Ask HN: Has anyone started a non tech related business before?

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=894834

by FreeRadical • 17 years ago

29 45 17 years ago

news.ycombinator.com

Has anyone here started businesses that are not in the tech field, for example coffee shops, food franchises, worktop manufacture etc? What were the outcomes...

arfrank2• 17 years ago

While in college I started and still run a summer storage company for college students. The problems associated with it were primarily customer service and logistic based for dealing with people stuff. I can't imagine it was much different from generally having to do customer service for a tech company, just different fields.

HeyLaughingBoy• 17 years ago

That sounds like an excellent idea. How is it working out?

arfrank2• 17 years ago

It's very seasonal.

There is a lot of money it, considering that parents usually just pay for it, but me and my cofounder decided are taking a humane approach to it and trying to not rip off students.

A bunch of the big companies charge upwards of 50 dollars for a box that is about 2x1x1.5 feet. I realize business is business and that people are willing to pay that much, but it's nice being able to half those people's prices and still make a good profit.

We're looking to expand and maybe go head on with a bunch of the companies.

nate• 17 years ago

This dude seems cool http://doejo.com/. I saw his design work and was impressed. He has an address listed on this website and I looked it up and it turns out to be this coffee shop near me. I chalked it up that he must work out of that coffee shop a lot.

A few months later, I just realized the guy OWNS that coffee shop :) And another one too in chicago. He also owns a vintage clothing store across the street from me, and sounds like he's building bar.

Looks like he's constantly still designing web applications and manages to run all these other non techy successful projects (his 2 coffee houses are pretty busy and get very positive reviews).

rishi2• 17 years ago

Yeah - I'm friends with Phil. He owns http://nobletreecoffee.com and http://www.dollopcoffee.com. Sometimes I wonder if he ever sleeps. He is trying to also open up a bar. He is also constantly photo blogging http://philcoextra.com and just launched www.texthog.com

percept2• 17 years ago

I see he had a nice write-up here:

http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/article.pl?article_id...

It's a couple of years old but describes his strategy, which seems to be: get a loan to buy a business, add value, sell and move on to gradually bigger loans and businesses.

Nice execution!

P.S.: I don't know why somebody voted down your comment because to me this adds helpful information.

recurser• 17 years ago

Some very nice design work in that portfolio too - thanks for the link.

annoyed• 17 years ago

i've been toying around with the same idea for a while, but the things i've thought about seem to be capital and time intensive. i recently read an article that compares opening your own restaurant to throwing your money away. i guess it depends on location and product/service.

percept2• 17 years ago

I know franchisers typically want personal assets in the low-to-mid six figures to get started.

A former co-worker had a friend who became a burrito chain franchisee.

Last I heard it was running like a machine and he had already stepped back out of day-to-day management after the chaos of initial build-out and first phase of operations. I think the franchiser wanted him to open up more locations but he was doing well enough with the first that he felt no need to rush into it.

Of course I was told his family was rich and that's where he got the fundage (and he was idle before that), so . . .

blackguardx• 17 years ago

I know the guy who started Ike's Place in San Francisco. He went from being homeless at some point in his life to the number one SF restaurant on yelp.com. I think the reason why he is so successful now is because he has some big failures under his belt. He has a tech degree but was always interested in starting non-tech businesses.

gcheong• 17 years ago

That's quite interesting. I live a block away from Ike's Place and have seen several businesses come and go in that space. I figured the location was just not good enough to support enough traffic for a business. Then one day this little sandwich shop opens up. I write it off as something that won't last based on what I've seen happen to other shops in that space. We'll I'm glad nobody was taking bets that day. Oh, it's lunchtime, I think I'll treat myself to a sandwich.

JMiao• 17 years ago

comic book studio in middle school. i had a high school friend who was an amazing penciler/inker, so we teamed up and pretty much blew our friends away. we stopped after he went to college in oregon and i repressed my creativity to make room for practical stuff like AP classes, standardized exams, etc. i always look back on those times fondly and hope to revisit it someday.

dtap• 17 years ago

I started a company looking to do some small scale manufacturing. In a non-web space, it really depends on IP, either currently had or to be developed. Also, any product that is larger than a hand-held widget is going to cost into the hundred thousands to produce (molds, jigs, etc.). There is no open-source manufacturing.

Anything like coffee shops or restaurants are going to take all of your time and be difficult to scale. Only if you reach a level where you can franchise can you get to sustainable growth. Otherwise, it is how much time can you spend on growing it. Anyone who would be capable of taking over some of your responsibilities is likely to go and start their own restaurant.

rishi2• 17 years ago

I tried to start this: http://www.HapTap.com in college an emoticon keyboard. What do you guys think?

drhowarddrfine2• 17 years ago

I own several well known franchised fast food restaurants for 25 years.

Shamiq2• 17 years ago

Do you have anything written up about being a franchise owner? I've heard of a couple people doing quite well, but I'm not sure what kind of effort goes into it.

drhowarddrfine2• 17 years ago

I forgot the OP asked about the outcome.

I started with this franchisor when they were virtually unheard of, and now I'm sure all of you have eaten in one. For me, it's been highly successful and I earn a substantial income from it. However, the first few years were very difficult because it wasn't what I was used to. It's a totally different environment from professional engineering including the people. Dealing with them is quite different.

Running a restaurant means it's always on your mind. Things are always going wrong, mostly from people quitting, so it requires a lot of hours. It's also very hard on other family members, or perhaps due to other family members, that might want to put their two cents into how you should be running things. (Mostly wives.)

Almost everyone I know has provided themselves some income to a good salary but there were a few who went bankrupt. Now that's a few out of a hundred in my region.

radu_floricica• 17 years ago

A local courier company in Bucharest. Mainly fast deliveries on scooters. After about one year it paid its bills, but I didn't get along with my partner and got out. Since then he turned it into a sub-contractor for a larger courier company, and swapped the scooters for vans - more profit, but a whole lot more risk.

zefhous• 17 years ago

I'm part of a company that my brother started. We oversee the production of fair trade products in Zambia and sell them (mostly) in the US. Right now we have an organic beeswax lip balm, and also soap. Other products are in the works as well.

http://zambeezi.com/ http://zambiansoap.com/

We're doing pretty well, have a couple employees that we pay — one hourly and one on salary/commission. We aren't yet making enough that the owners are getting paid, but that may soon change.

I am also writing two web apps that we use for managing customers, ordering, invoicing, etc... I'm planning on releasing them as SaaS for other small businesses, but have not yet done that.

matthodan• 17 years ago

I started a cafe while I was in college, which is still in operation today (4 years later). I no longer own or manage the business, but it's exciting to grab a brew there when I visit my old campus.

Looking back, that cafe gave me a huge insight into leading a creative team-- we had 7 very active employees-- and taught me to to appreciate the less glamorous side of starting a business-- like staying late to clean up or restocking the shelves.

outotrai• 17 years ago

How did you finance the café initially, as a college student?

loganfrederick• 17 years ago

A friend of mine from high school (we're both at different colleges now) and I have put on a few local theater plays. If you keep your costs low enough and can find actors for free, you can make some decent money (couple grand).

dan_sim• 17 years ago

I don't know what to think of this. Sure you are working to get this working and you deserve to be paid for it... but so does the actors. In my opinion, you were making money on the back of other people's dream.

Shamiq2• 17 years ago

And that, is the American dream.

dkokelley2• 17 years ago

Well, the actors were getting paid, just not in money. The actors obviously decided it was worth the experience and publicity to invest their time.

That's why the acting trade is so hard to get in to. There are thousands of people willing to supply their skills for free. The supply vastly outweighs the demand.

dskhatri• 17 years ago

Actors sometimes do work for free on small projects. They get an opportunity to add to their acting portfolio/resume. A friend in film school received over 600 responses to an ad looking for actors who would work gratis on his short film. Typically they would get a copy of the film for their portfolio.

akamaka• 17 years ago

I'm running a business where aspiring talented people pay a small fee to take part in a show, in hopes of gaining exposure.

sachinag• 17 years ago

I do freelance tutoring on the side. Eventually, I'll put up a website and write some materials for sale.

hop4• 17 years ago

Put my design engineering company on part time 6 months ago to start a new company selling a new type of eco-friendly lawn seed.

http://www.earthturfco.com

Stays green and low growing without fertilizer or chemicals.

Built and sold coat racks when I was a kid.

keizo3• 17 years ago

I am part of a company that manufactures canoes for competitive racing. It's been two years and we are doing well enough to live off the business. The most positive aspect is that we have 7 months of backorders. Our biggest problem is trying to expand without funding or loans. Another major hurdle is increasing production without a loss in quality.

hop4• 17 years ago

Are they composite? Do you have only one plug/mold thats causing the bottleneck?

keizo3• 17 years ago

yes. Two molds in production. A third entering soon and we are making more molds. So it's part of the bottleneck, but skilled labor and shop space is also a challenge.

tedshroyer• 17 years ago

I have a farm with my grandmother. We grow blueberries and figs. It's very interesting to make decisions that take years to see how they pan out.

dkokelley2• 17 years ago

A friend and I are starting a retail sales consulting company. We're planning on developing training tools for managers to use with their sales staff. It's in its infancy still (started the 1st of the month), so no results yet.

jseliger• 17 years ago

I haven't _started_ a non-tech related business, but my parents started their own consulting company, which you can read more about through our blog: http://blog.seliger.com . The outcome was good, since we've been in business for 16 years.

What in particular do you want to know, aside from the outcome?

chaosprophet• 17 years ago

It wasn't exactly a business, but a couple of friends and I used to buy suburban railway tickets from the automatic vending machine. The machine required a smartcard whose minimum denomination was 10x the maximum ticket price, so people would rather wait in long ques to get the ticket from the clerk rather than use the ATVM. We bought some cards and people were happy to buy tickets through us for a small surcharge. We also made money on recharge options for the smart card. There were others who did the same thing and this is where I got my first taste at stealing customers.

As for the outcome, we got bored after we had saved enough for a PS3 ;)

eserorg2• 17 years ago

I started an Oil and Natural Gas E&P (exploration and production) company when I was 25.

And no, I didn't have an "in" to the hydrocarbons business (a lot of people ask). My background is Stanford CS.

pchristensen• 17 years ago

Too modest to post links, but it looks pretty cool:

http://eser.org/

http://hydrocarbon.search.eser.org/

mattiss2• 17 years ago

Much success yet? This sounds like a very exciting business to be in.

eserorg2• 17 years ago

Ask me in 20 years.

mr_pants• 17 years ago

I've started 2 business. The first was renting inflatables for kid's birthday parties. It was a small, part-time business that I started to get experience marketing, dealing with customers, etc. It was fun and quite a work-out (they weigh from 300 to 500 lbs). I sold to a competitor when I moved and essentially broke even. My wife tells me every few weeks we should have kept one (we have lots of kids in our extended family and usually rent one for birthday parties).

My wife and I bought a business that does ultrasounds of expectant mothers (she's an ultrasound tech). It will be 2 years in Jan. Business is still growing, though not as fast as I had hoped. My wife mainly runs it and has learned quite a bit about business. Not yet profitable, but we're hopeful, we're working on getting a lower-cost lease and more clients each week.

Ask HN: Has anyone started a non tech related business before?

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