Starting your own business

Anyone here that own their own business whether it is brick and mortar or small business that you work from home? What is your experiences…Good or bad…

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Hi Leah! Before I found my dream job here at The Penny Hoarder, I worked for a local Chamber of Commerce. Chambers are found in every single city and they are an amazing resource for businesses, especially those just starting out, and most provide really great networking opportunities. I suggest reaching out to yours for any legal advice, city permits, etc. Some offer free memberships and some are a low yearly cost, I can assure you, the benefits far outweigh the cost of $100-200 for an entire year! Best of luck!

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@eroberts. Thank you…I will check into it.

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I’ve had my own business since 1981. I grew my side gig into a profitable full-time business that I continue to operate based from home. I love working for myself and don’t regret my decision to choose self-employment. It’s not for everyone. You need to be self-motivated and have a strong work ethic. If you can, start something on the side then see where it takes you. Good luck!

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Hi everyone!

I would really love to fine a business that I could run from home. I have management experience, Residential Management experience in a group home, transportation planning/dispatch experience, hotel experience, and customer service experience. I keep searching for a business opportunity and welcome any and all suggestions.

Thank you,

I am currently preparing to leave my job and go full time into providing digital marketing services to local businesses. I also do ecommerce on the side and plan to start putting a lot more time and effort into that as well.

@cherie the possibilities are almost endless when it comes to running a business. It really comes down to finding something that you would really enjoy doing and figuring out a way to make money doing it. Maybe you could use your management experience to find a creative way to help other businesses grow or you could become a virtual assistant and do customer service for a small business.

We’ve had a home business for almost 20 years, by choice. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages, just as if you work for someone else. We prefer to have our own home business and we’ve really never questioned it.

There is a lot of homework regarding employees if you plan to hire, insurances including general liability, professional liability and workman’s comp. I would also prepare by talking with a CPA because your income tax structure is different for self-employed than it is as an employee.

The most employees we’ve had besides the owner is 2, for a total of 3. We had to check our zoning regs to see if we could have employees coming to the home (which we can as long as we provide off-street parking) but our zoning does not allow customers to come to our home. We are also not allowed visible signage. It all works for us because our business is a service business where we go to other properties.

The negatives we’ve found: (and it’s because it is our choice how we maintain the business) is that we are not as free to leave for vacation for much more than a long weekend because we are extremely busy and my partner is very hands on. Therefore we both pick a week now and then and go do our own thing. And for me, I tell people I live in an office because my living room contains 3 desks, 3 computers, 2 printers and 2 large file cabinets and some equipment. I retired a couple of years ago and my better half is retiring this year, so hopefully I’ll get my house back!

There are some other caveats owning a business, but it’s more to do with how you personally choose to run a business, your work ethics and stamina.

I’d do it again in a heartbeat!

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@mintjulep sounds like you have quite a bit of experience running a home business, would love to see some more topics with some of your experiences with certain aspects of that! Thanks for sharing!

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@moore.income gosh where to start?!! I’ll post a topic about one of many of the most difficult challenges for a new business and that is pricing and never lowering your price.

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Sounds like a great topic to start with @mintjulep Look forward to it!

Owning a business is definitely a lot of hard work. I have been working on mine for about 3 years now and let me tell you, it is not easy. My siblings go to their respective jobs, then go home and relax; meanwhile, i’m getting up early and advertising while eating breakfast, making lists while doing house chores, and working on new products late into the night only to start the whole cycle over again. They don’t understand why I would choose this lifestyle. But I absolutely love it! Point being, you are going to have to work harder than people who work for someone else and you have to be willing to put in the effort to get things going. It’s not going to happen over night and some days you are going to feel like quitting. But if it’s something you are intensely passionate about, the rewards are worth the effort!

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@miranda.mattson I agree with your comments so whole-heartedly! The hard work and hours have a trade-off with more control of how you run your business.

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We are on the other end where we have our own business and we are entering a different phase of our careers and what we want to do. My husband is no longer going to be going out in the field and working physically, so we handle bidding, invoicing, supervision, translation services, which means that we have a lot more freedom now. We are able to take our work with us on the road because all we need is a phone and Wi-Fi so vacation is easier now for us. We can dictate our schedules so much more and we just love it. I will never go back to an office environment. It was so worth the time and effort it took to build it up, and now we can reap some of the rewards at this time of our lives.

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@leighofmar That is wonderful!! Do you have trusted employees to manage things while you travel or have you been able to build up such a good client base that you are in maintenance mode at this point in your lives…or both?

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Its just us two and we can manage everything ourselves now with a laptop and phone. We are right now planning a nice RV tour through Virginia and will dedicate the first half of Mon-Wed for work and the rest is sightseeing and relaxing. I cant wait.

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@leighofmar That is exciting!! Keep us posted please! We would like to RV and work at the same time so interested in your adventures!

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