Business ideas.....

[GAMEFACE]

Lets bounce a few ideas off each other. What new businesses do you see in your area that are doing well?

I'm seeing alot of internet cafes that serve coffee that are doing quite well.

My favorite business idea is storage units, the draw back is you need quite a bit of cash to get that going with the land purchase and the build out.

Anyone seeing any new stuff taking off in your area?

 

[GAMEFACE]

No flyer stuff or chain letters.

 

[stacilu]

Gameface


Placing politics on the back burner for a minute.

I owned and ran a day care center for children.
If you are willing to go through the government
rules and regulations and have a big enough
facility you can eventually make some good money.
I believe most states will start paying some of the
charges if you become certified. However, it is
a business that requies hands on, you must be there
and put in some serious time.

I always thought your idea of storage was a great
idea. Again, you need the land like you said.

 

[JudgeWapner]

Out,since I live in CR was thinking of a pizza shop where pizzas are delivered by hookers.That way you can order a pizza and a blow job.I think it has legs.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Staci,

Thanks for your input.

It's good to get off the politics every now and again.

Judge,

Not a bad idea for CR or even Vegas. Do they have any good Italian pizza shops in CR? Seems there's enough Americans there that would enjoy a slice of Italian pizza.

 

[lander]

I've always been drawn to the "self-serve" money makers like the Storage Units, Car Washes, but Game's on the money -- they're not cheap to start. And, it only takes a StorageUSA to move in to out-build you & drive you out of business. I realize taht competition exists in every industry, but this the exposure it pretty steep.

It would be nice to get in a cheaper franchise -- maybe a Blimpe or Quizos.

Anyone back here invested in a franchise?

 

[wolfie_cr]

After a while (Either in CR or the USA) you start wondering "why can't these useless POS just do their job and do 'x' in an efficient way"


I would either do a consulting business that evaluates their efficiency and present a report to the owners on what failed and how to fix it to increase revenue

or

Outsourcing services so that this hypothetical company would replace the workers they had and do it for a nominal amount

Example of recent stupidities I have to deal with

Call the pizza delivery place, some genious of public relationships had the idea of making them answer "who do I have the pleasure of speaking to" (equivalent in spanish), this ads delay while they say that and I merely spit back "I want to order" and then they are puzzled as to why I was so direct ...................................bottom line, more time to take an order

That's the only one I can think of the top of my head (And that doesn't involve goverments of either CR or USA for which I could write an entire book!)

Anyhow, lets profit with others people stupidity/ineficiency!

 

[GAMEFACE]

One of hottest fast food restaurants I've seen lately is Chick-fil-a.

 

[GAMEFACE]

Lander,


The self serve car wash is a good one also. It's a bit more costly than one would think. I looked at one 3 months ago that was 700K.

 

[JudgeWapner]

Out,there are actually some good pizza joints down here. Brick oven.

 

[lander]

Game,
700K - ouch. I had no idea they could run that much.

Another interesting idea IMO is limo company. Seems like a decent plan because it's mostly nights and weekends, so you could always work 2 jobs until it took off (or went under & the repo man comes).

 

[Shotgun]

There's a ton of limo businesses for sale here:
http://www.limoforsale.com/resourceResults.asp?cat=1

What I used to do was go to business brokers and check out what they have available...even if you aren't interested in anything specific it was awfully informative. You might have to embellish your interest in buying something, then fight off weekly calls saying "I found something just up your alley!", but you get a decent knowledge about what to expect from running the business.

 

[mudbone]

I had a buddy that tried the Blimpies franchise and he said it was not a good investment of his time or money and sold it within a year for a slight loss. His take was that you've gotta be willing to put in about 70-80 hours a week to make a go of it and as a secondary job/business was just not a good use of his time and money, fwiw.

Game, don't know what your profession is but i have had a few different buddies go into consulting based on their previous profession. For instance one of them just won a contract from the FBI to help track and fight child pornography after he had run a corporate internet security department and then went into consulting.

good luck in your business endeavors, just not in your political ones :heh:

just kidding on the latter.

mud

 

[Journeyman]

Most restaurant franchises are not worth it.....You will work day and night and the start up cost is astronomical....I wish i could mention my business, but I will never ever mention a business on here again,lol...

The Limo thing isnt bad either, I know a few Limo biz owners, they do pretty well! Its not as seasonal as you think either.....I had thought about a tanning salon business as well , if I can get a wife to run it,lol...I need a new wife though,lol....

 

[Journeyman]

I think office cleaning is another decent one...I know a guy who started from scratch doing real well....You must be willing to #1 get dirty and #2 work your a$$ off at first!

I do know 'another' biz you can make about 75K a year doing, and thats conservative, and thats clear money...no start up , and easy too....and yes it does involve fliers...some things though, are not worth sharing....

Gamer- what business are you looking into?

 

[WildBill]

Pick the most boring businesses around and you will find the money. Don't try to get cute, just provide good service and fair, not cheap, prices in an area with traffic and you can't go wrong. Dry cleaners, convenience stores, repair services, auto shops, etc...those will make solid incomes no matter where you locate them and you certainly don't need to be creative with them.

One of the best businesses around which has very low start up costs is repairing appliances. You get to charge $60-90/hour in labor plus 20-50% markup on parts. You pay your repairman $30/hour and run the business with a cell phone from your garage or in a cheap shop in the low-rent district of town. You can easily scale the business based on demand. You can even start out by doing the business "off" hours. Find a guy who is already doing the job 9 to 5 and ask him to work for you on an on-call basis after his regular job. Put in your ads that you specialize in evening or weekend calls, but of course charge a premium for that. You will have little competition for this niche and you can always find one of these guys that needs the extra cash to moonlight for you. Once you have enough business, you can do it full-time and get some dedicated daytime staff. I would love to get back into the business, but have my hands full with work already. I did some of the logistics work for this with a friend some time ago, but he left the country. While running it this was a great cash cow, very little work effort needed and done properly it created a nice tax shelter.

 

[GAMEFACE]

J,

I've only seriously considered the storage units and I looked at a couple of self serve car washes, I'm not one to put evrything on a venture and these are cash intensive ventures. For the storage units I only need one full time employee and a couple of part timers. I'm not jumping into anything soon. The upside is very good. Your full timer can live onsite. The start up cost is the draw back.

Speaking of tanning salons they are on every other corner now. Does anyone see any new concepts popping up, like tanning salons 15 years ago?

 

[GAMEFACE]

WB,

Very good points.

 

[Jointpleasure]

I seriously would think about baking cakes for a living. Have you ever seen the bill on a wedding cake? Overhead low, capitalism working at its best - word of mouth business...


Yeh, That is what I think I would do!

 

[bblight]

gerry care

Any small business persons that could get in on the coming geriatrics care boom would do well for themselves.

There are tens of millions of people who are entering the twilight years - many of us will regress mentally as we physically deteriorate - with todays medical progress, the mind will go years before death drops in for a visit.

Right now gerry care is a wing of the medical care industry, but as it grows more expensive to care for the geriatric patient, other means of care will be sought and found.

I'm not joking when I mention euthanasia services - Dr Kevorkian was a genius ahead of his time - I myself would want to use such services before I became a hunk of living meat. I'd rather die a peaceful and dignified death before I put my family through that kind of hell.

What about temporary care services (gerry-sitting for a few hours here and there) in such places as the local mall. What about food prep - how many special diets will require a different menu than the one the family uses. What about laundry services for "soiled" adult clothing and re-usable adult diapers.

Geez - the list could go on and on.