More of a side hustle (grades from D to C- on CENTS) , but I want to bounce this off you folks and this seemed the more appropriate sub forum.
So Painting parking lots, the "stalls" , the handicap marks, all that. So with this a lot of companies will just keep it in house (have the current maintenance people do it, or maybe in the case of a property management company make this a part of the job for core staff)
Needs to be done every 3 years, most don't keep up on it like that. You can run this where you specialize in just this sort of work (and grow to the point where you compete for government contracts for roadways and such) but a lot of companies that offer this seem to be more broadly in "asphalt maintenance" (if you're already laying the road why not charge a bit more and paint it as well? makes sense) so thats a growth opportunity here (that possibility was not reflected in the middling CENTS score mentioned above)
Heres why I like this, You can start (all in minus llc start costs) for like 3 or 400 bucks and be making 100 dollars an hour from the first job. So they have this book that literally lays out how its done, exact steps, equipment, costs etc , start with one of these <-higher paint costs, upgrade to this , eventually one like this. I also didn't find any of the higher end equipment on fire sale (maybe used for 70 or 80% of new) thats a good sign because it means this is a common enough job that people need done that a robust market exists for the equipment. So it doesn't really hit that sweet spot of "learnable but hard enough to keep most out" but honestly people aren't chomping at the bit to be outdoors or doing manual labor in any way in the entrepreneurial world...anyway...
Does need exist? basic market research, thats where I need another set of eyes. Heres what I did, I got a little burner phone and called myself frank, I got a handful of companies doing this in the local area, so for the relevant google search terms you had 12-15 results, I parsed that down to 6, I figure i'm not actually competing with the companies that can lay a road and also paint the lines I'm just the paint guy in this hypothetical venture so how many people are doing that?
Then what would the value add be? , so these tie together. My thought is as a one man show I can get a call and just go right out where maybe these others are backed up week or two? (hows the supply and demand? can I get a slice of that?) , so I called these 6 places with my fake name and burner phone and I made up a job and asked how soon they could be out, I said 30 stalls with 6 handicap spots - from reading the book above that seemed like a big enough job to be worth going for but not so large that the timeframe they give me isn't truly reflective of the market (that is, if I lied and said "its a massive multi day ten thousand dollar job, these guys are going to start thinking about running crews overtime or bumping other work because mine is so much more profitable , if I made up a job too small same problem but opposite, theyd just ignore me or schedule me for weeks from now because they simply can't be bothered)
The results were not encouraging but also didn't really give me a firm yes or no on whether to pursue this.
Out of the 6 I called only one answered (they had speedy in the name so apparently my hypothetical value add already has a player in market), they were able to get someone out not just to estimate but to estimate followed immediately by a crew within 48 hours.
Of the remaining 5 who I left voicemails with only one called back, they stated they could have an estimator out again in about two days, this company also called back once more to check on me since I hadn't called back (same women both times so apparently its either a mom and pop operation or they actual have a scheduler / secretary)
The other 4 did not call me back.
Frank also has a fake email and I emailed two of them, no one wrote back (but that doesn't really tell me anything broadly about the market or its needs, maybe those folks just get enough work from calls to be dumb with email?)
Where you can really shine with this sort of service work is if your competition is stuck in the 1980's and leadership is getting ready to retire, mom & pop setups using old fax machines, no websites (only 2 of the 6 I scoped out had websites , one looked antique (the companies been around 30 years though) and the other was the "speedy" company that immediately answers my call and had a 48 hour turn around, they had a very nice modern looking site)
So what does fastlane think? , the 48 hour turnaround from the ones who called back indicates to me that these guys aren't getting hammered by work (I want to be pulling customers not relying on advertising "push") , but one of those is specifically geared toward fast turn around, the other one does seem to be a guy and his wife (per google reviews).
2 of the 6 had no google reviews, everyone else had 4.5 star or above averages, no terrible reviews were found that would be an obvious shoe in the door value add proposition.
So Painting parking lots, the "stalls" , the handicap marks, all that. So with this a lot of companies will just keep it in house (have the current maintenance people do it, or maybe in the case of a property management company make this a part of the job for core staff)
Needs to be done every 3 years, most don't keep up on it like that. You can run this where you specialize in just this sort of work (and grow to the point where you compete for government contracts for roadways and such) but a lot of companies that offer this seem to be more broadly in "asphalt maintenance" (if you're already laying the road why not charge a bit more and paint it as well? makes sense) so thats a growth opportunity here (that possibility was not reflected in the middling CENTS score mentioned above)
Heres why I like this, You can start (all in minus llc start costs) for like 3 or 400 bucks and be making 100 dollars an hour from the first job. So they have this book that literally lays out how its done, exact steps, equipment, costs etc , start with one of these <-higher paint costs, upgrade to this , eventually one like this. I also didn't find any of the higher end equipment on fire sale (maybe used for 70 or 80% of new) thats a good sign because it means this is a common enough job that people need done that a robust market exists for the equipment. So it doesn't really hit that sweet spot of "learnable but hard enough to keep most out" but honestly people aren't chomping at the bit to be outdoors or doing manual labor in any way in the entrepreneurial world...anyway...
Does need exist? basic market research, thats where I need another set of eyes. Heres what I did, I got a little burner phone and called myself frank, I got a handful of companies doing this in the local area, so for the relevant google search terms you had 12-15 results, I parsed that down to 6, I figure i'm not actually competing with the companies that can lay a road and also paint the lines I'm just the paint guy in this hypothetical venture so how many people are doing that?
Then what would the value add be? , so these tie together. My thought is as a one man show I can get a call and just go right out where maybe these others are backed up week or two? (hows the supply and demand? can I get a slice of that?) , so I called these 6 places with my fake name and burner phone and I made up a job and asked how soon they could be out, I said 30 stalls with 6 handicap spots - from reading the book above that seemed like a big enough job to be worth going for but not so large that the timeframe they give me isn't truly reflective of the market (that is, if I lied and said "its a massive multi day ten thousand dollar job, these guys are going to start thinking about running crews overtime or bumping other work because mine is so much more profitable , if I made up a job too small same problem but opposite, theyd just ignore me or schedule me for weeks from now because they simply can't be bothered)
The results were not encouraging but also didn't really give me a firm yes or no on whether to pursue this.
Out of the 6 I called only one answered (they had speedy in the name so apparently my hypothetical value add already has a player in market), they were able to get someone out not just to estimate but to estimate followed immediately by a crew within 48 hours.
Of the remaining 5 who I left voicemails with only one called back, they stated they could have an estimator out again in about two days, this company also called back once more to check on me since I hadn't called back (same women both times so apparently its either a mom and pop operation or they actual have a scheduler / secretary)
The other 4 did not call me back.
Frank also has a fake email and I emailed two of them, no one wrote back (but that doesn't really tell me anything broadly about the market or its needs, maybe those folks just get enough work from calls to be dumb with email?)
Where you can really shine with this sort of service work is if your competition is stuck in the 1980's and leadership is getting ready to retire, mom & pop setups using old fax machines, no websites (only 2 of the 6 I scoped out had websites , one looked antique (the companies been around 30 years though) and the other was the "speedy" company that immediately answers my call and had a 48 hour turn around, they had a very nice modern looking site)
So what does fastlane think? , the 48 hour turnaround from the ones who called back indicates to me that these guys aren't getting hammered by work (I want to be pulling customers not relying on advertising "push") , but one of those is specifically geared toward fast turn around, the other one does seem to be a guy and his wife (per google reviews).
2 of the 6 had no google reviews, everyone else had 4.5 star or above averages, no terrible reviews were found that would be an obvious shoe in the door value add proposition.
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