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Hey everyone. I hope you all are settling into 2009 nicely. I created a small business during my last two weeks of winter break. It is not a multi-millionaire story...but I thought I would share it with all my great pals here at the Fastlane and maybe some of the other younger members here can get ideas from it.
I got off school on December 19th and I was given a month off (luxury of a Big Ten school) until January 20th. For most of the first half of the break, I was just relaxing. Sleeping in late, playing Call of Duty, reading the forums, and doing basically nothing. I woke up one morning (or should I say afternoon) and it suddenly hit me that I was being a lazy a$$. Even though I had worked hard last semester to get a 3.89 GPA...it doesn't mean I deserve to sit on my a$$!
With only two weeks of break left though, I could hardly go out and find a J.O.B. to make some money.
I was driving around later that night when it started snowing and it hit me.
When I was a kid, I had all types of odds and end businesses. One of them was walking door to door and shoveling driveways for $20. I would usually get about 3 driveways as a kid (probably just nice neighbors humoring me), but the $60 was huge to me!
So, as I said, I was driving around in the snow and it hit me. Take the childish door-to-door shoveling business model and revise it.
I immediately called my buddy and asked him if he was on board. He said of course!
I started doing some research on how landscaping companies and other companies go about running the snow plow end of their business during the winter.
At the moment, I had the funds to buy a snow plow truck, but not the time left to make it worthwhile (I would still need to bid jobs, get paperwork done, and then get out there and plow all with only two weeks of break left).
I wasn't about to give up on cashing in on all the "white gold" (not cocaine haha) that falls around here in Chicago.
I began looking into what my competition charges to do suburban driveways, and what edge I have over them that I could offer to my clients. (I knew getting contracts with commercial lots would be the best and biggest way to think...but keep in mind, I do not have a snowplow at this point.) I found both answers immediately and things were looking good for me. The other companies in the area charge outrageous prices starting at $20 for one car garage driveways. And the edge I have over these companies is that we would be using snow-blowers and shovels instead of plows that can potentially damage your driveway. To give myself and even better advantage over these companies I would only charge $15 for any driveway in the suburban area around me (1 person takes an average of 25 minutes to do a driveway...2 people takes about 15 minutes).
I made a quick post on craigslist.org that in short stated what we do and the advantages of using our services.
I was only half serious about the business, but figured I would get a few calls.
Later that after noon a winter storm warning for one of the "clipper" storms that came through last week went into effect. My phone began to BLOW UP!! I could not sit back on the couch after I had written information down without getting another call.
I set up an invoice in Excel and used my proposed REI corporation name. I had 18 driveways to do the next morning, I knew it would be a long day. I called my friend Chris and we would be using his industrial style snow-blower (26") and my smaller snow-blower and shovels. We also were able to use his dad's work van from his contracting company.
Long story short, we got the snow that night, headed out at 3:50AM, cleared all the driveways, left the invoices, collected cash from some, and felt great! We did another round later that day to make sure all the driveways still looked good, and touched up on the ones that didn't. I got more calls later in the day from others who wanted their driveways done when they had arrived home from work and they were covered.
In total we did 23 driveways x 15 = $345.00
Many of the customers were really excited about our prices (because while they ARE lower than the rest of the entire market, we didn't mind working quickly as a team for that price) and said they would recommend us to their friends.
Later that week when it snowed again, we did another:
21 driveways x 15 = $315.00
Total Revenue: $660.00
Total Expenses (Gas): $45.00
Net Profit: $615.00 (all for only two hard days work)
While I don't plan on making this a life-long business, the money we made this year will be great seed money to buy a plow truck next October and start bidding jobs to make some extra cash while I am home. We will also have return clients who we will call to set up contracts with during next fall. We will probably need to recruit more people because we can hardly keep up doing all these driveways on time in the morning and driving back around to check them all. Even if they are in the same residential area...logistics are not always perfect.
I will add things to this if I forgot anything.
Thanks for reading if you made it down here!! Happy 2009:smxA::yourock::smxF:
-Alex
I got off school on December 19th and I was given a month off (luxury of a Big Ten school) until January 20th. For most of the first half of the break, I was just relaxing. Sleeping in late, playing Call of Duty, reading the forums, and doing basically nothing. I woke up one morning (or should I say afternoon) and it suddenly hit me that I was being a lazy a$$. Even though I had worked hard last semester to get a 3.89 GPA...it doesn't mean I deserve to sit on my a$$!
With only two weeks of break left though, I could hardly go out and find a J.O.B. to make some money.
I was driving around later that night when it started snowing and it hit me.
When I was a kid, I had all types of odds and end businesses. One of them was walking door to door and shoveling driveways for $20. I would usually get about 3 driveways as a kid (probably just nice neighbors humoring me), but the $60 was huge to me!
So, as I said, I was driving around in the snow and it hit me. Take the childish door-to-door shoveling business model and revise it.
I immediately called my buddy and asked him if he was on board. He said of course!
I started doing some research on how landscaping companies and other companies go about running the snow plow end of their business during the winter.
At the moment, I had the funds to buy a snow plow truck, but not the time left to make it worthwhile (I would still need to bid jobs, get paperwork done, and then get out there and plow all with only two weeks of break left).
I wasn't about to give up on cashing in on all the "white gold" (not cocaine haha) that falls around here in Chicago.
I began looking into what my competition charges to do suburban driveways, and what edge I have over them that I could offer to my clients. (I knew getting contracts with commercial lots would be the best and biggest way to think...but keep in mind, I do not have a snowplow at this point.) I found both answers immediately and things were looking good for me. The other companies in the area charge outrageous prices starting at $20 for one car garage driveways. And the edge I have over these companies is that we would be using snow-blowers and shovels instead of plows that can potentially damage your driveway. To give myself and even better advantage over these companies I would only charge $15 for any driveway in the suburban area around me (1 person takes an average of 25 minutes to do a driveway...2 people takes about 15 minutes).
I made a quick post on craigslist.org that in short stated what we do and the advantages of using our services.
I was only half serious about the business, but figured I would get a few calls.
Later that after noon a winter storm warning for one of the "clipper" storms that came through last week went into effect. My phone began to BLOW UP!! I could not sit back on the couch after I had written information down without getting another call.
I set up an invoice in Excel and used my proposed REI corporation name. I had 18 driveways to do the next morning, I knew it would be a long day. I called my friend Chris and we would be using his industrial style snow-blower (26") and my smaller snow-blower and shovels. We also were able to use his dad's work van from his contracting company.
Long story short, we got the snow that night, headed out at 3:50AM, cleared all the driveways, left the invoices, collected cash from some, and felt great! We did another round later that day to make sure all the driveways still looked good, and touched up on the ones that didn't. I got more calls later in the day from others who wanted their driveways done when they had arrived home from work and they were covered.
In total we did 23 driveways x 15 = $345.00
Many of the customers were really excited about our prices (because while they ARE lower than the rest of the entire market, we didn't mind working quickly as a team for that price) and said they would recommend us to their friends.
Later that week when it snowed again, we did another:
21 driveways x 15 = $315.00
Total Revenue: $660.00
Total Expenses (Gas): $45.00
Net Profit: $615.00 (all for only two hard days work)
While I don't plan on making this a life-long business, the money we made this year will be great seed money to buy a plow truck next October and start bidding jobs to make some extra cash while I am home. We will also have return clients who we will call to set up contracts with during next fall. We will probably need to recruit more people because we can hardly keep up doing all these driveways on time in the morning and driving back around to check them all. Even if they are in the same residential area...logistics are not always perfect.
I will add things to this if I forgot anything.
Thanks for reading if you made it down here!! Happy 2009:smxA::yourock::smxF:
-Alex
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