What business would you start?

I'm setting up a business in diversionary tactics.




Oh look.... A butterfly.

 

Maybe I should invest in butterfly stocks

 

I haven't but that's an interesting angle.

 

Business v Self Employment
If it is truly a business then your business plan needs to incorporate making yourself superfluous. If it is reliant on you then, no matter how high the income, you are basically self employed. It may take 5 years or more but that should be the goal. Doesn't mean that you actually need to exit, but means that you can choose the parts you want to do and if you take a holiday the dollars don't change.

Cashflow
Then you need to ensure that the structure and model ensures cashflow is regular, predictable and sufficient to keep you afloat. Profit is essential but not if you poor cashflow sends you under.

I am no accountant but run services businesses and have looked at the books of dozens of firms as possible acquisition.
Rough figures on Profit v Cashflow
Service business that turn's over $1m a year and makes a profit of $200k.
1. That means that on a daily basis your business produces fees of $2,739.72.
2. If the business has work in progress (as in done but not yet billed) of 42 days and invoice payments of 45 days then you have $238,356 in income outstanding plus whatever your unbilled disbursements (costs paid on behalf of client but not yet charged), for ease we will say that is $50k in lockup.
3. So for those 87 days you have a profit of $47,671 but you have paid for disbursements of $50k and other costs of $190,684.
4. You need to have access to $193,013.51 to fund the shortfall.
5. If you could get that to 14 days WIP and 21 Days payment for invoices then you only have $95,890.20 and $20,115 in disbursements. you get it down to a total of $116,005.20.

Business Type
Something with low fixed overheads where you can ramp up labour and other costs to match turnover is something I find attractive. Some of the guys I know that are doing really well are those that used to have a large staff and now have a very small one due to technological improvements. Eg Recruitment/ Labour hire (professional roles) who turn over more now with 3 staff than they did when they had 15 staff.

High volume low margin but largely automated businesses are awesome but also extremely competitive and hard to do. A payment processing business with small percentage clips for example. If I could start anything it would be a mini paypal, something that suits a particular niche market, eg tradesmen. I don't have the tech skills nor the market knowledge to develop something like that.

For me I would (and will) start more service businesses whilst building my current ones.

 

a plant lamp shop

 

More seriously, a 3D printing business would be interesting.

 

Hope you have a ton of resilience, an attitude of "this is going to be the toughest gig I have ever taken on" as opposed to "this looks easy and the money is good" attitude and a specific niche market you are going to target.

You will also need an ace mentor and the good ones are few and far between and usually very selective of whom they engage as the attrition rate is very high.

 

or how about drone photography?

 

BTC is running hot, lot of money to be made flogging this dream to the masses right now i imagine

 

Yeah, but entry is too cheap and easy, so the door to competition is wide open.

 

Likely. So you would either need a niche or get in, make some money, get out.

 

How so Col ?

Everyone is getting into it, we want a slice of that big meaty pie bud

 

Alright then, give it a crack. If you can get it to work its a great little business

 

Yes - as I have thought regarding the Chinese that scoff at the price of my top shelf garlic - I don' work for 50c a hours

 

Business ideas don't have any value.
If you think otherwise, why not simply sell one or all of your business ideas for cash if you have too many to choose from.
It's the execution and putting plans into action that creates value.
Billions have been made with no ideas or plans, purely action.

 

Good thread.

We started a business about 11 months ago now which involves property of course, this was not my brain child, but I was asked if I would be interested in this and I jumped at it.

We are playing in the US market and basically buying property at below market value to flip which generates cash flow.

Our main focus though is developing property and all business partners are developers or have been involved in aspects of building/property. We have a development project (5 townhouses) in Atlanta and just purchased a commercial property in Boston, the idea here is to convert this building into condos. Its not a walk in the park, but we are learning as we go, exciting stuff and hard work.

MTR

 

How did you find their franchise structure?
Would you get into it again?

These things are usually in shopping centers, high traffic/rent areas, also need a lot of staff (unreliable/wages).
At least over here, rare to see them in industrial areas, fuel stations etc where it's easy for everyone including large trucks to utilize at lunch time. Lower outgoings.
Something I've concidered.

 

I'm on it

Thought about it a while ago but didn't have the spare $10k for decent equipment. After checking out the competition, figured I could do just as good for less. Only need 3 jobs a week for RE and I'm making more than my FT job so worth a go. And love it as a hobby so hoping it to be a 'passion into profit' kind of thing.

If anyone wants free photos of their home or IP around Syd let me know