I idled my "small business" this year. I started a business when I lost a job (the 2nd one in 2 years) in 2012. God was watching over me and my family because it took off and bridged the gap for us. I hesitate to mention what nitch it is because when I started, I had no idea the demand for the work for the particular clientelle. I will say it was a small maintenance and repair company (construction orientated). I (ME alone) did $40K in revenue in the first 3 months working full time (actually the 2nd and 3rd month mostly). I hired some help part time as 1090 work (1 guy from my church) for nights and weekend work, also a former small business owner. Then I got a big kid job and "we" kept the side business going for a couple years. In full year (2013) 1 we did $90K in revenue at about 15% net Profit (mostly on the side). In year 2 (2014), fully on the side, we did $100K at about 20%. It was a lot of work. So we worked out a business plan to see what it would take to go full time. We figured the revenue we would need, what we would need to pay ourselves and how many additional workers we would need and what it would cost to employ them. That's when we trashed the whole idea. As we drew the ROI curve to meet our income needs, we realized it was doable and, at the pace we were going we would be at optimum size for revenue, profit, costs and risk at about 15 employees in about 4 years. Then we discovered we would be in a regulated class for what we do. Then we discovered there were some things we couldn't affored to do because of regulations. Then the whole idea died. Between the EPA and some wildlife regulations with regards to legal drains and standing water, along with some emissions regulations from spraying PAINT, it was way too risky to skirt the rules. I still keep the company name and insurance and licenses paid up just in case. But adding 30 to 40 hours to a work week for an additional $10K to $30K at risk of breaking some previously unkown "laws" motivates me to forget it and keeping working for someone else.
It's pretty sad. I didn't mind working harder for myself. Hell I took my kids to some of the sites for help now and then. I liked it. But this is the end of the American Dream.
Interestingly, I have a completely different perspective than a lot of the sentiment here on this subject. I've spent several years in a senior executive role in a professional company, and with every passing day I get more convinced that I can do this better than most companies in my industry. It's probably different in other industries, especially in areas like retailing where economies of scale put small players at a disadvantage. But for many industries (including mine), a company actually gets cumbersome, unwieldy, and uncompetitive once it reaches a certain size.
I'm in the process of putting together a business plan right now, and at this point it looks like I could earn more money for myself even while I undersell my current company by about 20% on price.
I did basically the same thing. I could see the writing on the wall for the profession I was in so I branched off in to somthing else. It actually hit me in my sleep during a dream. I googled it in the morning and found out what I was dreaming about was real, and I could do it.
after taxes in 2013 I relooked at how hard I was busting my ass to get ahead...
I realized ya know what.. it’s NOT work it to work that hard and went mini galt.
I am doing just fine, but last year working half as much I paid basically 1/4 as much in tax and my net was not that much different than the year before.
I hope you get it all figured out and get it running again.