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Originally Posted by birdinmigration
So on another thread the subject was brought up about how does anyone begin? How do you get it going?
We all know the stories of 'Bill Gates and Paul Allen in the garage'. What are some others? If you've launched a business, how did you do it? If you had it to do over, what would you avoid doing?
A lot of us didn't go to business school, but we "have a dream", but it all seems so ...difficult. But, Starbuck's had to start with one store, right?
(Let's try to keep it positive, folks, and not devolve into squabbling, okay?)
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There are endless stories of people who started their own business from nothing to go on and be wildly successful.
My favorite is the story of Harlan Sanders of Kentucky Fried Chicken fame.
In case you don't know his story.
AJS Associates History Of Colonel Harland Sanders (http://www.ajskfc.com/colsanders.html - broken link)
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In the early 1950s a new interstate highway was planned to bypass the town of Corbin. Seeing an end to his business, the Colonel auctioned off his operations. After paying his bills, he was reduced to living on his $105 Social Security checks.
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Until he was fatally stricken with leukemia in 1980 at the age of 90, the Colonel traveled 250,000 miles a year visiting the KFC empire he founded.
And it all began with a 65-year-old gentleman who used his $105 Social Security check to start a business.
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What an amazing story!
So what do you do at 65 when you are broke living on social security? Yep, get off your rear end and go out to build a $840 million business!
I've been involved in starting two business and here is what I learned.
You got to know the business really well, thousands of new restaurants start up every month and the great majority of them fail before one year is out.
Takes money to start. When I started I didn't have any cash but I did have excellent credit which I used. Six months before I started I signed up for every last credit card offer I could lay my hands on. Combined credit limit for all cards was over $100k.
For capital I used credit cards eventually running them up to just under $48,000 at the high water mark but every last purchase was a needed purchase for the business. At home we lived on beans and rice with the thermostat turned down to 62 to save every penny we could.
I worked at least 14 hours a day Monday through Friday and at least 8 to 10 hours on Saturday and Sunday. Starting off if you divided what I took in payroll by hours worked I doubt I was getting minimum wage.
My first employee had experience and knew what he was doing when it came to installations and to save money I would be his helper. Hanging pipe, it was not easy physical labor and we would leave before daylight to be on the job as early as possible. We would do as much as we could, skipping breaks and lunch, so I could be back in the office at 2:00 or 3:00 for phone calls (wife answered phone at home) and then I would work on engineering until midnight. Many times it was all I could do to get up at 5:30 but I did it.
I had no choice but to succeed... $48,000 in credit card debt then would be equivalent to $91,667.42 today. Failure was not an option and if it took 100 hour work weeks then that is what I did. For the first two years I had many 100 hour work weeks and for some of those all I got was $500.
By hard work, and knowing the business I was in, in two years I had all the credit cards paid off and I was on a regular weekly payroll for $1,000/week two years after starting. By five years I was earning twice that and life was very good to me and my family.
I think the biggest determinate in success is knowing every facet of the business. If it is a restaurant you want to open you should have worked every job in a restaurant from dish washer to manager always striving to do the best job you could.
With knowing the business there has to be the acceptance and willingness in knowing you will never have normal hours. You will always work more than anyone else. If you own your own business 60 hours is a short week. Accept this.
While money is mostly good it might not be so good all the time. Prepare a personal budget to handle this.
A business can easily consume money at twice the rate it can make it. There were years I would work very hard and it was very gratifying to see $100,000 in the checking account after all the bills were paid but you need to recognize one silly mistake and all that money can disappear in a few short months.
In my case I thought money was great but if I had made half as much as my employees (I eventually had 24 employees) thought I made I would have retired 15 years ago.
If you start with a partner be careful. It is easier to get out of a bad marriage than a sour partnership.
That all said America is a great country, you can still be successful but to do that you have to work harder than anyone else. It ain't easy or everyone would do it.
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