[MillionDollarDreams]

Hello everyone, I'm new to this site. I am a twenty one year old automotive technician who is rather new to the field. I know I can never achieve my goals of being extremely wealthy without branching out from my proffesion. I would love to start my own business, but my problem is that I dont know exactly what I should do... I need some help from some of the great entrpreneur's on this site to guide me in the right direction.. I would like to know..

1. Where to get started
2. What Businesses are easy for an entry level guy
3. What works and What doesn't
4. Who do I need to talk to find more information
5. How much start up money is reccomended for a entry level business
6. What resources should I use to further my knowledge

I don't want to be stuck in the 9-5 for the rest of my life. I have the drive to succeed and the will to learn, However I need someone to push me in the right direction.. Thank you for your time.

[CP Mr Ofevaw]

There are no specific answers to your questions. Historically though, if you look back at people like Bill Gates, Google Guy's, Pierre Omidyar, etc., they NEVER went into business with the intention of making money.

Their first priority was "making the world a better place". Naturally, as they continued their work, they found a demand for their product and decided some compensation would be nice. Thus, they became billionaires.

1. Where to get started
2. What Businesses are easy for an entry level guy
3. What works and What doesn't
4. Who do I need to talk to find more information
5. How much start up money is reccomended for a entry level business
6. What resources should I use to further my knowledge

Anyway, here we go:

1) Anywhere - do what you love, or find something NEW that you love
2) Don't try and take the "easy" route - everyone does that, and you'll lose
3) That depends - at the time, eBay "didn't work" because people feared con artists... Microsoft didn't work because "nobody would have PC's in their home"
4) Yourself - get some ideas
5) At this stage, don't worry about money - do what you can do with what you got
6) Yourself, books, the internet, etc..

[MfG]

You're actually at a crossroad with two paths

Your first choice is obviously to pick an area that uses your automotive background. That's playing safe, but then again, nothing is guaranteed when you start something yourself. You can start a car servicing business , or you can sell cars if that's what you like to do.

No such thing as an easy business for an entry-level guy. But keep your target in mind. If you plan to avoid a 9-5 job, then make plans to avoid it. (although most people I've known worked 14-15 hour jobs when starting up and company)

Second choice is to get out of your area and start something that interests you. Start small and get partners. So much as you think you can handle all the work by yourself, you probably need a partner or at least an advisor to tell you if anything's going wrong.

Read more, visit pages like entrepreneur.com or startups.co.uk to get some exposure, learn from other people's success stories, and model your business according to theirs.

Lastly, use this simple logic: If you're planning to get a million dollars, get a million people who can give you a dollar each, or a hundred thousand people to give you ten dollars each. Simple but it works.

[MillionDollarDreams]

I agree with you Mfg in many ways. What I meant by 9-5 was more along the lines of working for someone else. I could work 14-15 hours are day if it was to better my own Business.

I do have a great idea for my future.... I am heavily into cars and I have been since I was 16.... Going to street racing, Tracks, car shows, proffesional races, etc... I went to Wyotech and trained in automotive and Chassis Fabrication (building rollcages, frames, etc.) I also know a lot about the automotive business. Such as How to build a race car, How to build a show car, I know Specs on almost every performance car and what there pro's and con's are to increasing there performance, How a private and dealership shops are run, etc..... My idea is to open my own performance shop...I have learned in order to suceed in that endeavor you need to build one all out show/race car and have it placed in every car show up and down the east coast (Im from MD). Its very cheap advertisement as the entry to most shows is between 30-50 dollars for a larger booth its like 100-200 I believe. If you can show the world something that has never been done before or is completely unique from all other cars than your in. Plus with the skills I have I can fabricate performance oriented parts for vehicles.

However, what I was inquiring about in my original question was some information to guide me in the right direction. I am looking for a way to make some money to save up for my long term dream.. The shop I plan to open probably will not happen until I am about 30 and have accumulated better credentials in my field and have mastered all automotive tasks.

So any help that can guide me down the right path or spark an interest would be greatly appreciated

Thank You

[MfG]

Now we've got one thing clear: You're into looking for extra cash to fund your ultimate dream ( to open your own performance shop). You're probably looking for hundreds of thousands of dollars to start the shop (and build that display car of yours)

It's not bad to branch out of what you're doing (automotive), but branching out takes a lot of research and a lot of guts. What I would suggest is to stay close to your automotive skills , but add a new dimension to it:

You could, for eg: open a web portal for race car enthusiasts. You could put in your own reviews and comments on cars, their specs and why they should be the ideal race cars. Take it one step further by offering detailed specs and recommendations and you can start charging people for a small fee.

www.Motorpride.com is a site that Kelly Perdew (winner of Apprentice Season 2) founded and the company designs websites for car enthusiasts.

Or offer to design their dream race car (with AutoCAD or some other software that you learn) and sell them the designs (that'll probably get you a few thousand dollars) - but you've got to have some sort of reputation for designing cars. Of course, you can start small and charge less until your rep goes up. Totally up to you.

Another possibility is to do a bit of consultancy work - you're the expert and people should hire you to troubleshoot their automotive operations. Establish a consultancy website, present your CV, and see the response. Network with garages and car shops and help them with their businesses by providing assessments/research. They might have been purchasing an overpriced part for a car and you can help recommend them an even better part. That's one example of consultancy. Who knows ,you might find your niche there.

You could also be a car spare parts middleman. But that requires some initial start-up cash to acquire the parts.

Well these are what i can think of atm.

[MillionDollarDreams]

Thank you very much... I appreciate the feedback ... The information you provided will help me out greatly.. Is there any chance I could talk to you on AIM or some other sort of chat program to brainstorm with you. I need a great mind to help me bring out my idea's..

Thank you again for your time

[Franakapan]

How about getting together with other automotive technicians and building and/or customising cars to the customers/owners specification? I dunno what this would involve but I imagine that the capital required would be a large ammount for exuipment etc. and for some reason I have the feeling that it might be quite popular.

I don't just mean for the boy racer scene either; I was thinking that it should just be aimed at anyone who wants a unique car...

My 2 pence...