/biz/ - Business & Finance

i would say its mostly their fault, having worked for many many small businesses of many types. lockdowns were a different story. but yeah, generally small business owners buy their own hype, rest on their laurels, or generally just don’t give a fuck. then one day they wake up and their business is in the red for 3 years. the whole idea that your community will take care of you is mostly delusion. you have to be competitive or someone is going to fuck you.

>>49426039

No. Small businesses are like when you dig a hole in the ground and leave it visible. You just KNOW more than one retard is going to fall in it. I feel no pity for retards, and 99% of the time even the retards know their effort is futile from the start, but they decide to delude themselves into thinking "its possible" and become high on hopium. Its natural selection at its finest.

>>49426087
yeah i’ve met some seriously delusional ass m-muh small business type people. if you work for 10+ small businesses, especially in service, you’ll realize how few of them are even in profit kek. all just a huge ego larp for the owner many times

I only feel bad about those who, after pursuing good ideas and doing everything right, still don't make it or are relegated to irrelevancy, becoming grease in the machine.

>>49426110
this isnt how doing good ideas right works anon, doing a good idea right = success. if you fail it was good idea wrong, bad idea wrong, bad idea right. you never ever fail with good idea right. you only thought your bad idea or bad execution was something other than what it was.

>>49426039
>opening a no-name coffee shop in a low traffic location
He was asking for failure.

>>49426039
I don’t like it when places I like shut down. But I don’t feel sorry for them. They open the business knowing they’re unlikely to survive a year, which I respect.
What I don’t respect is when they comprise their menu or cut staff and hours of operation while circling the drain.
One of my favorite places fired their head chef, removed all their special menu items and thought they could coast on the reputation they had previously established, with overpriced, mediocre burgers and fries.
Now they’re playing possum with limited hours, like the pandemic is to blame.

>>49426192
>opening a coffee shop

if you dont roast coffee and sell it in addition, ie becoming a retail outlet for products you make, you will forever barely ever make any profit, if any. seriously. coffee shop margins are ass especially if you want to keep that rinky dink feel.

>>49426039
I started to charge people to kick people asses
If you hate someone then give me 200 bucks and i will jump ANYONE and slap their shit hard.
I have been living like this for the past 2 years, bussiness is fucking good lately

>>49426222
OP here.

I think it was a franchise. I counted probably only a handful of people enter that shop ever. I doubt he made anywhere close to what he paid for the franchise fee.

>>49426039
>location location location
Restaurants don't count as businesses.
They are just helping people consume.
You have to add value somewhere.
How do most small restaurants add value?
Basically they don't.

The problem most small businesses have is these days is that they copy the model of big businesses.
They will LITERALLY try to compete on the same playing field with WalMart or PizzaHut and do nothing different.
I mean...

Trust is about 1% of people are capable of running a business with revenues over $200,000.
.5% of people at $500,000.
And barely anyone at all can run a business with $1,000,000 in revenue. Like 1/10,000.
Everyone else is a wagie at heart and mind.

>>49426324
this, you can’t casually run a successful highly profitable business

No. I'm a psychopath so I only care about myself

>>49426324
>How do most small restaurants add value?
If I pay $4 for a cup of coffee, then by definition I value that coffee as being worth more than $4 and they value it as being worth less. Value is created equal to the difference between my assessment of the coffee's worth and theirs.

>>49426039
I used to until I actually had to deal with them professionally.

>>49426039
>It was really nice but it was pretty out of the way.
I saw the same thing happen a few years ago, ofc they went out of business. no one wants to wait at a 4 way light to get to the place.

>>49426356
brainlet response.
Add value OVER alternatives and at scale.
Of course they can add a few pennies of value occasionally. Does that keep the doors open?
Is that society wide?
Or did they detract value on the whole because they went out of business?

The context is running a business here lad.
Try to keep up.
You slob a knob each week adding value to one person. Is that enough? Or are your slobs overpriced, boring and rough on the whole?

Making a pizza or coffee for someone adds VERY LITTLE value. It's competing in an automated world with your hands. It's a horrible business strategy.
The value has to be in the experience if that's your plan.
How does sitting in a shithole add to that? How does sitting on the side of a mountain with a view add to that.
It's highly multifaceted.

>>49426124
There are legitimately things that can fuck over a good company, like bigger players lobbying to have them regulated to death. Not saying this is the typical case, but it does happen.

>>49426475
Part of determining if it's a good idea is discovering and addressing these vulnerabilities ahead of time.
This is why people fail.

>>49426356
They likely consumed more than $4 worth of resources to make that cup of coffee, meaning they're destroying value.

>>49426039

small businesses are usually a front for something else

drugs, bored housewife who talked her husband into bankrolling her "dream", friends just looking to hang out and have a good time (bar), everybody just looking to get out of a 9 - 5 and wanting to be the boss without any understanding of business, etc.

>>49426475

we’re talking about coffee shops nigger, not production

>>49426039
Yeah. There was Middle Eastern/American fusion place nearby that gave a "demo" at my gym one tIme. Really good stuff. I promised myself I'd get a full meal there one day, but years passed and it finally closed. I guess it was always empty + pandemic. Replaced by some shitty whitebread egg place.

I hope it's only temporary and that they reopen at a different location somewhere down the line.

>>49426562
>I hope they re open so I can continue to not go
I'm sure they are ecstatic about your support anon.

>>49426504
What business plan is going to work around the megacorp asking his favorite politician to make a law saying "you need a loicense to do that"?

>>49426626
It's called not investing a bunch of money and capital into an industry you are likely to get fucked by going in to.
The plan would be to avoid those situations in the first place.

This is actually exactly how big corps fuck over good ideas and steal them. They get a clueless fucker to get WAY TO FAR down the road and WAY TO INVESTED and then they pull the rug and pile up 3x the costs that the guys expected to occur.
This ruins him. They buy him out and do it themselves.

Greed and hubris usually is the problem. People love to scale as fast as possible when that is actually the worst strategy possible for a small business.
Small business needs to scale very slowly and in a very controlled fashion.
It's one in a million that scale quickly and aren't destroyed because of it.
The ones that aren't destroyed get a lucky buyout.
Most are destroyed.

A strong small business has half a year revenue in cash at all times.
>inb4 that's crazy
Good luck being out of business.

>>49426532
>open coffee shop
>doing really well, get consistent revenue, profit
>doing everything legally
>Starbucks down the road doesn't like that you're drawing from their customers
>Starbucks makes a small investment into a local politician
>local politician suddenly decides he needs to protect the public from "potentially harmful" drinks
>creates law that anyone serving coffee needs a license to operate to prove they are safe
>license is prohibitively expensive and/or time consuming to get
>small shop closes, Starbucks gets their customers back

>>49426684
Good summary

>>49426039
Yeah, there used to be a kebab stand right at the subway exit, a Vietnamese immigrant owned it. He was an incredibly sweet person, had decent prices, the quality was great, all around very fine kebab place, especially for a dinky stand about 3 metres.
Then Covid started and I'd see him more and more often standing outside smoking looking dejected, as customers had stopped coming in and he didn't have money to start a delivery line.
After about a month he had a massive discount on everything, saying that he couldn't keep afloat anymore, and the day after I saw the stand being demolished by construction workers with sledgehammers. Dunno where the guy is now.
I liked chatting him up while eating and would stop by frequently just to hang with him, in fact many people did. I still miss the dude.
/sobstory

>>49426778
*3 metres squared

I feel bad for the business that got BTFOed in the last 2 years from all the lock down bullshit. It wasn't really their fault for it.

a well run business with a good product and solid fundamentals can still fail because you're still reliant entirely on luck. you have to be lucky and get enough exposure to get customers. you have to be lucky that whatever it is you are providing doesn't get fucked by supply issues or price spikes or one bad review from a grumpy customer. you have to get lucky that you hired good people and not closet sociopaths who will bleed you dry. there's a ton of shit outside your control and even if you do everything right, you can still completely fail.

big multibillion dollar corporations branch off and start new products/services all the time, and most of those still fail. if the best talent in the world can't reliable get shit together that people want to spend money on, the odds of some bumfuck trying to start a grilled cheese sandwich food truck being successful are just that much smaller.

>>49426694
Government working with big business...couldn't be. That's never been done, we don't even have a word for it!

>>49426694
It's even simpler than that
>convince all the impressionable teenage girls in the town that Starbucks is a luxury brand
>despite their coffee, atmosphere and service being objectively better, having a cup from Mom'n'Pops is now "for the poors"

>>49426778
The thin-margin shops were absolutely gutted by the pandemic. Anyone who lost their livelihood should build a guillotine in minecraft.

>>49426039
not really but a small somewhat sucessful business who only somewhat competed with a dukin donuts / 7/11 next door to it was bought out (i mean the land was bought by the 7/11) and then the new owner (as the businesses land lord) told them the lease would not be renewed
i felt bad for them.

>>49426849
>f the best talent in the world can't reliable get shit together
That's the thing though.
They don't have the best talent in the world.
They have a large group of midwit order followers under their direction, but that's like herding cats.
Don't give them too much credit.

>>49426039
That's kinda me right now. I wagecucked in retail for 2 years, saved up every penny and started a mobile detailing business where I come to people's homes to clean their vehicles. Spent $25000 on a company van with advertising, steam cleaner, pressure washer, polisher, a bunch of equipment and have been trying to advertise on facebook groups, in car clubs, etc but it's really, really slow.

I only made like $400 last week.

>>49426963
part of the detailing is experience is taking your car somewhere else that you trust, and having it returned fresh and pampered. you’d be better off taking your services directly to people who have small fleets of cars for one reason or another, because its less convenient for them to get all their cars cleaned. like any company that has like 3-5 branded vehicles. or try and reach out to small tart ups and offer them a deal or something so they can do it as a reward for employees.

>>49426963
if you cant make it with one bro, you need to change your model fast. if its slow stop doing that shit and switch lanes. economy is in the shit, its a luxury. try to think of people who want it as a practicality where they need their cars cleaned, and you coming to them make its easier for them. try flash detailing at uber pick up hang out areas or something. dont mope about it being slow nigger you have everything you need to make it more successful

>>49426963
>Spent $25000 on a company van
lmao
Dude. I don't want to lay into you. But you are the epitome of a retard trying to start a business.
You should have been making that $400 (and COULD HAVE) out of a station wagon that barely runs.
You should have been making money WELL AHEAD of any sort of significant investment.

I have a friend about seven years into doing a similar operation with power washing.
He did it out of his personal truck for three years before getting a van specifically for it.
He now has five employees and three vans.

YOU HAVE TO MAKE MONEY FIRST.
FIRST.
FIRST MAKE MONEY.
(this is for other anons)
It is a test phase. If you can't make money simply hustling, then a truck or van will get you nowhere.

This guy is a full course on what not to do.
Now, godspeed anon, I hope it gets better.
Sell the van.

>>49426192
His biggest mistakes were hiring too much staff and not advertising

Are most small businesses just restaurants and other service industry stuff? That's what it appears to be, and I find it strange that so many people choose such a highly competitive, slim margin sector for their first business.

>>49426593
I'll go this time. What I meant was I dunno if they were failing before the pandemic or not. Might just be a bump in the road, I've seen other family restaurants bounce back. Usually they offer catering for a while.

>>49427120
>many people choose such a highly competitive, slim margin sector for their first business.
Because the knowledge barrier is relatively low. You can't exactly make a lot of things with not a lot of knowledge.

I feel bad for them. It shouldn’t be this way. It used to be easier to run a small business. Self employment was much easier 100 years ago. Jewish people destroyed the dream of not being a slave to your boss. I will never shit on someone for trying to break out of wage slavery

>>49426039
There was this Japanese restaurant. The only legitimate jap restaurant in town run by a japanese man and his wife. The restaurant was really fucking good and they worked super hard on it, and they actually started having some success when the holocoughs wiped then out. Legit feel bad for them.

>>49427120
>>49427151
And because it's easy.
A fat slob moron can "start" a restaurant.
Same guy could do manual labor, but I mean, come on right?

But seriously. I know guys doing lawns and landscaping pulling $80k a year.
Barely anyone will do that though.
Too much work.
Making a sammy sounds better and makes you feel good about being a fat slob.

>>49426963
Mitebhelpful: Instead of going to people's homes, go to a upper middle class mall/town center nearby. Detail cars in the part of the parking lot that's visible from most of the place but that's too far away for people to park except on busy days. Offer it as a service while they're shopping. I've seen guys doing that where I live and it seems to function almost as built-in advertising. If you're really desperate, find some people with nice cars and offer them a full service detail for free in that parking lot. People will SEE you being trusted to work on some swanky sports or luxury car and think, "Okay, this guy knows what he's doing, I might have to call him." Then when you let them know you do house calls, that's like a value-add.

>>49426963
cold call a place that does land surveying, their trucks are always disgusting.

>>49426039
I want to because the idea of a community sort of regulating and taking care of itself is nice and all, but like with everything else reality doesn’t give a shit about your feelings. So many small businesses are ran by absolute retards to where you sometimes wonder how in the hell did they even get the capital to start it. That or they only survive by nickel and diming everyone around them. That being said it takes some serious balls to start something like that in todays climate, so I can at the very least respect the hustle, especially if they’re going against garbage chains like Starfucks. The memedemic was also a total kick to the jaw even for those that were doing well beforehand.
>>49427120
Think of it like college degrees. Everyone and their grandma knows by now most of them are completely fucking worthless, yet all of the popular majors chosen are the definition of meme degrees. Just as how so many small businesses seem to be some sort of retail or restaurant service thing going on, so to are those degrees, because the barrier of entry is relatively low. Psychology does not exactly require a whole lot going on upstairs compared to even basic STEM degrees, and any dumbass with enough money to burn can rent out a space to start a store or restaurant in. Even if the profits are constantly razor thin and will get obliterated by the slightest deviation of the norm, since its so easy to start up with a bit of a romantic flair to it, many will try and be the exception. Hell even like this anon said >>49427234 a basic bitch landscaping gig would be far more safe and probably actually profitable in the long run, but because of the physical work involved not many want to do it.

>>49426039
There was a fried chicken business that opened up in a pretty good location in the country that I grew up in that didn't have any competition. Had a great brand, name, looked much much more polished than arab copy+paste KFC clone. Really busy immediately and 2 weeks into opening a huge Avian Flu dominated the news cycle (must have been 2006-2007ish time) and every retard in my country stopped eating chicken for months even though cooking meat properly.

Shop became a ghost town and 3 months later closed.

>>49426070
>>49426107
>>49426217
>>49426324
>>49426439
Mostly correct, small business owner myself and you get to meet lots of other small biz owners. The successful ones are offering something very unique or done well, do a lot themselves and keep a tight ship and have a decent lifestyle business. They understand their customer base and fill their needs very well. The shitty ones have incompetent owners that blame anyone but themselves on their shortcomings, customers, suppliers, staff, etc.

Above that level, it's a ruthless competition against people with way better resources or knowledge/connections, a government that is trying to fleece you and fuck you every step of the way, banks that won't touch you while your competitors are VC backed faceless money pits that never need to turn a profit. Not even going into the internal headaches of expanding.

Odds are garbage, but beats waging.

>>49426039
>no let's go to Starbucks
>they have a drive thru

Downtown Toronto is like half empty, a large amount of small businesses basically closed over the pandemic lockdowns. Only now they are slowly being replaced by chains and corporations.

>>49428285
>>49427258
>>49427234
Fellow smallbusinessniggers,

I recently became profitable, and regained my initial capital. Sitting in the green and overhead is low, only problem is turnover is $1k a month at best. I obviously don't have a brick and mortar store, but I am supplying to two of them + selling via market stalls. Now that I am making the money, wat do. Accumulate and wait for a good time to reinvest? (Equip. purchase, Advertising, etc) Or should I double down and try and increase my turnover?

>>49428524
yeah, you really need to focus on increasing your turnover and make the pie larger vs bigger slice of a very small pie. But you also need to make sure that the business will stay profitable as it get's bigger.

Good for you becoming profitable, but ultimately growth should be the goal when you are so small, just be slow and sensible and don't lose track of the things that make your business work. If it is a IRL business, the I wouldn't waste too much on advertising as your service/product should be good enough to create repeat business and organic growth. Focus on what investment is going to increase your turnover the most and keep grinding/re-investing.

I'm at £40k/mo. turnover and I'm still focusing on getting that number up rather than trying to be profitable. The road is:
>try things until you find your niche that the market wants and that you can do profitably
>everything goes back to the business, you make zero until the business is a certain size
>eventually paying a salary out of the business will have minimal impact on the resources it needs to grow (<5% turnover as salary)
>you can now grow the business and grow your compensation at the same time
You need to support the business until the business can support you, capisc? Also read e-myth, millionaire fastlane and profit first

>>49426963
Lmao

>>49426039
It’s their fault, usually for not paying attention to the market and instead being spurred on by delusion. It certainly does teach you a lot though.

>>49426124
Regulation can destroy any sound business.
How many were functional and turning profit before lockdowns?

>>49428487
Literal ghost town and no one can afford to fill those. Gonna be about 200 dispensaries at yonge and king stripn soon cause that's all that will be profitable

>>49426039
>Every business has a dream behind it, and every failed business had some dream fail

AHH yes my dream is to sell coffee to wagies in a commercial complex

Nice guy in town opened a really cool shop that sold quality old fashioned toys, knick knacks, puzzles, and kites. Really nice quality stuff you'd never find in Walmart. Well, the local yokals bitched and moaned about how expensive it was and how they could go to Walmart or target and buy their little shit the latest Fortnite toy for $20 so why would they buy a hand crafted robot that was lovingly created by a craftsman, even though the town has a relatively high income and 99% of the families could easily afford it and they constantly bitch and moan about MUH BIG BOX STORES. Also, the main thing he told - kites and hand held gliders- we're too expensive for these hill billy fucks, so of course it failed, even though the quality was far superior to any mass produced Chinese made shit. Shop closed after a year and last I heard he's working at a grocery store.

>>49428822
Those business should’ve adapted. It sucks but that’s how it goes. A little village has itself to blame if they get wiped out by a kingdom

>>49426070
Yeah, I saw that happen with a coffee shop in town. Previous owner failed after about 2 years because she insisted she couldn't serve you the coffee. She'd prepare it and then just sit in the back while you made it, then she'd ring you up, like at a gas station. It was good quality coffee though, so there was some draw to it. Ultimately it failed, but another woman bought it and she had way better customer service and actually made the coffee for you. It's been running for years now and is incredibly popular.

Slow growth = long lasting. Ive only ever run one small business, still operating after 6 years, luxury contractor niche. Immediately had contracts way bigger than I could chew. Hired 9 people, kept them on for a year then realized the bigger I get the less I was making (workers CAN mean diminishing returns). Used those contracts to move the company into a classier sector and fired all but 2 guys, killing it now.

>>49426259
Lmao

>>49426963
Do you have a local airport with rentals that go through alot of cars fast?

>>49426324
I blame public schooling. A lot more whites had business mindsets 100 years ago

>>49426626
Looking at past trends and keeping up with legislation. They have websites showing what new bills are made everyday.

>>49429004
>Just adapt to Marxist ever changing agenda designed to destroy capital/non corporate businesses.
I think you underestimate how quickly they can circle back and push forward agendas. Im Talking about businesses with no competition failing because the demograph is leftist that eat up fear culture.

>>49426039
Opening one of these shops is an incredibly stupid idea. Small main-street businesses are the worst type of business you can open.

I don't feel bad for them, I just think they're retarded for not doing something else. As for the people who have been doing this since the 80s... well they should have sold their business to some other idiot a long time ago.

>>49426324

Nobody out pizzas the hut.

I have been running a business for 8yrs and I see these sort of stories all the time.

Most people don't actually want to own a business, they just want to own their own job.
My sister in law's friend bought a coffee shop... I was.like why? All you're getting is some shop fitting and a coffee machine. She spent 80k buying it with a divorce settlement then one year into it she decides to renovate and spends 40k a year later she sells the business for 70k. Made no sense.

We had a new pizza shop open in the area, we already have 4 or 5 already. I went in and asked the owner about it, I will always give a new business a crack. The owner had always wanted to have a pizza shop. I asked him what his plan was to differentiate himself from the other ships in the area and he just stared at me blankly. It legit had never crossed his mind why someone should go into his shop over someone else's.... He just wanted a pizza shop.

I take no delight in it, I think it's sad.
Before I opened my business I did a lot of reading. I bought the premises and lease it to my company, this is one of the central planks to survivng and thriving owning a business .

>>49426259
good job champ. you make daddy proud.

>>49428941
Now that's sad. But specialty products like that have a very narrow market nowadays. He should've sold online.

>>49429948
Tell us about your business, anon

>>49426039
Yeah, especially when some chain or the past two years of coughs and inflation fucks them over. Small arts and crafts place near me that was open for as long as I've been alive just closed shop last week. Combination of forced cough closures and Amazon killed them, they limped along until the little old lady finally decided she didn't want to struggle through the coming recession as well. Sad.

>>49429948
i watch kitchen nightmares. how did you take the plunge into starting your own business? i am too scared to leave the stability of a 9-5. i just want to reach my life goals of a house and family i can support so i cant convince myself to take any risks

>>49430359
Not him but I'm in the process of planning my business. It's mostly with how confident you are with your product.

Richard Branson said it, a good business is bron out of frustration. Find a need then make a product you are confident in will fill that need. You'll know when you're actually excited to launch it because you believe the market will be receptive.

It's just another facet of america being a fucking scam.

>>49430359
I'll chime in here. I learned a very niche trade right out of high-school and worked part time during university. It paid well enough I got out of my useless program and worked full time. Basically after 3 years of making the owners money I got fed up, took what money I had saved and started saving the names of every person I met, every product we used etc.

I leased a clean work truck, bought tools and incorporated a company. I invested in a good website, google ads and marketing, but couldn't use any of my contacts from the previous job due to a non compete. After one year I started calling those old contacts, explained I'm on my own and slowly got busier and busier.

The main thing about being a business owner is that you can't shut off unless you schedule time to not be attached to your work, this took a long time to learn. If you are not on top of your shit it will pile up and ruin you. Your business is like a baby plant, you nurture it for a few years then you can start scheduling a vacation here or there, ignoring emails until a set time you decide on etc. You also have to accept if you are already living week to week, you shouldn't start a business, you need a nest egg to hold you over for the rainy days or a repair, tool purchase etc, NOBODY is holding your hand. You can't apply for unemployment, you can't just find another job to hold you over, you have to save for your own retirement etc.

Your skills also have to be very wide ranging, I was great at my job, but horrible with people, I hired a sales guy in year 2 and he went around pricing jobs for me because I wasn't getting them alone. After that I had enough of a reputation and practice with clients, I fired them. You must know your own strengths and weaknesses. Hire an accountant, don't do that shit yourself.

If all of the above sounds doable, it is very rewarding if you are a responsible, self directed/ self motivated person.

>>49430245

I import, sell, service and install high value capital machinery to three niche industries.

Started the business with 30k in working capital, recouped it in three months and took 60k in salary the first year.
Now a medium sized business with an 8 figure turnover and an EBITDA just crossing into 7 figures not including my wages etc. I take about 200k in salary and funnel the rest into a holding company.
There's so many great books on business for those that want to make a go of it.

Most people don't put the effort into learning the working on their business part, or convince themselves that meaningless online busywork is helpful because it's in their comfort zone.

>>49426439
Sentient people dont belong here. This place is 99% bots and paid shills.

>>49426039
>Have you guys ever felt bad for a failed business, esp. small ones?
Sorry anon but this board is exclusively populated by objectivist billionaires with 1m+ btc wallets

>>49426963
maybe make a youtube channel like this one
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWJRsm9JAjo
doesnt have to be the same maybe just do ASMR of you cleaning? if you can build an online following then you can market products to them through an online store ect. If you do a good job you will get repeat customers and word of mouth people wanting you no doubt

>>49430712
whats your favourite book on the business anon?

>>49426039
>Every business has a dream behind it, and every failed business had some dream fail.
Running a business on a "dream" is like trading on emotion. People who do so always lose.

>>49426124
Anon for more than two years every government in the developed world has been in lockstep going out of its way to choke every single small business at the behest of oligarchs, you're delusional if you actually believe that

>>49426963
Hey, a good friend of mine does this business and started really really small but is making it now. The trick that seemed to work for them was moving up market to a more luxury sector. I also service luxury homes, 0.01% level income people. Some thoughts...

i. My clients do not like busy decal trucks, they want nobody to know their business, go for a magnet that you can remove instead of some full wrapped annoying truck
ii. Go to car shows and car meets to advertise
iii. Supplement your income with selling maintenance products relabeled to your brand.Give them away at car shows etc.
iv. Website designed for boomers, always, nothing flashy, literally make it for old people, this transition helped my business quite a bit, and my clients always comment how easy my site was to use.
v. Try to expand to other car related things, chip repairs, scratch removal etc. using google keyword searches should be a good tool to learn what people actually want in this field.
vi. If it's simply oversaturated, and too much competition, it may not be possible to succeed, simple as.

>>49426039
It is what it is. That s why if I'd start a business, it would be 1. scalable 2. low amounts of variability 3. low overhead cost
in other words, amazon fba wholesaling (not private labeling)

>>49426963
advertise somewhere people who are looking to sell their car will look. The only time i or anyone I know details their car is right before they flog it.

>>49430481

Correct. If you aren't excited about your offerings then why should your customers be?

>Born out of frustration

Absolutely. Many successful businesses come about because the owner got pissed at the shitty offerings in the market. I've talked to a ton of them, and that frustration was a common thread.

https://youtu.be/pk1EUpQQx24

This one is probably my favorite example from a person I've actually met. 42 seconds he explains his frustration point with the existing offerings with two simple words "I clean". It makes the shop a place that people will bring their kids to, unlocking a significant demographic over your competitors.

>>49426039
Yeah it sucks, especially if it's a business that existed for a while.

>>49430359

Sure...

I had the unique opportunity of my previous employer going bankrupt so I pivoted off that and decided it was time to try my hand at having my own business.

I have coached a couple of friends through their startup phases and I have some pretty basic rules I follow.

1. Build a war chest, dont start your business to solve a money problem, it won't work and customers can smell desperation. I owned my house outright and had 300k in the bank when I started my business.

2. Don't do it full time if you don't have to right away, if you can take a second job or add a non core service or product to your business that lets you get cash flow positive sooner, do it.

3. There's nothing wrong with a pivot or two, but have a clear plan of what success or failure looks like and when you will chuck it in if it doesn't work. Don't chase losses or let your ego send you bankrupt.

4. Learn everything you can before you start a business while being paid, take a job in a small business,.understand the processes, the software the overhead etc.

5. The only way to succeed to big dollars in business is to not trade time for money. Find a product or service where the profits can be many times greater than the rate you would charge for your time to do that amount of work. Eg. I value my time at $200 per hour so the profit I'm putting my time into needs to be greater than ten times that.

6. Learn to sell, most people who've never done it think they're naturals and they're not, because nobody is. This is a great skill to develop while someone else is paying you.

Good luck!

>>49430481
Great ideas don't a business make.
It's like people who start businesses cleaning rubbish bins. I don't want my bin to smell but I ain't paying $60 to have you hose it out in my driveway.
A great business idea is one that you would pay to have yourself at a rate that would represent a good income when scaled.

>>49426039
business is similar to trading, a lot of people fail

>>49430712
On owning a small business, though it's older e-myth master by Michael Gerber is untouched.

In terms of managing a business: Traction is an amazing book.

But there are plenty of niche books on everything from strategy to marketing.
Take some time to get your business structure right before you start.

>>49426694
Completely irrelevant to the thread as most don’t make it to that point

>>49431067

There are very few victims of circumstances though . Most businesses fail as a result of no business plan or one that's nonsense.

I think most business plans are crap and pure wank, but the basics have to be there.

My unique offering is X
It will cost me Y to produce the product or service.
I will identify my target market as A
I will reach them by doing B
My business will be viable when turnover hits C
If I don't reach that by D I'm closing the business.

Most companies either don't have this or make up the answers and fudge the numbers to convince themselves it will be achievable.

>>49430694
>After that I had enough of a reputation and practice with clients, I fired them.

That sounds horrible.

>>49426919
Crazy that that is legal, it’s a cruel world. I wonder if they yelled and screamed at the landlord.

>>49426963
Did you at least have a lot friends and people in your town that knew you and could spread the word? Why would you spend that much on new shit? Should’ve just bought stuff off of Craigslist and then after getting your clients proceed to upgrade.

>>49430694
based effortpost
thanks for the motivation fren

>>49431416
Traditionally yes, but my clients quickly narrowed to billionaires who didn't want to meet some sales guy, and instead wanted to meet with me personally. Those clients became my advertisers and now I'm at a point I have to turn down work, it was a good decision for MY business. Important to note I work 1:1 in the homes of mobsters, bank CEOS, hedge fund guys etc. very much a word of mouth reputation business and not a candidate for expansion. No regrets on moving upstream from upper middle class high volume, lower price jobs where a sales guy was required.

>>49426039
>Have you guys ever felt bad
I feel bad every day all of the time

>>49431606
He means you're a horrible person for canning your employee after you got what you needed.

>>49431691
They were extremely well compensated, given ample notice, and assisted in their own venture. They are doing well.

There is a used book shop in my town, the only one of its kind. There is a Waterstones but no used outlet other than this one. It is on a main road but it is a main road for cars and not really foot traffic unless you are going to the train station. My favourite bar is on this road and it is great to wait for a train with a beer there. And there are take away shops so everyone is either walking through to leave the town and has done shopping or whatever in the actual centre or they are on their way to some random place in town or they are in the car. Then there is the size. It is tiny and dingy and used to be a failed model railway place that did okay before the main road came through and it was a pedestrian street.

CONT

>>49432144
The owner didn't renovate it and it is depressing and poorly laid out. It doesn't even have shelving in the centre which should be back to back cases. It is literally 3 book cases on one side and three on the other wall. Then a colossal counter and back area that is not needed. I could triple the space usage in there. The third problem is inventory. The lady who runs it is a sweet person but is a former academic who takes a lot of academic or high brow stuff but has to have her arm twisted to buy any pop lit off of you. She won't take Harry Potter but will take obscure history books.

CONT

>>49432144
My bookstore is so pozzed and gay it’s unreal it’s like only leftists own bookstores

>>49432200
A mistake many newbies make is they run a shop as if it were the hobby, like a cafe that don't do decaf because coffee snob owner thinks it is a sin for example. It ain't about you, it's for the customer. This place is empty all the time or just closed at odd hours. I literally cannot get in to get anything if I wanted to. I chatted with her and she says she has been making enough to stay open but that was over a year ago and I haven't seen it open much after that.

>>49426259
sleepy joe, now post wallet

>>49432297
I hate them too lad. I want a real based bookstore near me. If I had fuck you money I would buy a place and sell all the normal stuff and then Lots of conspiracy stuff and right wing philosophy etc.

>>49426039
90% of businesses fail
The failure rate is probably even higher for crypto businesses, because network effect has an even greater impact because there's no geographical restrictions
My platform went from hundreds of millions TVL to 0 in less than a year. Although I made several million dollars, having nothing I do be able to stop its decline and death was depressing as fuck. Sometimes I wish that I had dumped all my dev tokens at the top (which would have doubled the amount of money I made) instead of trying to save my project, because I got bombarded with nonstop negativity and hatred after the project began going downhill.

>>49432611
>Although I made several million dollars
Go cry somewhere else

>>49426383
accounting? I've noticed those businesses do some really stupid things, at some point you're likely to not fail by simply not being a retard

>>49428487
>>49428843
its even worse underground.
There's this cool underground super mall and its all closed up.
toronto was always a multiracial zoo i enjoyed visiting but now its dead and empty (on weekends at least)

>>49432776
I'm not expecting any sympathy from people here
I made out like a bandit when most small businesses end up money, so by all means many people would consider my platform a success
I've been telling myself "at least I made lots of money" for the last several months as a way to cope, but that doesn't make me any less depressed because I genuinely wanted my platform to succeed

>>49429948
what reading do you recommend?

t. sick of waging

>>49429948
Reading stuff like this makes me think I should open a business. How hard could it possibly be to steal customers from these absolute morons?

>>49426039
There used to be a small manga shop near my house. The guy was located near to my high school as well so every day after school, there were always a few students reading something.
However, teenagers are bad customers and his business didn't last more than a few years.
The rise in real estate prices surely did not help.

>>49433146
Well you have enough capital to start over, stop whining and humble bragging on a Bulgarian dogspinning forum fee fees if made MILIONS, a.k.a. stop being a little bitch

>>49433088
I remember when queen street was all independent shops. You could go downtown for the day, walk queen, smoke a joint and go in and out of thrift shops or visit army surplus, run to a movie at night or get a bite, see rat man en route and it felt like a real cultural experience. Then it disappeared, we had Kensington for a couple of years before it became a shithole, fuck do I miss the Kenny vs Spenny era Toronto. Its all big box stores now.

>>49426039
Some family furniture store from 1919 down the street from me just put up closing signs this week. It is sad, but I guess 103 years was a decent run.

>>49433358
Even businesses fortunate enough to outlive their creator generally die after it gets passed to the heirs.

I have depression and other peoples mediocrity trigger it so If i see a failing business ill be empathetic and sad all day.

Im sure im not the only one who it puts in a bad mood, and that bad mood probably effective my shopping habits so its all like a big cycle

>>49427120
bro this hasto be like 90% of foreign business. like i expect family owned businesses where their food industry isnt regulated

>>49426070
Yep. They are landmines and many don't have the emotional durability to build a business.

If you are a business owner, it eventually needs to expand and run itself. Small business that stay small run on passion, and how many artists are there that tink the same way while also succeeding.

opening a brick and mortar business during a thinly veiled totalitarian takeover and cold war by the elite on the working class is a terrible idea. anyone still trying or god forbid starting a new business deserves whatever comes to them.

>>49428524
What is your market?

Work as much as you can. Invest your profits into whatever property, tools or equipment make up the means of production for your offering. This will allow you to specialise further and offer more goods or services to the market.

This can also be done with debt.

>>49428941
ah, needed to open an online store then. look i need to buy clothes made from real cotton but the clothes they sell are made from polyester, i'm not going to be like "why don't I just buy the polyester clothes if it's cheaper?"

>>49434448
You're probably not going to be the next mcdonalds or starbucks, but I wouldn't just discount an absolutely gigantic market and business sector because you swallowed too many blackpills. If you have a physical product, you need physical infrastructure and that isn't going to change anytime soon.

Also some of the anons here might want to check out the /entg/ discord j392jbxU