Has anyone started a brick & mortar business?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2015401

by webbruce • 16 years ago

9 5 16 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

I know this is a tech area but just curious...

I personally ran a screen printing shop at our campus that went well and ended up selling it since we're graduating.

dholowiski• 16 years ago

Yeah, the overhead will kill you if you're not careful. I spent $10k setting up a 700 square foot computer training center. Gave up after 6 months and now do on-site computer repair with almost no overhead.

kingsidharth• 16 years ago

I helped my dad set-up a magazine stand in my pre-school. Does that count? It was a good learning on how people buy.

pinksoda• 16 years ago

A high tech tanning spa. One of the tanning beds cost 30k and looked like a spaceship. I went all out with this thing, using some money from an exit. I re-did the floors, walls, electric, plumping, etc. in the end I was out about 500k after running it for a year. A lot of that money went towards rent and payroll. I had 4 or 5 employees, including a manager, during peak season.

It was difficult to iterate the business, I was locked into a lease, and the equipment was too big to move easily, so I couldn't just pack up and move to a new location when I realized I didn't pick the greatest location.

The worst part was dealing with the local governing agencies for insurance, workman's comp, town, state, federal, permits, etc. They shut me down for a day or two over something trivial and I spent 8 hours driving around to fix it. Felt like the equiv. of my domain being seized and it wasn't worth it for such a thin profit margin.

There was no doubt that I could make it work, but I didn't want to spend the time or money trying to get it right. I have the internet startup stuff down pat; I'll just stick to what I know best.

ssskai• 16 years ago

I ran a bike-flipping business in college... not quite brick & mortar, but definitely not high-tech.

My roommate and I went to all the sorority houses around campus and made a deal with the house moms for old bikes. In exchange for cleaning up the bike-parking area of their house, we would get all of the left-over bikes for free from girls who had just graduated.

We then cleaned them up, ran some ads in Craigslist, and sold them to people near the beach. Best part was the bikes were predominantly beach-cruisers, and were in high demand at the beginning of summer when students had graduated.

Process took 10 days, we made about $2000 between the two of us, and it paid for a plane ticket to Europe with some extra cash to spend!

tzm• 16 years ago

I owned a motorcycle store / Harley service shop, a jewelry store and a powersport distribution company (w/ 50 employees). All brick & morter. I started programming out of necessity, which became a competitive advantage. Now I own a software company (my true passion), making iOS apps and web services.

Has anyone started a brick & mortar business?

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