10x over 5 years mean 60% growth each year for 5 years.
4k start
6.4k 1yr
10.2k 2yr
16.4k 3yr
26.2k 4yr
41.9k 5yr
This is not to tell you to find an asset class that will give you a compounding 60% return on your money each year. This is to set a realistic goal for a scalable business.
Find a local service many people are happy to pay for in your area that is hard to find someone to do. Keep a very open mind and don't be afraid of a lack of experience. If it's bathroom remodels, permanent light installations, HVAC repair, mold removal, etc. Find SOMETHING that lots of people need. You can whip up a fake company and put together a facebook ad campaign in a couple hours. Put up some fake photos and see how many leads you can get for $50-$100. Always be trying new things.
Then, get out there and try it out. If it's something you really can't do, hire someone with experience and pay them the full price of the job and you can just watch them or help them out and learn. It likely won't go smooth but it doesn't matter. They'll think "wtf is this clown doing?" and that's okay. Maybe pick something where there's less of a chance you'll get sued for destroying their kitchen or something lol.
But, get out there and offer a service. You need to be able to be sure you'll get a lot of customers for an affordable price with paid advertisements. Figure out your expected profit for a single day of work and run the numbers. If you have employees you should bring in 20x their hourly rate in a single day of work per employee. If you pay a guy $20/hr you need to be bringing in $400 a day for each employee you're paying $20 an hour for. If a single customer is worth $400, with a 50% margin you have $200 to play with, maybe shoot for under $50 in ad spend per customer acquired, not difficult to do.
With whatever you do, run the numbers and your income becomes a matter of "how many crews can we get out there?" instead of "I hope I get a raise".
One guy working at $20 an hour bringing in $400 a day in revenue, you can expect to make $200 a day after expenses per guy. $200 times 20 days of work a month is $4000 a month in profit. Let's see how this can play out over 5 years.
Year 1: one employee making you $4000 a month total
Year 2: two employees making you $8000 a month total
Year 3: four employees making you $16000 a month total
Year 4: seven employees making you $28000 a month total
Year 5: ten employees making you $40000 a month total
With our basic lawn care company we are on the end of year 3 (we technically started in 2018 but I don't count it) and got to around 25k a month revenue at around 50% profit margin. So taking home 13k profit a month isn't too bad, and we have 4 employees. Next year our goal is 4 crews, 8 employees, 50k revenue a month and 25k profit a month. And, my workload is about an hour or two a week.
Once you have a business that works in this way ($/mo with x crews working) then you will think about money much differently. A million dollars a year won't be a million dollars. It'll just be 1000 customers paying you $1000. Average yearly profit is like $1000 or so for each customer for us anyways, so we really only need a thousand customers or so to make big bucks. It's so much more attainable and makes you so much more optimistic.
4k start
6.4k 1yr
10.2k 2yr
16.4k 3yr
26.2k 4yr
41.9k 5yr
This is not to tell you to find an asset class that will give you a compounding 60% return on your money each year. This is to set a realistic goal for a scalable business.
Find a local service many people are happy to pay for in your area that is hard to find someone to do. Keep a very open mind and don't be afraid of a lack of experience. If it's bathroom remodels, permanent light installations, HVAC repair, mold removal, etc. Find SOMETHING that lots of people need. You can whip up a fake company and put together a facebook ad campaign in a couple hours. Put up some fake photos and see how many leads you can get for $50-$100. Always be trying new things.
Then, get out there and try it out. If it's something you really can't do, hire someone with experience and pay them the full price of the job and you can just watch them or help them out and learn. It likely won't go smooth but it doesn't matter. They'll think "wtf is this clown doing?" and that's okay. Maybe pick something where there's less of a chance you'll get sued for destroying their kitchen or something lol.
But, get out there and offer a service. You need to be able to be sure you'll get a lot of customers for an affordable price with paid advertisements. Figure out your expected profit for a single day of work and run the numbers. If you have employees you should bring in 20x their hourly rate in a single day of work per employee. If you pay a guy $20/hr you need to be bringing in $400 a day for each employee you're paying $20 an hour for. If a single customer is worth $400, with a 50% margin you have $200 to play with, maybe shoot for under $50 in ad spend per customer acquired, not difficult to do.
With whatever you do, run the numbers and your income becomes a matter of "how many crews can we get out there?" instead of "I hope I get a raise".
One guy working at $20 an hour bringing in $400 a day in revenue, you can expect to make $200 a day after expenses per guy. $200 times 20 days of work a month is $4000 a month in profit. Let's see how this can play out over 5 years.
Year 1: one employee making you $4000 a month total
Year 2: two employees making you $8000 a month total
Year 3: four employees making you $16000 a month total
Year 4: seven employees making you $28000 a month total
Year 5: ten employees making you $40000 a month total
With our basic lawn care company we are on the end of year 3 (we technically started in 2018 but I don't count it) and got to around 25k a month revenue at around 50% profit margin. So taking home 13k profit a month isn't too bad, and we have 4 employees. Next year our goal is 4 crews, 8 employees, 50k revenue a month and 25k profit a month. And, my workload is about an hour or two a week.
Once you have a business that works in this way ($/mo with x crews working) then you will think about money much differently. A million dollars a year won't be a million dollars. It'll just be 1000 customers paying you $1000. Average yearly profit is like $1000 or so for each customer for us anyways, so we really only need a thousand customers or so to make big bucks. It's so much more attainable and makes you so much more optimistic.