A New Business In Days...Or Months?

[Rich Grads]

How long does it take to set up a business? In the modern information world, just a few days and a few hundred bucks. In fact, you can have a business up and running in a few hours if you'd simply decide to do it.

Or, you can choose to take 4 - 15 months and $200 grand or more.

So what will it be?

A few hundred bucks, a huge desire to win, and the smart application of technology, launching it part-time while you keep your full time job...a biz that the Wall Street Journal and Business Week and Forbes and Investor's Business Daily have raved about?

Or $200 grand, 4-15 months, and, yes, you have to quit your job to get it off the ground?

Let's take a look in more detail...

When many people think about starting a business, they think about a restaurant, coffee shop, or some retail location, because those are the businesses we're most familiar with. And in my other career as a commercial real estate consultant, these are the types of businesses that people who call me are thinking about opening!

So let's say you want to open a retail business. In a typical city-center location, you're looking at $3,000 per month in rent as a bare-bones location. More desirable and larger locations can run $10,000 or more per month. Smile when you sign that five-year contract!

Starting a restaurant? Well, you'll have to see if your location is zoned for that. And if there's enough available parking. If there's not, you might need to tack on another grand or two or three per month, depending on your city's code. And the fire Marshall will have to inspect things to make sure you're good. And you'll have to hire a building inspector, too.

Alright! So now you're at least $300 grand in the hole between the lease and fees. Time to......spend more money!

Let's begin by building out your place.

You want to make it look good, so you put in the best furniture and fixtures you can find. In our bare-bones, $3000/mo tiny location, you can expect that to run a hundred grand, if you're lucky. (Larger locations - just increase the investment accordingly).

Restaurants can expect another $20,000 - minimum - on ovens, freezers, etc. But it's got to be wired for that, with the correct ventilation systems and air ducts...another $6,000? $20,000? Who knows? Who cares? What's another 5 or 12 or 40 grand at this point?

All of this time, energy and expense so that you can...

-->Wake up every day at 7AM to open the joint, and go to bed at 11PM after you close it down!

-->Hire employees who hate you, curse you, and steal from you, only to quit after three months so that you can hire other people who hate you, curse you, and steal from you.

-->Take a vacation 6 years from now "when it's running on it's own." (Yeah, right).

OK, so maybe it isn't all that bad.

Then again, go take a look at your happy neighborhood restaurant or retail store owner. Ask them what their life is like. If they really enjoy owning their business...or if they're secretly trying to sell it. (It's been said that 50% of all businesses are for sale at any given moment. Wonder why that is? Don't take my word for it...go ask a business broker. This is what they're telling me.)

Should we revisit option number 1? The biz with a few hundred dollars of outlay to launch it, and a few dollars a month to maintain it?

The biz that the Wall Street Journal and Business Week and Forbes and Investor's Business Daily have raved about? Hmm...

I'm ready to fill you in on the details when you are.

To Your Success!

[entrepreneur513]

good post man.