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If you were going to start a small business, what would it be?

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KyleK

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If you were going to start a small business, what would it be?
I'm very curious. I feel that any business can eventually get to the fast lane with the correct execution. I currently am 20 years old and run a landscaping business around my local area. The area I live in is growing extremely fast. I have about 30-40 yards I tend to regularly. I do this alone and have made about 8 grand this summer while living at home. I've been thinking about whether this is something I want to do more seriously, or if I want to look into other businesses. My mentality is that I want to be my own boss and I never want to work for anyone. I want to be better then everyone else. I want to innovate better, and crush the competition. Would love to hear any input/opinions from anyone.

Thanks!
 
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Dwight Schrute

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I would do landscaping. With two employees, in your area.

Jokes aside, did landscaping a few years ago.
My boss back then told me that he started all by himself and worked his a$$ off in the beginning.
Eleven years later he'd spent most of his time in Costa Rica, while I worked in the gardens for some of his first clients.
Landscaping can be very profitable when you build yourself a best service in town-reputation.
 

KyleK

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I would do landscaping. With two employees, in your area.

Jokes aside, did landscaping a few years ago.
My boss back then told me that he started all by himself and worked his a$$ off in the beginning.
Eleven years later he'd spent most of his time in Costa Rica, while I worked in the gardens for some of his first clients.
Landscaping can be very profitable when you build yourself a best service in town-reputation.
Im willing to work. What was his company called out of curiosity? Did he do mostly installations for commercial developments, instead of just residential maintenance? I feel like thats how a lot of them make their money.
 

Dwight Schrute

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What was his company called out of curiosity?
" Gartenbau *Insert last name here* "
Did he do mostly installations for commercial developments, instead of just residential maintenance?
He started off with residential maintenance, but years later got a contract with the city of Vienna
for some parks and the whole Danube Island.
 
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EdKirby

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I'm not sure that landscaping would scale well. By the way, have you read MJ's book? If not, you should. It will help you in this regard. For example you should understand the commandments of Need, Entry, Control, Scale and Time. All very important benchmarks to base your decision on.

Are you in an area where you can do it year round? I have a friend who was in landscaping but after being in business for a long time he finally gave in and took a job at FedEx. It's not a year round business here. My fear would be that you end up with what would be considered a slow lane business/job. That's the position that I'm in right now. I've been a self employed IT consultant/contractor for about 17 years. I've made decent money but nothing to write home about. Now I'm looking to get out and get going on the "Fastlane".

So, to answer your main question, if I were going to start a small business what would it be? I'm not sure that I would start a "small business". Meaning, when I think small business I think flower shop, dog groomer, even a law office or a B&M retail store. The reason I think they are small businesses is because of the scale issue. Unless it's your plan to eventually go national like a 1-800-Flowers, PetSmart, Legal Zoom etc. You mention it, but I'm not sure that 'any' business would be able to go fast lane. Again, read the book and maybe some of the more learned members here will chime in.

For me, I'm in tech and I've done a fair amount of IM in the past and I've learned SEO, Adwords, and how to put together decent websites, etc. etc. so I like E-Commerce and software/game/app development. So those are the areas that I am interested in starting my next venture.

What is your background?

If you stay with landscaping, do you see any issues in landscaping that you could solve? even on a large scale perhaps? Design a new kind of blade? or process or seed? I'd look to innovate if you could or add something no one else is doing. But like @Dwight Schrute said, becoming 'THE' go to service in the area would be the way to go.
 

BigBrianC

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Probably plumbing or a hardware store, you know, something small with no risk where I can make an average living.


If you're interested in creating a small business.

To Clarify:
You shouldn't be interested in making a small business. You should focus on creating a big business!

Big, Widespread Need
Difficult, not for everyone Entry
Full Control
BIG Scale
Small Time

The only "small" thing should be the amount of time you have to put in at the end.
 
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SenGracic

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Old-School style of gym ( Like in the Golden Era with Arnold and all that ) with a nutrition bar gym clothes and of course personal training,nutrition and contest prep.

But to do that I have to go Fastlane with something else since being a gym owner is not very profitable with all those big franchises around + the fact that insurance cost, equipement and all that is freaking expensive !!
 
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BigBrianC

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Old-School style of gym ( Like in the Golden Era with Arnold and all that ) with a nutrition bar gym clothes and of course personal training,nutrition and contest prep.

But to do that I have to go Fastlane with something else since being a gym owner is not very profitable with all those big franchises around + the fact that insurance cost, equipement and all that is freaking expensive !!

It could be. Anything CAN be, IMO. What if you niched down and became an extreme professional gym? Something pro athletes could visit in the off-season, celebrities, etc. Make it a rich people social club ;)
 

BigBrianC

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Dude! That's a total contradiction to

;)
Think of a dungeon. Rusty iron. Buckets of sweat. Maybe even blood.
No stereo blowing out the latest "charts". Not a social club, but results:rockon:

Nah, not a real club, but a hangout. Become clique. An old-school type gym could target athletic hipsters! But it'd be pretty hard to do that and whatnot. Just throwing stuff out there haha
 
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SenGracic

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In my city there is no real customer base for that ;
There is 6 major gyms in this city and I've been to all five of them for at least 3 months. Talked to a bunch of people and not a lot of them were ''hot'' about the idea. Unless it was like 10-20$/month they wouldn't even signup... but insurance for that kind of gym ? Pretty expensive + you have regular visits from inspectors so they are sure everything is safe.

I might move to another city next year, hopefully and I'll do the same kind of survey over there !
I'm not giving up but like I said it's a very tough industry so I'll do what most people do for a start : website & social media with training tips, offering diets/training plans etc.. ( Look up MarcFitt.Com that guy I talked to him like 3 years ago on Facebook and he is living the FastLane life right now )
I'm learning HTML/CSS/SEO/Social Media Marketing basics right now so I could set up something pretty soon and get going.
 

Dwight Schrute

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Are you in an area where you can do it year round? I have a friend who was in landscaping but after being in business for a long time he finally gave in and took a job at FedEx. It's not a year round business here.
We have hot summers and cold winters here, but work was waiting 365 days a year.
Seeding in spring, lawn mowing, tree cutting, bush sculpting, stone carrying for ponds,
leaf blowing in autumn, snow plowing in winter...and repeat.
We often did things our competition was too lazy/pseudo-posh to do.
 

Gin

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If you were going to start a small business, what would it be?
I'm very curious. I feel that any business can eventually get to the fast lane with the correct execution. I currently am 20 years old and run a landscaping business around my local area. The area I live in is growing extremely fast. I have about 30-40 yards I tend to regularly. I do this alone and have made about 8 grand this summer while living at home. I've been thinking about whether this is something I want to do more seriously, or if I want to look into other businesses. My mentality is that I want to be my own boss and I never want to work for anyone. I want to be better then everyone else. I want to innovate better, and crush the competition. Would love to hear any input/opinions from anyone.

Thanks!

Good on you for your hustle at a young age, and for wanting to be your own boss.

Find a successful business that interests you (remembering the fastlane criteria) and use it as inspiration. Model and innovate.
 
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Ronnie Bryan

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My dream is to open an Bed and Breakfast Hospitality Niche type business, with hundreds of rooms,even if that means I have to franchise out better than the HOLIDAY INN to include prayer and bible reading in the fellowship /eating area, even have vans to take people to places like concerts and amusement parks as part of their return on investing money and time with us. I do believe it is scalable and possible.Right, now I am working on something I believe will allow me to get my first, motel, it won't be the end goal just the first, fish in the barrel. I do remain optimistic.
 
G

GuestUser156

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Mini golf course :smoking:.
That's passive income right there, haha.

Seriously, I have a meeting at the municipality office on Wednesday. They seem to like the idea. Fingers crossed!

sunny-hills-villas-minigolf-large.jpg
 

KyleK

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I feel that any small business is scalable. It depends on how you define scale. It may not have international scale, but it can be scaled to do 8 figures in sales a year. I know a few people, one in particular, who grew their landscaping businesses to 10mil+ yearly in sales. If thats not a good living, I'm not sure what is... I feel that it is a possibility, but I certainly am open to other options. I want to start something offline, that I can get started hustling at right away. I do have a primary investor if I wanted to get started in the landscaping business, Im just not sure if thats what I want to do.
any thoughts on this?
 
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KyleK

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And let me say, this isn't just from mowing. He had contracts with many builders in the area, and does installations on houses each time a neighborhood is built. Having a 10 mil mowing business would be a headache. The money in landscaping comes from installations. I feel I could also open a chemical company alongside and get my maintenance customers business from this as well. I could even try to get in contact with residential and commercial builders to get installation business... Or even pool contractors.
 

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