Brad2770
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I am being given a business
- Thread starter Brad2770
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Drive by memeing and snide remarks. Kind of khane meets Brutal.
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Izo
Tranny Chaser
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Sure, case in point a classic FoH joke to lighten the mood, 3 worfs, thanks for the setup. What's your excuse for calling someone a dirtbag for airing their pov?
Sanrith Descartes
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You need to set aside business view from personal view. As a person being debt free is amazing. Businesses however don't run debt free. It's actually a bad thing. The idea of being in business is you want to risk someone else's money. And you pay a price (interest) to do this. But the interest is deductible. Also it's nearly impossible to grow a business without capital above and beyond the day to day cash flows.
Tldr: don't be afraid to borrow money for your business. You just make sure that your business model has baked in the debt service (monthly repayment on the borrow).
Apple has insane free cash flow and yet they still borrow money to do stock repurchases when they dont have to. Why you ask? Because the interest cost is tax deductible and they can do lots of cool shit with piles of cash.
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Control
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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So why not buy whatever truck your money will get you? A beater truck and in business now beats the fuck out of a new truck and in business a year later. Do people really make hiring decisions for this kind of work based on what their vehicle looks like? And if they do, fuck them, sell to everyone else. I think 99+% of people would say that answering the phone and showing up on time is about 100x more important that what you show up driving. How many of your customers even see your truck? and how many of them could even tell what year it was made?
Where do you guys come up with this stuff?
There is validity in the fact that you're cashflow limited in terms of expanding rapidly, but outside of that you just spewed a bunch of total bullshit. You aren't getting commercial loans for a small business without a personal guarantee. You aren't going to get out of the loan unscathed even if you declare bankruptcy. You aren't saving money with tax deductions on interest.
This whole idea that you can go into a bank and get substantial commercial loan to risk on some business idea is totally insane anyways. The loan officer will not even fill out the paperwork for the underwriter unless your business has years of positive cash flow along with you having stellar personal credit and some assets. Even then many lines of credit require a 0 balance at least once annually, so you can't just rack up debt and let it sit for years.
Tell me which businesses do you think fared better these past few years? I'm not talking about mega tech corporations like Apple, Google, Microsoft, or even large conglomerates like Berkshire. I'm talking real small business. 100K-2 million annual revenue type business. Do you actually believe the debt laden companies fared better than the debt free companies these past few years?
Debt is often a gamble that your forecasting will be correct. You're making an assumption that if you make money off 1 truck then 5 trucks will make just as much and cover the note and then some. While this does work out many times it also has a much higher probability of failure than just being patient and cash flowing everything.
Personally with the way the economy is right now I would not be taking on any debt, and yes that's taking inflation into consideration as well.
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Just echoing this. We started our thrift store by handing out donation pickup flyers and picking up items in a 1990 G30 Box Van I got for $1000 and put another $1000 into... That thing probably collected over 500k in sellable items before it died and nobody gave two shits about its look or anything else.
You don't need a fancy truck to start a business of any kind. The lower you can keep your costs the better. As someone who is relatively wealthy compared to 99% of the populous now I can tell you I do not give two fucks what my cleaner, landscaper, mechanic, or anyone else drives.
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Sanrith Descartes
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I was going to reply to this but figure you apparently have all the answers. You're right, the rest of us don't know shit about business.
Hateyou
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Agree with this. We use very small businesses for things like cleaning our house, watching our dogs while on vacation, babysitting, getting groceries delivered, landscaping, concrete pour, basement finishing, lawn spray/aeration. We don’t give a shit what someone’s work vehicle looks like, I usually expect a beater tbh. The people that did our basement trucks looked like complete shit, paint peeling, dents. I care about the service I bought from them, not what they own.
I’d suggest getting the beater workhorse truck and use it as motivation to get back to that new truck if you want. Then keep the beater as a backup for any more accidents. If you did that and pulled it all off you’d probably have a deep appreciation for that beater truck honestly.
Izo
Tranny Chaser
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Fair! FWIW I hope you get back in business soon. Lend some money, get your truck and make piles of sweet bug money, dude. FoH is rooting for you.
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If you're willing to travel a bit, you should check out planet Ford on highway 45 North of Houston. I bought my F-150 from them a number of years back when I was in the market to try to find another used vehicle. The used market at the time was shit for something in decent shape with low mileage. They were liquidating previous year models at the time, and I got the best deal I could find out of any dealership here in Houston.
They claim they have the largest inventory of Ford anywhere in Texas, so they're able to knock their prices down to a competitive range. They even have fleet style trucks available. Just bare bones and cheap. A co-worker of mine just bought an F-250 a few months ago, problem is he had to wait like 3 months before they got it in. But they gave him the best trade in value for his F-150.
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Brad2770
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I appreciate all of the advice and the people that are rooting for me, but I’m not doing this to get rich (though that would be a nice). I’m not doing this to impress anyone. My main plan and goal was to use it as a means to put my family back together (my cousins and I don’t really have close relationships because our parents were druggies). I also did it so my son had something when I die. Whether he sells it or decides to carry the torch, I don’t mind either way.
My current plan is to save more money, let the lawsuit finish up and just do small side jobs to build a small amount of “word of mouth”. I’m going to offer super cheap mosquito services to people within a one mile radius for this season as well. If I get enough from that, I’ll use it to buy a truck.
One thing you have to know about me: I am very OCD to how clean my place of residence is and how pristine my vehicles are. It’s just how I am. Buying someone else’s problems is not my thing. My 150k mile Kia Sportage is going to be making a trip to Utah again this summer and I’m not worried at all that it will make it with no problem. That’s after the vehicle sat idling in a Walmart parking every night (almost) for a year so I wouldn’t sweat or freeze.
Assure you guys, it’s going to be epic. I’m not as religious as I was, but sometimes I really do wonder. Like I said before, I had a one year extreme plan and a three year regular plan. I did the extreme plan because I’m impatient. Maybe God slowed my roll. Who knows. I’m still on track. It will happen.
My current plan is to save more money, let the lawsuit finish up and just do small side jobs to build a small amount of “word of mouth”. I’m going to offer super cheap mosquito services to people within a one mile radius for this season as well. If I get enough from that, I’ll use it to buy a truck.
One thing you have to know about me: I am very OCD to how clean my place of residence is and how pristine my vehicles are. It’s just how I am. Buying someone else’s problems is not my thing. My 150k mile Kia Sportage is going to be making a trip to Utah again this summer and I’m not worried at all that it will make it with no problem. That’s after the vehicle sat idling in a Walmart parking every night (almost) for a year so I wouldn’t sweat or freeze.
Assure you guys, it’s going to be epic. I’m not as religious as I was, but sometimes I really do wonder. Like I said before, I had a one year extreme plan and a three year regular plan. I did the extreme plan because I’m impatient. Maybe God slowed my roll. Who knows. I’m still on track. It will happen.
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Brad2770
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The employer that fired me back on Aug. 6th offered me over $30 an hour to come back plus all of my original equipment I used. They also offered for me to base out of Ft. Worth (like 5 mins from my house) instead of Irving (like 25 minutes from my house).
I think I’m going to take the offer. If I’m going to get another truck, I need to be making more money than I do now.
I think I’m going to take the offer. If I’m going to get another truck, I need to be making more money than I do now.
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Sludig
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As a wage slave as people say these days. That does sound good to me as long a there's plenty of hours or overtime.
Ya its not making your own business empire, but maybe that still can come later.
Brad2770
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Well, it will be $30.60 an hour until I hit 40. Then it’s Chinese overtime, but I also get bonuses for work completed and since I do 2 months commercial every quarter and 1 month residential, my bonuses are bigger (mainly because of commercial). I also travel one month every quarter for commercial and get $45 a day per diem.
My current employer is $22 an hour with regular overtime and I get about 45 hours a week. But the promise of a shop manager position in a year.
Sanrith Descartes
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For good or ill, you have an opportunity to game plan your next foray into running your business with the advantage of hindsight. Document everything. As short a stint as it was, you got to see things from that side. What did you do right, what did you do wrong and what could you have done better. Us this to build your next business plan.
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Brad2770
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So, this might be going faster than I expected, but much differently.
A guy I worked with at my previous job, he left about a month after I did to go to UPS. Found out it’s not really his thing. Him and I have been talking the last week and we are going to start working towards building a lawn and pest business. He helped build his step dad’s business about 6-8 years ago (lawn business), so knows well how to build it from the ground up. He doesn’t have any licenses, but he has a half ton Ford pickup. I have everything else for the pest and the licenses, except one. He is bringing me the lawn books tonight and I’m going to register for the test on Monday.
A guy I worked with at my previous job, he left about a month after I did to go to UPS. Found out it’s not really his thing. Him and I have been talking the last week and we are going to start working towards building a lawn and pest business. He helped build his step dad’s business about 6-8 years ago (lawn business), so knows well how to build it from the ground up. He doesn’t have any licenses, but he has a half ton Ford pickup. I have everything else for the pest and the licenses, except one. He is bringing me the lawn books tonight and I’m going to register for the test on Monday.
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