My Journey To Start A Business Part 2: My first $1

[Ajbuck68]

Well actually it's $100. I have to say, this is exhilarating. I need to ride this wave as long as I can and keep it going.

Since part 1 I went through a lot of ideation with friends. I have a lot of very workable ideas, some are short term and rolling now. Some are longer term with significant capital needs ($250k+). But the biggest thing I found was by the end I was annoyed about just talking and I was ready to get going. Possible ideas below

Short Term:

• Handyman work in the local neighborhood(s)
• Freelance Consulting

Long Term:

• My own consulting firm
• Small business digital transformation
• Tech company additive on my current company
• Business that requires a physical location from day 1 (high capital)
• Flipping houses + renting/Airbnb

Freelance Consulting​

I've reached out to a couple direct contacts at small consulting firms offering some moonlighting capacity for any needs they have. I also decided to go back to every recruiter that has reached out to me on LinkedIn in the past year and offered myself as a part-time contract architect (tech), maybe 10 hrs/week or less. I know that a lot of small-medium businesses need an architect, but it doesn't make sense for them to hire one full time, and most consulting firms aren't interested at something that small. I had one good response on this so far, but this will take a while to build. If I can just get 4 customers this way, that will be enough to leave my current job.

Handyman Work​

I made some flyers and walked around my neighborhood offering handyman services on houses and cars. There was a lot of interest. 5th house said they had an electrician ghost them just this week and asked if I'd take a look. They had some issues that amounted to a switch and receptacle needing replacement. They provided the materials, I charged $100. 20 min of work and it's good to go. This is incredible. Our neighborhood is about 150 houses, I only got through the first 15 after this pitstop, but I'll be finishing that in the coming week.

While this work is more of a job and not fastlane itself, there's 2 main benefits:

1. It's getting me into the selling and customer service mentality. I was so nervous walking to the first 2 houses. But after many people seemed genuinely thankful for my offer, and 1 person had a job for me right then, it's far less intimidating. I had a couple rejections too, but it's all good experience.
2. This is giving me additional experience for my long term idea: flipping and renting houses. I've just gotta build enough capital to be able to buy a house in extreme need of repair. Hopefully hold that capital until the housing market goes down, even if that's not for 5 years

Long-Term​

• My own consulting firm
  • Self Explanatory. Builds from the freelance consulting
• Small business digital transformation
  • This is essentially what I do today, except I primarily work with fortune 500 companies
  • I would figure out a system that works, then instead of selling a website itself which is often a hellscape of nitpicking, I sell a solution and outcome. Then I can separate the cost from the effort, and likely figure out some sort of recurring revenue. Maybe a % of sales from the new solution.
• Tech company additive on my current company
  • There are a lot of add-ons that customers desire from my current company. They're too small to be worth the company's effort with our current backlog, but could be very profitable for me. Ex: I know more than 1 company that wouldn't blink at paying $25k/year for one of these add-ons
  • These would be the most fastlane. I could build an MVP in about a month and because it's code, it's infinitely scalable. If I can just prove out the concept, I could probably secure 1 or more sales before the product is even ready.
  • Problem: If I made this now, I could get in trouble with my company, possibly legal. Even if they can't do anything legally, I don't want to be blackballed by the same company that I'm trying to build a product on. So I need to figure out other work so that I can leave, then after about 6 months come out with this product, in which case I think all my current team members would be happy to actually refer and recommend me to customers.
• Business that requires a physical location from day 1 (high capital)
  • Cool new idea, possibly chainable/franchiseable.
  • Need: with the massive increase in cost of living during COVID, it feels like everyone's budget is tight. I know many people with "good" incomes that are at the limit every month. This in addition to the rising costs of trade work due to low supply means that a lot of people are unable to get work done on their house or cars, so more and more people are trying to do the work themselves. If you can help those people with that, you have a massive market of high need right now.
• Flipping houses + renting/Airbnb
  • Straightforward, but most capital intense. I really don't want to go the super leveraged route, would much rather fund this with other business income. Build up over time. Rent, Airbnb, or sell based on the market rather than having to sell as fast as possible due to a loan coming due.

Am I taking the right approach? What could I be doing better?

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

Duphsevt up emm vji coh edvoupt epf neloph qistupem qsuhsitt.

Xjisi fu zua tii zuastimg op 5 ziest? Xjodj wipvasi xomm hiv zua vjisi?

 

[Ajbuck68]

Xjisi fu zua tii zuastimg op 5 ziest? Xjodj wipvasi xomm hiv zua vjisi?

Vjev't e huuf vjuahjv qsuwuloph raitvoup. Op 5 ziest O tii nztimg cioph ecmi vu djuuti. O dep djuuti vu tov cedl epf miv nz catopitt dsaoti, us O dep tvez emm-op epf liiq hsuxoph.

O vjopl iovjis tnemm catopitt fohovem vseptgusnevoup us vidj dunqepz effovowi duamf hiv ni vjisi. Piovjis ug vji tjusv visn duamf. Nz uxp duptamvoph gosn xuamf simz vuu nadj up ni qistupemmz. Qjztodem mudevoup catopitt epf gmoqqoph juatit esi katv vuu johj ug e deqovem opwitvnipv vu hiv vjisi op vji piyv 5 ziest.