What would you pay for?
#11
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Originally Posted by Incubus,Aug 12 2010, 08:06 PM
You're already doing it wrong. You don't make money by giving stuff away.
I started my own small business at 18. I'm almost 21, and after two years of very stressful times, hardly making a dime, and mostly scrounging just to make ends meat, things are starting to fall in place and business is picking up. :knockonwood:
Perseverance will be your number one challenge. It's easy to quit. If everyone made good money starting a small business, everyone would do it. Also, how do big corporations form? they usually don't start with billion dollar profits and 20,000 employees. I always tell myself those things...
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Originally Posted by espelirS2K,Aug 12 2010, 07:23 PM
I started my own small business at 18. I'm almost 21, and after two years of very stressful times, hardly making a dime, and mostly scrounging just to make ends meat, things are starting to fall in place and business is picking up. :knockonwood:
Perseverance will be your number one challenge. It's easy to quit. If everyone made good money starting a small business, everyone would do it. Also, how do big corporations form? they usually don't start with billion dollar profits and 20,000 employees. I always tell myself those things...
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In the back of my mind I am always thinking about products or services I could develop and provide that I won't personally have to handle for long. I am more interested in an idea that doesn't only work when I'm actively working it. I'd like to set something in motion that picks up steam during the hours when I'm unable to attend to it. I dunno what that is yet.
I say open a high-end self car wash. If you can find (and afford) a decent location, you'll be in the big money with little attention from yourself.
I say open a high-end self car wash. If you can find (and afford) a decent location, you'll be in the big money with little attention from yourself.
#14
My dad actually has a property with highway frontage that he doesn't use. Has cement slab and a sheetmetal warehouse. It needs some TLC, but I was thinking of maybe asking him to let me do it there.
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Volume car washes can make decent money. I think it'd be great to do a very nice self-serve car wash. But would people be able to justify the price? From my experiences, the majority wouldn't
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Originally Posted by espelirS2K,Aug 13 2010, 10:24 AM
Volume car washes can make decent money. I think it'd be great to do a very nice self-serve car wash. But would people be able to justify the price? From my experiences, the majority wouldn't
I'm willing to pay $2-5 to quickly rinse my car, $10 to give it a better wash using most of the settings on the self-wash dial.
With a 10 car capacity you can configure it in various ways depending on the building that exists there already; 5 tandem bays (and 5 exterior line-ups), a single-direction center roadway with 5 bays on either side (and 1 exterior line-up), etc.
If half the people who come in spend $5 and half spend $10 and you average 5 cars per hour (open 24 hours?) over the course of the week, then you'll be looking at annual revenue of $328,500. For an industrial (unfinished) space like this you might pay something like $1-4k monthly depending on location. Factor in all your supplies, electrical, and maintenance, and you could have a nice little business for yourself. If that works, think about opening another location and increase your income.
I'm a big fan of the car wash idea, myself.
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Originally Posted by espelirS2K,Aug 13 2010, 10:24 AM
Volume car washes can make decent money. I think it'd be great to do a very nice self-serve car wash. But would people be able to justify the price? From my experiences, the majority wouldn't
I go to them because I don't trust hand wash amateurs to touch my cars, I want a quick wash without having to pull out 20 different products, a hose, a bucket, etc etc etc, and don't have enough money to spend on pro services every time my car gets dirty.
Self washes aren't converting anyone who uses professional wash & detail services into self-washers, they simply provide a function to the majority of the population at a lower cost.