start your own business

[Beemnseven]

Originally Posted by Slingin Sammy 33

I've been waiting on you, Beem & Beem's pop, and some of the other guys down here to show up

The pizza place is an investment business that has turned into nearly a full-time second job. When the economy is running fine things are good. This recession has definitely slowed my wife and I down in a big way from our plans and timetables for the business. We financed it and had hoped to have it paid in about 3 years, that's not happening now. There's high-margin in the pizza business, so if you have an independent established place, which is what we bought, you can weather the storm. I don't know how the franchises are surviving making $ 5 pizzas & $ 10 loaded pizzas, then paying franchise fees, advertising fees, etc.

If this was our primary income, we would've laid off at least 3-4 more people and picked up hours ourselves to make ends meet through the recession. As it is we just cut some "dead weight" and scaled back some hours. Also, you're tied to the business. Phone rings and someone calls out sick, doesn't show up, decides to smoke a doob out back by the freezer, and you're going in to cover the shift or handle the situation. Want to take a weeks vacation with your family....think again. You can't be there every open hour so you have to find employees that are trustworthy, we're pretty lucky in that regard. You have to deal with landlords, pests, vendors who will stick it to you if you don't watch every invoice.

It's got its ups and downs, in this economy its been more downs than ups. Talking with food vendors and other folks that own restaurants/bars, we're doing comparatively well so we're definitely thankful for that.

I would advise anyone looking to start their own business take first's advice, be prepared to have little-to-no income for two years. Without my "day" job, we'd be in a tough situation.

I know. Sorry man.

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by ArtMonkDrillz

Back in the day I used to play paintball almost every weekend and I always thought it would be really cool to own a field. Ideally I'd have a place with both indoor and outdoor courses so that I could have business all year round.

Done the paint ball thing about 10 time and I actually like playing outside in the winter. Your moving around alot and with a few layers on you stay nice in warm and it also helps pad the hit from the paint balls. If you had the land the overhead would not be very much.

[Redskins8588]

If I had to make a living I have no clue what kind of shop I would open maybe a meat/deli shop with my brother and dad. We butcher and process different meats all the time. For example we just this past summer we butchered 1 cow, 1 pig and 35 chickens. So we know our way around meat and making sausage.

If I wanted to start a store and was financially stable I would start a comic book/sports card shop...

[ArtMonkDrillz]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Done the paint ball thing about 10 time and I actually like playing outside in the winter. Your moving around alot and with a few layers on you stay nice in warm and it also helps pad the hit from the paint balls. If you had the land the overhead would not be very much.

The biggest problem with playing the in the winter is maintaining the guns. We used to always have problems with our CO2 tanks or the guns jamming up when it was really cold out. Either that, or the paintballs wouldn't break when they hit you and that hurts like a bitch.

As for the cost, it always seemed to me like it was the type of business that wouldn't run too high on overhead. Like you said, if you have the land you're off to a good start. I've seen equipment packages on line where you can get almost everything you need at a bulk rate. I bet you'd make a killing renting the guns out and on the mark-up on the paintballs.

[over the mountain]

those facebook and myspace websites have made a ton of money.

someone should start a website based off that format but for pets.

dogspace.com; petspace.com; dogbook.com; petbook.com

so people could create accounts for their dogs, post pictures and all that other jazz. people love their dogs.

[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by saden1

Writing software once and selling it many times seems like a good idea for a business...only issue is you got to have a killer app to make decent money. I've been toying with the idea of writing an Android application but I haven't fully committed myself to it.

This is the best idea, but like you said you've got to have a killer app. I've got a few in mind, and I wanted to make an iPhone app, but you have to have a Mac for development. Grrrr, F Apple.

[MTK]

You could always pay someone to help develop the app for you but I've heard that can be crazy expensive

[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

You could always pay someone to help develop the app for you but I've heard that can be crazy expensive

Yeah, probably more expensive than buying a Mac and doing it myself -- which I'm sure is exactly what Apple would want.

[GhettoDogAllStars]

I gotta say, when I first saw this thread I thought about Dre's "Lil Ghetto Boy".

... quit payin mfer's for jerry curls, quit payin mfer's for jerry perms, save your money, start your own business ...

[cpayne5]

Don't forget that actually writing the app is only half the battle. The other is getting it approved.

[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by cpayne5

Don't forget that actually writing the app is only half the battle. The other is getting it approved.

Approved?! That figures.

I didn't know you had to get it approved, but I can't say I'm surprised. Open standards > proprietary bullshit. F Apple. F Microsoft. Their business practices ultimately hurt the community and limit progress. But hey, at least they're getting rich, right?

IMO, this is why Microsoft will eventually succumb to open standards, or they will perish. Did you know that if you want to develop .Net apps you have to run them on Windows? So, you get language independence (totally worthless, IMO) but you're locked into Windows (clearly inferior to Unix) and its licensing fees.

I'm a Java developer, and the apps I write are totally portable and totally free to develop and host. They can be developed with any tool (Notepad, if you want), and can run on any system. Did I mention the tools and server software is also open-source and free? Geez, for the life of me I don't know what MS is thinking.

[/rant]

[SmootSmack]

Originally Posted by over the mountain

those facebook and myspace websites have made a ton of money.

someone should start a website based off that format but for pets.

dogspace.com; petspace.com; dogbook.com; petbook.com

so people could create accounts for their dogs, post pictures and all that other jazz. people love their dogs.

I think that already exists. Dogster.com I think, or something like that

[MTK]

I think the social networking idea has been pretty well exhausted at this point.

[cpayne5]

Originally Posted by GhettoDogAllStars

Approved?! That figures.

I didn't know you had to get it approved, but I can't say I'm surprised. Open standards > proprietary bullshit. F Apple. F Microsoft. Their business practices ultimately hurt the community and limit progress. But hey, at least they're getting rich, right?

IMO, this is why Microsoft will eventually succumb to open standards, or they will perish. Did you know that if you want to develop .Net apps you have to run them on Windows? So, you get language independence (totally worthless, IMO) but you're locked into Windows (clearly inferior to Unix) and its licensing fees.

I'm a Java developer, and the apps I write are totally portable and totally free to develop and host. They can be developed with any tool (Notepad, if you want), and can run on any system. Did I mention the tools and server software is also open-source and free? Geez, for the life of me I don't know what MS is thinking.

[/rant]

Apple is being very Nazi-like with their apps. There have been lots of apps that have been rejected with absolutely no reason given. Others have been rejected for completely bogus reasons.

You don't have to run .NET apps in Windows. You can develop and host .NET apps for free. (see DotGNU, mono, and Silverlight as a few examples)

I think you probably mean UNIX-like.

[GhettoDogAllStars]

Originally Posted by cpayne5

Apple is being very Nazi-like with their apps. There have been lots of apps that have been rejected with absolutely no reason given. Others have been rejected for completely bogus reasons.

You don't have to run .NET apps in Windows. You can develop and host .NET apps for free. (see DotGNU, mono, and Silverlight as a few examples)

I think you probably mean UNIX-like.

Funny how the open-platform .Net movement (dotGNU) is not endorsed by MS -- in fact it appears to be created in retaliation to Microsoft's proprietary ways. I also doubt the CLI source code is available -- it seems dotGNU just provides the binaries (because MS hasn't released the source). Please correct me if you know better.

I also checked out Silverlight (which is a MS product) and you need the Web Platform Installer to get it (which is only supported by Windows). There might be a way to hack it, but that's my point. So, it seems, if we just left it up to MS there would be no free, open-source, open-platform, or open anything coming from them.