This might be a bit of a gold rush of sorts at first, in that the first people to transition from tech to running a small business, whether tech-enabled or not, will find a bigger piece of the pie waiting for their taking. But as the stream of many others increases over the years, the pie's slices will get smaller as competition for the same market segments increases. Not trying to paint doom and gloom, just that I'd…
Is it a gold rush or a pie eating contest? (I need to know if I should be selling shovels or forks).
I don't believe SaaS is a good option in this sector - the incumbent VSaaS is decent, cheap, and ubiquitous. By "tech-enabling", I mean layering tech into the ops where it adds value and helps to scale the business. Obvious wins are upselling, hands-free data entry to the CRM, smart traps/stations. My choice is to compete as a tech-enabled operator, rather than sell AI/SaaS to incumbents.
Similar boat here. Many of these service industries are cheap. I've built my own CRM/management system that no big company will ever touch. Even if I can sell to 1000 companies and charge them $25 a month...I'd have staff overhead, maintenance to support it. SaaS isn't some little photo editing app or something you can just launch and forget. I'd rather grow my business and make as much money. If I can crush it with…
Yeah agree - software needs to either do a ton more, be much cheaper, have network effects (such as connecting supply and demand), or some data benefit to avoid being built in-house or replicated.
Also for me there's an element of picking the pain I want to solve for. I've run a software company before, and prefer the tech-enabled route personally.
GTM? Does that mean Get The Money? Assuming everyone knows your acronyms is just not a good writing style. Since I couldn't understand how s/w was going to get opossums out of anyone's basement, I think the correct decision was made: hands on! You deserve accolades for making this choice. Good Job! Like any physical trade, this is by it's nature a local only endeavor. So a web presence that is primarily visible to ge…
Go to market - e.g. how to sell your thing. For residential / consumer markets, referrals are the gold standard and I agree to an extent about the local focus. A lot of PE (private equity) backed roll-ups result in a worse customer and worker experience as they try to force scale too fast. Some PE companies will open a local market by initiating acquisition conversations with all local players, low ball everyone, buy…
This might be a bit of a gold rush of sorts at first, in that the first people to transition from tech to running a small business, whether tech-enabled or not, will find a bigger piece of the pie waiting for their taking. But as the stream of many others increases over the years, the pie's slices will get smaller as competition for the same market segments increases. Not trying to paint doom and gloom, just that I'd…
Is it a gold rush or a pie eating contest? (I need to know if I should be selling shovels or forks).
That said, this guy is a superstar. This kind of application of skill to a totally different business paradigm to improve it is what I'd love to spend my time doing. Knowing my personality, once I improved the business, I'd get bored running it and move on to finding something else to improve.
Doing something similar. Bought a business in the petroleum equipment service space. Building internal tools for ourselves. Pen and paper still dominates the industry.
Would you recommend buying a business over starting one from scratch when possible?
Absolutely. I am thinking what my blue collar alter ego will be.
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as a recent white->blue collar convert, (union metalworker,) tech workers are usually far less qualified than your average vocational high school graduate, way less physically capable, and waaaaay less tolerant of the sort of workplace unpleasantries in these types of jobs at the entry level. Your tech experience gets you pretty much zero advantage, and there are lots of very…
yeah. there absolutely are lots of very smart and capable people outside of tech. as someone who has seen the blue collar world "up close" (family businesses), its a different breed... the culture and attitude gap is enormous. shockingly so. most tech workers I know couldn't hang (don't hustle as hard, risk averse, liberal), but some skills may transfer, like problem solving and diagnosis, i.e. debugging.
This might be a bit of a gold rush of sorts at first, in that the first people to transition from tech to running a small business, whether tech-enabled or not, will find a bigger piece of the pie waiting for their taking. But as the stream of many others increases over the years, the pie's slices will get smaller as competition for the same market segments increases. Not trying to paint doom and gloom, just that I'd…
Sounds great for people who need pest control tool services!
I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but as a recent white->blue collar convert, (union metalworker,) tech workers are usually far less qualified than your average vocational high school graduate, way less physically capable, and waaaaay less tolerant of the sort of workplace unpleasantries in these types of jobs at the entry level. Your tech experience gets you pretty much zero advantage, and there are lots of very…
Hate to see you in gray, I went from dropout waiter to Google via my own startup in between. And you nailed e v e r y t h i n g, I am screenshotting this and reading it over and over again for years to come. Great writing too. Cheers.
Haha, thanks. It’s bobbed up and down around that zero a few times. People that know it’s true vs. people that may soon find out that it’s true.