design and there is a list of products I created during my studies based mainly of complaints like "Why no-one made THIS already?". I remotely know how to organize overseas production and plan to embark on a journey:

1. Take an idea
2. Make a working prototype
3. Try to sell prototypes in my local area
4. If (3 = true) {scale.up;}
5. ???
6. Wallmart sales exceeded $1bil, we need another forklift to the cash storage

I decided not to wait and already ordered from Aliexpress all the needed parts for my first prototype. During February mostt of them will arrive so I hope by my next progress post here there will be some photos I will be able to share.

Any feedback is welcome!

 

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[Maxkaz]

While I keep successfully building my client base (approximately $3000 per month from 14 entities already signed since first signature on 01.01.24, that`s INSANE), I can finally use my free time I got after I dropped the work to start working on my INVENTION!

Parts from Aliexpress have arrived and today I`ve obtained my first test subject. Please meet Fernando, named after one of the hostages IDF has freed today in Gasa. First experiment is already running in his pot

 

[Stargazer]

Is your invention something to do with moisture content in houseplant soil?

Dan

 

[Maxkaz]

Is your invention something to do with moisture content in houseplant soil?

Dan

Yeap. The first step is to try reliably keep soil moisture in the defined boundaries

 

[EliaR]

Good luck!
Also from Israel

 

[Vntonio]

Yeap. The first step is to try reliably keep soil moisture in the defined boundaries

It will sell like hotcakes to corporations. Why? They have the money, they have lots of plants in pots and they want to be deranged to water them only when is necessary.
For "civilians" it might sell if there is another device that waters the pot at the right moment. So lazy people/people who travel a lot and corporations would be my targets if I were you.

Funny story, I worked at a company, taking care of plants at the biggest corporations in my country and it was hell, having to check the soil (different plants have different water consumption and needs), and I destroyed one computer, spilled water on some clothes and other mistakes. (if this device shows when the soil is dry=less time spent watering the plants=rarer meeting to water them=less chances for an idiot to destroy/spill water on something expensive)

 

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[Maxkaz]

It will sell like hotcakes to corporations. Why? They have the money, they have lots of plants in pots and they want to be deranged to water them only when is necessary.
For "civilians" it might sell if there is another device that waters the pot at the right moment. So lazy people/people who travel a lot and corporations would be my targets if I were you.

Funny story, I worked at a company, taking care of plants at the biggest corporations in my country and it was hell, having to check the soil (different plants have different water consumption and needs), and I destroyed one computer, spilled water on some clothes and other mistakes. (if this device shows when the soil is dry=less time spent watering the plants=rarer meeting to water them=less chances for an idiot to destroy/spill water on something expensive)

Thanks for the tip! We are looking on travelers/forgetful, but corps sound gooood

 

[Maxkaz]

Cosy invention evening. Rainy day lead to an early homecoming - why not spend sudden free time to get some long-anticipated data?

 

[Maxkaz]

Okay, my second month as an entrepreneur and a first month after leaving 9/5 has gone. This month I earned a total of $5000 (my 9/5 was bringing around $2000-3000 depending on a month), half of which come from 14 different long-term clients which are stably paying every month and half came from various activities, including getting experience in the new field while getting payed in the same time. Today we signed 3 more clients for a total of $1000 added and we have Friday completely filled and no longer accept orders for this day. It really is insane that 1 day a week of dedicated work effort (I leave home at 6:00 and get back by 15:00) can bring you like $4000 a month when you are an entrepreneur. But this requires working harder, smarter and more efficient than anyone. I hope I can transfer this experience of in-person work into corp efficiency to some point when I will start hiring people (that is a plan for the quite near future).

I formed a partnership with my mentor and we started building a foundation for expanding our businesses. We are both in the field of commercial cleaning and now are expanding into the gardening which is HUGE here in Israel with lots of underperforming gardeners. My mentor has connections with lots of house-kkeping companies that are constantly suffering from unmawed lawns and overgrowth on the parking areas. I like this business more because it is harder to get into - the entry barrier is there while in the cleaning business there is none. Also you have a chance to talk to many-many rich villa-owners and get soaking wet with their mindsets and histories. My mentor invested $1000 into entry-level equipment (which already brought $200 in fulfilled orders in February) and I put $2000 into getting a specific course to get myself a license to what we are starting now. We already got ourselves 2 one-time orders and one long-term order with monthly pay so things are also moving fast here.

Also I keep working on my invention prototype. I am developing a self-watering data-driven plant pot for house plants. This month we got sensor samples from China and are now aquiring data which we need to finalize the design. My switch to gardening helps massively as I am involved in many plant-related activities including working on plant watering systems which in Israel are a must for any outside plant and there is a huge load of Israel-designed top-notch equipment and materials present.

Summarizing, there is a lot of grind and not a lot of sleep and social activity. My social circle basically dissipated but it is a good thing as I do not have to merge my schedules or plans with anyone. I am even thinking that my current state of social isolation might actually be a must for such a fast success I am experiencing. I squeeze every second from my day and only like now, on Sabbath (after all the paperwork I stacked on weekend of cause) I have time to reflect and write this post for example . No friends or partners would have endured connecting with me with such a packed week as I have now.

I am really wondering now in what state would I meet 2025.

 

[Maxkaz]

View attachment IMG_0204.mp4

This is how one looks like after defeating a year-long growth of weed in the garden of a Holocaust surviver

The result (before cleaning):

 

[Maxkaz]

Still a night and day until new month, but the week is so packed that I`d better write now, while there is some time to breathe)

So my third month in full-time business has passed. This month saw an expansion, We (it is "we" now, yay!) grew to 3 people. We expanded our areas of activity from cleaning and small repairs to full-blown home repairs and gardening. A signature event - today we had to unpack the car and make a warehouse in my apartment as all the equipment does not fit in the car anymore. Whole Sabbath of cleaning and rearranging stuff.

Another expansion area - more organizational stuff. Had to make an online calendar to track all the orders. My partner is now building a Telegram bot to keep track of our incomes as these are plenty and we have to divide them for three people now.

Our profits rose significantly. I still have to do the math, but seems we are at least doubled in March. Many new equipment bought. Also I expanded my advertising into neighboring area (specifically - to the whole of Izreel valley) and finally - from only-Russian to Russian-Hebrew. We already get Hebrew-speaking clients and those have way more cash to spend. Getting used to elite villas, choosing a style for mine future one

Of notice: Fiverr-style ads really hit the spot when advertising for local area. MAny contractors are triing to make professional-looking Facebook ads, but two factors seem to undermine their efforts: people online develop an anti-ad immunity and overlook those; if you are a small business owner, you do not have proficiency and budget to make those ads really professional and half-baked ones look distant and uncool. More personal ones with your photo and freestyle explanation work EXCELLENT - people repost you, like and, most importantly, they ORDER!

Plans for the future: expand into height work. And probably start hiring people in 1-2 months.

 

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[Nath01]

Yeap. The first step is to try reliably keep soil moisture in the defined boundaries

Man I love a good house plant business idea.

The pain point is strong..why do they always die on me!!

Goodluck

 

[Maxkaz]

This month and especially this week were so full of events that I nearly do not have time to write a progress update. I am squeezing it between some equipment maintenance and long-delayed writing of commercial propositions for the Monday campaign we start.

Business takes shape​

So this was a month of restructuring and some serious growth. We made some relatively big projects and purchased serious equipment in the progress. The business started to gain form and got split into 3 areas:

• Residential building and lawn maintenance - high margin while entrepreneur, low entry barriers and almost no way to raise them so low possible margins when scaled up via human resource
• Construction company - high margin while entrepreneur, variable and liftable entry barriers, high demand and value, high (up to 30%) margin when human resource employed
• Tree cutting business - very high margins, very high profits, almost impossible to transfer to business model (entry barriers are high, but you need to bypass almost all of them (learning curve, equipment) for every employee you take)

With these three areas I am planning to cut maintenance in 2-3 months, focus my personal efforts on tree cutting to bring piles of cash and use that cash to develop construction company which eventually will take over.

Partnership is hard but worthwhile​

This month also saw restructuring of my partnerships. One of my partners suddenly packed his stuff and left the country. That was a blow as we had to deny some clients the orders they made which were based on his expertise. Apparently that guy did not expect to be working 70-hour work weeks.

But in the same time another guy asked me to join our venture and he is even better. A bit older guy, but with an experience of building a successful construction company. So I am happy with the transfer and we already see organizational improvements.

Also we switched our profit sharing model. We added an accountant today who will calculate our mutual workload and we will have profits split according to efforts. This was a pain point as some of us are not able to dedicate full effort yet.

Money security​

In the end of the month I found myself in a strange situation I did not experience in years - I had some money left in the wallet. And it all after I spent some relatively large amount on expanding our capabilities and lifting the entry barriers. That is new and I do not know what to do with it yet. Split between:

• Expanding business capabilities even more
• Making a safety net for my personal needs to allow more risky business moves in the future
• Making some long-delayed quality of life things (like dentistry)
• Attacking the principal of my parasitic debt

I believe, eventually I will split between those 4 areas in some way.

Business monogamy step in​

The work on my prototype stopped. 70-hour workweeks (and that is just WORK, like, with HANDS and TOOLS, I do not count any office hours here) do not allow free time for such endeavours. But I believe, I will return there eventually as I am an inventor and my mind is always in the construction mode. For now I am 100% focused on what is happening now and want to ride the wave of demand as it is getting stronger and stronger.

So, here I go. We already have $5000 orders in profit for the next week and I am all into making some good work out there!

 

[Maxkaz]

The month of May was rough but we made a huge leap forward and seems we have found our oddly specific but very lucrative niche.

I am really barely standing now as in my area there was a sandstorm and +40 Celsius, but we worked all day outside. So I will be brief. This month we were triing various advertising methods. I swallowed Alex Hormosi`s book and several of his and Leila Hormosi videos and went straight into practice. We made a very cheap and hard project for a Holocaust survivor and put in into our online ads. And it brought success - some large clients brought some thousands of dollars and valuable advertisable media.

And also those clients brought a big surprise. Apparently in our area there is a huge amount of badly installed air conditioners and the hole made during installation makes people really wet and cold in the winter. And although we did not specifically advertised for that, the clients came breaking in our door to ask for repairs. It is a quick and easy fix that takes like an hour of work and I charge them up to $500 and they pay like instantly. And that says something in the land where the word "bargaining" is written in the genetic code.

It is 11 PM now and at 6 AM I have to start for a new order so good night people! May the guiding light of value illuminate your paths!

 

[Bekit]

I have a friend who custom-built something like this. He has a few house plants on the system. A sensor in the soil tells the system when to water each plant. The plants have different water needs (e.g. one is a cactus and one is a strawberry so they need a different amount of moisture). It's completely hands off... his system waters the plants on the schedule that he defines by the moisture level he wants the soil to keep. He was showing me how it all worked and it mostly went over my head but it was certainly fascinating.

All the best to you!

 

[Maxkaz]

I`m writing this monthly review a bit earlier than 1st of the month because next week will be quite tough.

Our endeavour is gaining momentum in a very unexpected direction. This month I remembered all my rope-access skills and improved on my advertising skills and suddenly we have an influx of orders on a very niche task - to design and install protective meshes against Israels`most bothersome pest - pigeons. Those guys put lots of shit on peoples balconies and many of those do not have floors to stand on, so rope-access is the only option.

We seem to be the only company in the area who make the stuff on the individual level. And the fact that we use rope-access allows us to charge much more that if the stuff was done from feet - the only real competititon here are hydraulic platforms which are expensive to rent. From advertising point of view I did some research and found out that while we advertise solutions, competition advertise technology:
"We protect your balcony from pigeon shit" VS "We are rope access professionals". I do not know how those competitors are doing but we are doing great.

So great actually that we are now evaluating the idea of creating a workshop in one of the rooms of my rented appartment. Those meshes rely on some amount of wood-working and aluminum-working and we need a place to do it.

From mindset point of view I really got into Alex Hormozi this month. The guy is sick! Helps me to move on and gives me kind of an answer on the question: "And how are you going to move on from those ropes of yours?"

Some working moments are on photos

 

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[Bounce Back]

I`m writing this monthly review a bit earlier than 1st of the month because next week will be quite tough.

Our endeavour is gaining momentum in a very unexpected direction. This month I remembered all my rope-access skills and improved on my advertising skills and suddenly we have an influx of orders on a very niche task - to design and install protective meshes against Israels`most bothersome pest - pigeons. Those guys put lots of shit on peoples balconies and many of those do not have floors to stand on, so rope-access is the only option.

We seem to be the only company in the area who make the stuff on the individual level. And the fact that we use rope-access allows us to charge much more that if the stuff was done from feet - the only real competititon here are hydraulic platforms which are expensive to rent. From advertising point of view I did some research and found out that while we advertise solutions, competition advertise technology:
"We protect your balcony from pigeon shit" VS "We are rope access professionals". I do not know how those competitors are doing but we are doing great.

So great actually that we are now evaluating the idea of creating a workshop in one of the rooms of my rented appartment. Those meshes rely on some amount of wood-working and aluminum-working and we need a place to do it.

From mindset point of view I really got into Alex Hormozi this month. The guy is sick! Helps me to move on and gives me kind of an answer on the question: "And how are you going to move on from those ropes of yours?"

Some working moments are on photos

That first picture makes me so nervous but I love the tone here: "What does the customer want?"

Marketing is funny in that sometimes as the sellers we think x/y/z motivates the customer but then they can just be like: "oh you do it with ropes? That is risky so I find it more valuable" lol

 

[Maxkaz]

Last time I was early to send my monthly report, this time I am 10 days late.

This month is very busy and rough. My partner left for a month-long vacation and left me his son to help with the stuff. I am busy every day and every waking hour due to shifting of my business area. My new stuff is bringing 3 times more than what I call "legacy stuff", but in all my contracts there is a 30 day notice so I have to basically keep two jobs on my shoulders for the whole August. So I am very dead and very rich right now.

I also feel that after 13 months of entrepreneurship I have finally reached the end of the "log" phase of growth and achieved almost maximum of what can be done with my hands. Now I need to learn leveraging. And the most obvious path is to leverage human resources. I do not know much about leading people, but my partner has vast experience. With the money I now make - we can risk hiring. The good thing is that in my country the most money are in the hands of Hebrew-speakers and the moost skills are in the hands of Russian-speakers. Me and my partner can leverage this situation to the fullest.

We are now planning our next steps. There will be some months (some of which I will probably spend overseas) before we can act, but we are already getting prepped financially and strategically.

 

[Maxkaz]

On one hand, I’ve missed my September 1st report here.

On the other hand, August and the first 10 days of September were the most brutal grind of my entire life hands down

On the third hand (wow, that’s a lot of hands…), by 10th of September I finally got rid of “mopping floors” business and now finally have free time and energy to pursue more ambitious endevours

On the forth hand (those hand counts reslly got out of hand…) I just recieved my last August payment and for the first time in my 37 years of life I’ve crossed $10000 monthly income mark. Yeeey!

P.S. Can someone suggest the best of the best book or course on B2B sales? Need this skill urgently now

 

[Maxkaz]

Just want to save this moment. As I was making this photo of an intermediate stage of work 50 meters above ground, sirens lit people below started to lay on tge ground and missiles started exploding above our heads. And this is an every day life here in my place.

I want to always remember this part of my life. Tough people, tough businesses, steps taken, no matter the circumstances

 

[Maxkaz]

Well, yesterday it finally happened. And it happened so seamlessly that I was this close to not noticing it. Casually planning our next week with my team I have crossed the line between entrepreneur and businessman.

So what happened? Quite a lot since I`ve started. But mainly I can describe it as a sequence of "lucky chance - effort - new level"
When I first started about 1.5 years ago, it was only me, an impact drill, a wrench, a backpack and 20+ kilometers of walking around the neighborhood per day fixing faucets and puting mirrors on walls.

Than there was a series of contractors which saw my work and seek to hire me for assistance (lucky chance). In every occasion I took some weeks or months to learn a new skill (effort) and than started a new, more lucrative endevour of my own (new level).

This way, step by step, I was rising higher and higher in hourly pay, had to work less hours and made more money. Eventually, by the end of spring last year I came to the greatest trade of them all - rope access. As far as I know, this is the place where the hourly rates are the greatest of all trades apart from some elite ones. So here I stopped rising and started expanding.

A rope-access technician can`t work on his own. He needs an assistant, someone to hand him the tools and materials and maybe scare away pedestrians. My assistant is a man, 10 years older than me, a father of four, recently immigrated to our country. What I gave him in terms of payment, was a bit higher and less intensive than what he could have got from `immigrant-appropriate` places like factories. Also he took one of my previous hustles from me and his wife now earns there a nice additional monthly payment for them. So he was happy. Also, he was curious about rope-access trade. He wanted to learn it and work at the same level as me. So eventually we organized it - he went to learn and I got myself a new assistant.

When my new-born rope-access tech returned, we had a problem. On the place I was working there was no work for him. So I had to either let him go, or find a new line of work where both of us (or fair to say, three of us as I had a new assistant) can lay our heads. I chose the latter. And after a period of cold-calling I found a client who had work for groups of two rope-access techs instead of a pait tech+assistant. But as I had an assistant, he gave us the most daily payment he could. In fact, as far as I know, it is the highest daily rate for a group of rope access techs in our country. This was a lucky chance. Than came time for the effort.

Our rise to the next step started when my new assistant showed to be unsuitable for the work and we had to let him go. Suddenly, we had on our hands a payment for three, a workload for three, but only two of us. There were three options:

1. We could inform the client of our change and lower the daily rate
2. We could hire someone fast
3. We could double our effort and keep with the demand

We chose option three. My health and experience allowed us to work in a fast pace while maintaining the quality. And this we did. No one noticed the absence of a third person. Our payment rose to an unprecedented level compared to other techs. But it was hard. This effort was one of the reasons I did not write here for a while - did not have strength in the evenings. But this effort also brought the need for optimisation. We started to buy and implement new equipment and learn new techniques in order to work better. At some point we even have bought a piece of equipment which is the only one in our country and was storred in some shop for ages as no one needed it. But for us it shortened one of the main tasks of an assistant from hours to minutes and we were more than happy to bring this 50 kilos chunk of metal with us.

So here we were, doing in pair the work of three and thinking on where to move next. At some point I started to go in the social media with what I was doing and looking for marketing advise - we wanted to get in touch with industry clients and start growing there. People noticed and started to invite me to meetings, negotiations etc. We talked with my partner as this would have me not attend work at some days. And than it happened. My partner told me that going to those meetings is more important and he will gladly take the daily work 1-2 days a week himself with his elder son as assistance. And during those days we will return to the payment scheme we had when there were three of us. I will still recieve a "normal" daily rate although I won`t be working with my hands and rather with my tongue.

This was it. It is actually the first time in all this endevour, when I will start getting money for my management skill rather than actual work. And it came not from my decision but rather from my team (his son helped us many times and is a part of a team) thinking me more beneficial as a negotiator than a grunt.

Next month I am invited to several networking events where big construction companies will be present. Also there is a girl who wants to try and be our sales lady and HR, she will accompany me and we will also do some cold outreach during my "days off".

It really feels like a rising tide and a new, unseen level, in front of me.

 

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[Maxkaz]

So the journey continues.

Last week I got a huge boost of confidence. It was two-fold:

1. Our main customer asked us to perform a show-off job - fix a huge country flag for the upcoming Independence day. Of all the contractors they chose us.
2. As it was on construction site, lots of bureucracy and other shinanigans stood in the way. But we`ve managed to make it in time (seems it is the only thing done in time on that construction site)

In summary, we seem to have a great standing with the company. And we got a nice little extra for the trouble.


*that`s me on the right

This big project, though, have taught me something. We do not have all the licences to work in the construction industry on our own. So I`ve made some changes in the plans for upcoming weeks. On one hand, we will delve into private sector once again to build an alternative income stream, hire 2 more people, and to build a larger portfolio. Last year have put us in the position of one of the most professional groups in the country and I plan to use this position. On the other hand, I`ve started to work with government-funded business consulting program and I plan to meet lawers and accountants this month to get prepared for bigger construction jobs. The licenses we are lacking can only be acquired either by hiring a licences professional or by licensing me as a business owner. The latter is preferable but can only be done in December and no earlier. So this is our deadline for the leap.

Nonetheless, just 1.5 years from starting my entrepreneurial journey it really seems that the step from entrepreneurship to business is at hand. A team is emerging, I no longer do everything myself and I feel the traction. Let us see what the next month will bring.

 

[Maxkaz]

Well, do I feel like a greedy, immoral Mr. Scrooge of a businessman or what?

So, as the news might have told you, we had our little Middle-East shoot-out recently. 12 days of sirens, missiles exploding over my head, and emergency push notifications on my phone (keep notes - your government can send you a push notification even if no app was installed or even if no SIM is in the telephone. At least the Israeli government can). And of course, no rope access work at all as we could not keep the "be in the vicinity of a shelter at all times" rule.

So what did we do? We offered our unskilled laboring hands to our biggest client to help with the renovations as they had a shelter in the premises. And while we labored - we also get to know them, get to know their business model, listen to their stories, overhear their client negotiations and so on and so forth. Also what we got is a viable feedback and the most lucrative business agreement.

First the feedback. From day one with this client I`ve made my sole mission to become the best of their contractors. And I did it by focusing on two things:

1. On-site communication with the tenants and contractors
2. On working FAST

For the sake of understanding, our work relations are like this:

WE --- Our client (Rope access company) --- Contractor (appointed by the construction company to fix post-development problems during warranty period) --- Tenants
All of those people are in contact across the line, like, we get the phone numbers of contractors and tenants as part of our work and communicating with them is NOT overhead jumping.

The first one (on-site communication) was a big success. As we are working on the far north of Israel, it is a chore for our client to get on the job site to settle the matters with the tenants, do the property inspection, and so forth. So I gradually started making all of it for them. And wouldn`t you know it - it led to much less stress for them and even some tenants calling them and telling them how wonderful we are. Nice.

As for working fast, that is a bit trickier. In this industry, contracts are day-based. The contractor pays for rope access techs by the days of work. So for our client PROVIDING rope access services, fast work is not profitable - they still get the same money per day even if there are more projects done. What it did impact, though, is OUR reputatuion as a team with THEIR client, the contractor. Those big construction wigs started to specifically ask for our team to come in especially if a tenant is stressed and irritated. And as those contractors in the north of Israel are usually from one tightly knit ethnic group (in this instance - Christian arabs) - the news of us working fast have spread.

So back to working on office renovations under the missiles. We set down with the client, a descent man from the north himself, to have some coffee at some point. And he told us that during the course of the war and because of a dry winter he had to shrink his operations from 60 teams to just 14 (from what I know, in the industry it is actually better than most). But he feels in the near future it will bounce back. And due to our exploits - he wants us to build some teams for him. They will work not on him but on us, He will give us a descent daily sum on each to pay them well and keep a descent 20-60% change (the better the team the lesser the change but the less we need to work to shape them so fair and square).

So yes, folks, we are finally hiring. Right now. Any applicants?)