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From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

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Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#161

Post by jefft »

edw519 wrote: post #53

This time next year on reddit: "From working my ass off 90 hours per week running a business that wouldn't scale to nice salary/benefits for 40 hours. I'm taking home the same net and I feel like I'm on vacation." I don't want to sound too snarky and I really admire OP's initiative and ability to make things happen, but this just doesn't smell right. It's easy to get excited by nice revenue in the beginning (as he sh…

The comments here are really hitting home to me how self-aggrandizing and toxic hacker news is becoming.

This guy got off his ass and started a real business. How about a pat on the back or words of encouragement?

Here's a dose of optimism for you, OP: Good for you. You got this far, you will figure out the challenges ahead of you.

“It is not the critic who counts" has never been more true.

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#162

Post by PagingCraig »

frogpelt wrote: post #137
edw519 wrote: post #53

This time next year on reddit: "From working my ass off 90 hours per week running a business that wouldn't scale to nice salary/benefits for 40 hours. I'm taking home the same net and I feel like I'm on vacation." I don't want to sound too snarky and I really admire OP's initiative and ability to make things happen, but this just doesn't smell right. It's easy to get excited by nice revenue in the beginning (as he sh…

I hate to rain on your cold shower but... - doesn't scale well Who said he wanted it to "scale"? If he has already replaced his income he may not need much "scaling". Nice buzzword though. - is the first thing customers eliminate when times get tough Times are tough now and he is growing his business (or "scaling" if you prefer buzzwords). I'm interested to know what kind of business you're running and how well it is…

I agree, who says he has to scale? He can get to comfortable position and stay there with loyal customers.

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#163

Post by bannerts »

Has anyone tried to consider the numbers involved with this business?

About how long does it take for two maids to clean a house (or in other words, how many houses can two maids clean in one 8-10 hour day?)? Also, about how many maids do you have working for you?

In trying to come up with a ball-park figure: My guess would be that each pair of maids could bring in about $600-800 a day in revenue (cleaning 4-5 homes). Of this it would seem that about $400-500 goes to paying the maids (say , $200-250 per maid), with about $75 dollars going to daily expenses (gasoline, cleaning materials, etc), leaving whatever remains going to other major business expenses and profit. If his workers are busy 20 days a month, it would seem that a bunch of the so-called monthly costs of being an employer (say around $750 per month per employee) only comes out to be around $75 dollars a day (per pair of maids). I have no clue as to what this value actually is (or how much of it would be part of their hourly wage), I'm just guessing.

All in all though, I would guess that for each maid he has, on average it is costing him around $275-325 per day while bringing in around $300-400 per day. If their is any truth to the numbers above (which one number being off could dramatically mess everything up), it would appear that he is bringing in about $50-75 per maid. If he prices his service to keep that profit in mind (to make at lease $50 per maid per day), then having a staff of 10 maids could end up making around $100-150k a year. And I suppose the scaling would seem to work pretty linearly; if he doubles the number of mades or how much he brings in per maid, then his profit would double as such. Of course there are things like insurance and training (perhaps those costs total 10% of each maids daily wage and is included in that value)...

Based on these numbers though, having 10 maids would require having 25 homes to clean each day (or about 500 per month). I see that he has given out 2254 lunches so far (if I really wanted to make an accurate estimate of the business he is doing).

Anyhow, is there anything major that I'm missing in these numbers? I'm just trying to make an estimation..

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#164

Post by huggyface »

jefft wrote: post #161
edw519 wrote: post #53

This time next year on reddit: "From working my ass off 90 hours per week running a business that wouldn't scale to nice salary/benefits for 40 hours. I'm taking home the same net and I feel like I'm on vacation." I don't want to sound too snarky and I really admire OP's initiative and ability to make things happen, but this just doesn't smell right. It's easy to get excited by nice revenue in the beginning (as he sh…

The comments here are really hitting home to me how self-aggrandizing and toxic hacker news is becoming. This guy got off his ass and started a real business. How about a pat on the back or words of encouragement? Here's a dose of optimism for you, OP: Good for you. You got this far, you will figure out the challenges ahead of you. “It is not the critic who counts" has never been more true.

Aside from the fact that this simply links to a Reddit story, I don't at all subscribe to the "only say nice things" philosophy.

HN is about sober reality. It should be about people rationally checking ideas. The alternative is that we all essentially engage in fantasy, which is the sort of (failing to find any other term) masturbatory circle-jerk that does nothing but inflate foolish ideas.

I'm not saying that the GP is right or wrong: I actually haven't read the linked story. But the notion that only positive responses are acceptable rubs me the wrong way.

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#165

Post by ricardobeat »

paulhauggis wrote: post #136
mseebach wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I understand the principle. But deciding to form a coop, hiring a manager/marketer and being a partner in a company are all skills, and while valuable, they're just just as arbitrary to decide to teach in schools as knowing how to build a vacuum cleaner. Also, where is the evidence of exploitation? Does this guy make more money than he would if there was profit-sharing? Paying a salary is profit sharing.

His point is that the owner shouldn't be getting any more than the workers. IE, they are all "equal". This sounds strangely familiar...

I don't recall saying anything like that. Don't worry, I'm not going to eat your children.

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#166

Post by thisismyname »

qeorge wrote: post #102
edw519 wrote: post #53

This time next year on reddit: "From working my ass off 90 hours per week running a business that wouldn't scale to nice salary/benefits for 40 hours. I'm taking home the same net and I feel like I'm on vacation." I don't want to sound too snarky and I really admire OP's initiative and ability to make things happen, but this just doesn't smell right. It's easy to get excited by nice revenue in the beginning (as he sh…

Incoming anecdote.. My uncle, Peter Dussmann, started out cleaning offices, then started an office cleaning company, than bought an office building...now he owns one of the largest service companies in the world (50k+ employees). http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dussmann When you make money it opens up other opportunities. How you leverage them is what matters. That said, I'm 1000% Uncle B.

Great points. Also allows him to learn, grow (both in business and to look for new opportunities), and adapt.

Plus, its pretty easy to just "get a job". Creating a job or a business is much trickier. Kudos to your uncle!

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#167

Post by personlurking »

localcasestudy wrote: post #144
personlurking wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting because my ex-girlfriend basically did what the OP did and she worked like a crazy woman from 7AM to 8PM with no days off, dealing with her team, clients, etc.

I have a full time job.

I understand, though I'm merely stating that from firsthand experience seeing my ex work, she was going at it like crazy just to get it up and running smoothly. Hard to understand the difference between 7h vs. 90h per week for two successful people who had never worked in the cleaning biz before.

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#168

Post by dkrich »

Maascamp wrote: post #151
edw519 wrote: post #53

This time next year on reddit: "From working my ass off 90 hours per week running a business that wouldn't scale to nice salary/benefits for 40 hours. I'm taking home the same net and I feel like I'm on vacation." I don't want to sound too snarky and I really admire OP's initiative and ability to make things happen, but this just doesn't smell right. It's easy to get excited by nice revenue in the beginning (as he sh…

Interesting that all of these points apply equally to Exec (a ycombinator startup), but everybody had nothing but praise for them.

I agree and would argue that these points apply even more to Exec because at least with this idea, you are only handling a single task (cleaning people's houses).

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#169

Post by dkrich »

I can't help but think a lot of people find fault with this because they don't want to believe that it could be possible to start a business this way because they didn't think of it first. But you know full and well that whatever employment law and tax compliance requirements exist can be overcome and overcome fairly easily. Why look past the entire story to point out the few things that could fuck him up?

And to those talking about the lack of scalability, etc. I ask you: how many businesses have you started that employ people? How many businesses of this kind have you run? If the answer is <1 you are not qualified to make those assumptions.

Re: From idea to replacing full-time salary in 4 months

#170

Post by stevenguichard »

sopooneo wrote: post #160
rsynnott wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure about America, but in most countries I'm familiar with, it is ultimately the decision of the tax authorities whether people who work for a company are employees or contractors. There's generally a well-specified test for this. Certainly, in this country, the maids would be unambiguously employees.

I've been aware for a long time about the distinction between employees and contractors, and the basic idea is clear enough to me. However, the difference between contractors and vendors still baffles me. I don't issue a 1099 to Staples for delivering office supplies (though I realize we dodged that bullet by a hair a couple years ago). However, I do issue one to a guy I find on CraigsList to redesign my web site. In…

Generally if a payment is made to a corporation or total payments are less than $600 for the year you don't have to issue a 1099.

http://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i1099msc.pdf

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