Info on starting a small business.

[looney2ns]

What ever you think you may want to do, go work in that type business for a year.

Proper Accounting is where so many fail. No excuse for that today with the tech we have.

 

[Vigilant]

What ever you think you may want to do, go work in that type business for a year.

Proper Accounting is where so many fail. No excuse for that today with the tech we have.

Proper accounting, has VERY little to do with a new business failure! UNDERCAPITALIZATION, is the cause of many start up failures, and about 95% of new restaurant failures! You cannot sink every dime you have into opening, and expect to be open a month from now!

 

[looney2ns]

Proper accounting, has VERY little to do with a new business failure! UNDERCAPITALIZATION, is the cause of many start up failures, and about 95% of new restaurant failures! You cannot sink every dime you have into opening, and expect to be open a month from now!

Well we'll agree to disagree. After 35 years of being self employed, and knowing lots of other folks that were as well. Lots of them that failed had no idea how much money was going out or coming in.

 

[Libertarian01]

Proper accounting, has VERY little to do with a new business failure! UNDERCAPITALIZATION, is the cause of many start up failures, and about 95% of new restaurant failures! You cannot sink every dime you have into opening, and expect to be open a month from now!

Well we'll agree to disagree. After 35 years of being self employed, and knowing lots of other folks that were as well. Lots of them that failed had no idea how much money was going out or coming in.

Gentlemen,

Both of you are correct. It is simply a matter of who may be "more" correct on a specific venture failure.

Vigilant is spot on when folks don't have enough money set aside to pay the bills for an extended period of time and hope for massive amounts of luck! Sure, some businesses under-capitalize and survive to thrive, but not many. When I did a group project on starting a landscaping business we asked for enough money to go for an entire year without considering a single dime of revenue. This made certain that whatever we did make would go toward the second year of survival. It was only a 101 class, and not even a business class. Were I to put down a serious examination of a landscaping business plan I would probably try to project out five (5) years and look at much more accurate estimations of capital needs.

Loony2ns is also correct on folks NOT knowing what bills there will be. They fail to account for a bunch of small things like cell phone usage, maintenance of equipment, replacing equipment, office supplies that ALL need to be considered and CHARGED to the customer! How many new local gun store owners may overlook simple cleaning supplies being factored into the price of their firearms for sale? "What? You mean I gotta charge the customers for the Windex I use to clean the countertops? That's a bit much, isn't it?" DAMN RIGHT you do! You might not need to account for every bottle of cleaning supplies in your pricing, but ya'll sure as heck need to put in some amount for what you need to clean the store, like $100 per month, or more or less depending on the size of the store.

I think these are two (2) sides of the same coin. Folks under-capitalize due to the fact that they don't account for all of the bills that will need to be paid.

I don't mean to keep going back to Restaurant Impossible, but watch when Robert asks folks what their food cost is. Many don't have a clue. A few do, but way below 50%, and these are the folks allegedly trying to run a business! Ya need to have enough money to start a business and ya need to know what that money is for!

Kind Regards,

Doug

 

[bwframe]

If you intend to sell something, shouldn't the seller have a market and know it well?

I wonder how smart of a move it is to be looking to go into the firearms business at this time?