Do you own a E-COMMERCE business? If so, can i take you out to lunch?

[Airwolf NSX]

The painting contracting business has been stressful and I realize it's very difficult to grow the business. It requires a lot of driving and the stress. I help manage my family business (we've been in business for 30 years) and I'd like to help retire my parents someday from our current business. Our current business, is an owner-operator mentality and the way it's currently run, it's extremely hard to make it self-run. Essentially, we work Monday - Saturday essentially and if my father and I aren't there, the business will collapse. I'm all for hard work, but I want to pursue an industry that will maximize my ROE or Return On Effort.

I've been wanting to get into e-commerce for awhile. I realize there are a lot of PROs and CONs with every businesses but this industry looks appealing to me.

I've been out of college for 7 years now and I've had several professions: Realtor, Administrator for a finance corporation, Graphics/Marketing, and QA Analyst. I'm doing my research on the industry and from what i've been reading, it looks lucrative because I've experience a lot of stress issues with contracting.

Best way to learn about an industry/business is to talk to other successful owners that are in this field. So, can I take you out to lunch to ask some questions? E.g. How did you do it? What are some common advices you can give so it will save me some time/mistakes? Should I use Magento? Where do i source certain products?

Thanks, any advice/help would be great.

NOTE: If trust/reliability is an issue, I can have another NSX member on the forum here vouch for me.

 

[ssj6kR]

Hi,
I don't own an E-commerce business but I do run a small financial services business. If you had experience with real estate, what I do is similar. I'm looking for people to take on a broker position to lead and develop a team of sales agent. You won't be my employee, you would be considered an independent contractor. You will have ownership and vesting with your clients and your agency.

To understand the potential of this industry, take a look at the baby boomer population, an estimated 76 million people who will want to retire over the next 18 years. Most of them have no idea what to do financially. Go help out more than a few of them and you should be doing great financially.

I know this isn't what you were looking for but if you're interested, feel free to PM me and we can talk more.

Alex

 

[drew]

airwolf,

You are talking "start up", you need a vision of what you are going to do that is new or different or better than anybody else.

If it was "that easy" to get into e-commerce: a money making operation that "scales easily, minimal incremental costs and makes money while you sleep". Then everybody would do it. I can tell you one thing; that in comparison doing "e commerce", there is no measurable stress in being a painting contractor.

**

The important part is the employees along with the implementation of an ideal. Not the idea, those are dime a dozen and nobody pays for "good ideas" anyways (as in never). In fact, don't even worry about anybody stealing your good ideas, it never happens.

Here are things to absorb:
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

Guy Kawasaki (videos on youtube).
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=guy+kawasaki&aq=f

An interview with Steve Jobs
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html

I get asked this a lot and I have a pretty standard answer which is, a lot of people come to me and say "I want to be an entrepreneur". And I go "Oh that's great, what's your idea?". And they say "I don't have one yet". And I say "I think you should go get a job as a busboy or something until you find something you're really passionate about because it's a lot of work". I'm convinced that about half of what separates the successful entrepreneurs from the non-successful ones is pure perseverance. It is so hard. You put so much of your life into this thing.

***

I have college buddys that I watched build their e-commerce into into multi millions. Tom at http://vitalityweb.com/ which is an awesome place to buy ergonomic stuff. The the other company was bought up an closed down to buy up the collection of employees. They were "ramen profitable" years and it took 10 years to get going strong. Their businesses morphed several times over 10 or 20 years.


As for me: I worked at 4 start ups and created my own before I was 25. They all failed and took years of my life with them....and another decade of lost opportunity getting out of the messes they caused. In short, these businesses did not scale well, too early for market and ran out of resources.

I ended up making millions in real estate over the 5 year bubble; which is essentially made me a self employed painting and drywall contractor. I had a crew of 13 guys and I flipped expensive houses every few months. It was reasonable to net $1M on a single house flip in less than 8 months back in 2005. I now have have mad drywall and painting skillz because contractors were quoting me coolie labor at $300 to $5000 a hour. (Example: Contractors were quoting me $70K-$100K to paint a particular house. I did it with my crew in two weeks for $12K total [including the $5K scaffolding install rental]. Another wanted $10K to smooth surface [level 5] existing drywall for $10K...I did the job myself --to perfection-- in less than 40 hours. Gawd awful boring work too.)

I have started this "business" up again but with lesser homes, as the only loans that people can get are FHA approved....a max of $739K. Know any good painting contractors? :biggrin:

***

Some things I've learned in my dotage:
1. Everything is a bubble nowadays: stock, dot.com, finance, microchips, movies, music, etc....
2. Get in on the next bubble and get out.
3. Be a middle man if at all possible. Goldman Sachs has this figured out big time: be a road block that everybody has to go through and pay their toll. Google is a middleman, but a benevolent one.
4. If you can't be a middle man, then implement a vision that makes meaning.


In your case: I recommend you figure out a product or service that is lacking in painting. And provide it well.

For example: I can't find a high quality roller handle where the frame doesn't twist in the handle and/or the roller doesn't come off. All cheap Chinese crap.

Good Luck

Drew

 

[Airwolf NSX]

airwolf,

You are talking "start up", you need a vision of what you are going to do that is new or different or better than anybody else.

If it was "that easy" to get into e-commerce: a money making operation that "scales easily, minimal incremental costs and makes money while you sleep". Then everybody would do it. I can tell you one thing; that in comparison doing "e commerce", there is no measurable stress in being a painting contractor.

**

The important part is the employees along with the implementation of an ideal. Not the idea, those are dime a dozen and nobody pays for "good ideas" anyways (as in never). In fact, don't even worry about anybody stealing your good ideas, it never happens.

Here are things to absorb:
http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html

Guy Kawasaki (videos on youtube).
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=guy+kawasaki&aq=f

An interview with Steve Jobs
http://americanhistory.si.edu/collections/comphist/sj1.html


***

I have college buddys that I watched build their e-commerce into into multi millions. Tom at http://vitalityweb.com/ which is an awesome place to buy ergonomic stuff. The the other company was bought up an closed down to buy up the collection of employees. They were "ramen profitable" years and it took 10 years to get going strong. Their businesses morphed several times over 10 or 20 years.


As for me: I worked at 4 start ups and created my own before I was 25. They all failed and took years of my life with them....and another decade of lost opportunity getting out of the messes they caused. In short, these businesses did not scale well, too early for market and ran out of resources.

I ended up making millions in real estate over the 5 year bubble; which is essentially made me a self employed painting and drywall contractor. I had a crew of 13 guys and I flipped expensive houses every few months. It was reasonable to net $1M on a single house flip in less than 8 months back in 2005. I now have have mad drywall and painting skillz because contractors were quoting me coolie labor at $300 to $5000 a hour. (Example: Contractors were quoting me $70K-$100K to paint a particular house. I did it with my crew in two weeks for $12K total [including the $5K scaffolding install rental]. Another wanted $10K to smooth surface [level 5] existing drywall for $10K...I did the job myself --to perfection-- in less than 40 hours. Gawd awful boring work too.)

I have started this "business" up again but with lesser homes, as the only loans that people can get are FHA approved....a max of $739K. Know any good painting contractors? :biggrin:

***

Some things I've learned in my dotage:
1. Everything is a bubble nowadays: stock, dot.com, finance, microchips, movies, music, etc....
2. Get in on the next bubble and get out.
3. Be a middle man if at all possible. Goldman Sachs has this figured out big time: be a road block that everybody has to go through and pay their toll. Google is a middleman, but a benevolent one.
4. If you can't be a middle man, then implement a vision that makes meaning.


In your case: I recommend you figure out a product or service that is lacking in painting. And provide it well.

For example: I can't find a high quality roller handle where the frame doesn't twist in the handle and/or the roller doesn't come off. All cheap Chinese crap.

Good Luck

Drew

I'm impressed Drew. Seems like you've ventured out into several different industries and finally picked one that is ideal for you. Appreciate all the wonderful input and taking your time to write all this.

As much as I enjoy meeting people with this painting business, it's tiresome. Long days (12~14 hrs a day on the road), 6 days a week, and when i'm home.. i'm still working. Constantly running numbers, trying to secure dates for my crew, trying to negotiate the best price.. (negotiating is a lot harder these days with other contractors going in half the price of what we put in. how this is possible, not sure).

But really appreciate your advice. I still have a lot to be thankful for because we work with realtors and investors-there are plenty of leads coming through. But it's taxing and exhausting. It's taking a toll on my health these days and as the saying goes, "Health is Wealth".
I'm trying to find another industry that can allow me to have some time, relaxation, and make a decent income to support my family.

NOTE: My parents don't have a retirement plan. I am their retirement plan.