Does the United States have a spending problem? Obviously, but I really wanted to talk about how the cost of living crisis is presenting itself in your community. That relates to this article because you can’t squeeze blood from a stone. If all of you have no disposable income, no savings, and a job market that can’t support your current cost of living… What happens if you lose your job? Do you default on loan obligations along with America because we are stretched to the edge. Should we vote in members of congress to pass more tax breaks for private jets?Are mods whack? Let me know in the comments.
you sound like me. I did well but I was single income with a sick wife so needed it. I to am picking up work as I can. I mean I have seen many more jobs I would want but nothing ultimately goes through. 3rd shift weekend in office falls through. I have put in for a variety of jobs outside my field that don’t pay much and don’t have many requirements and never hear back. Im not sure if they figure I will not hang around or if the whole age and long term unemployment are just too big of strikes. If I could have insurance without it sucking up time to maintain and did not cost me anything I could likely float us with pick up work but unfortunately filling out forms and calling offices and such along with interviews or such limits my ability to go full force on it.
I’ve done a lot of 4 part interviews and personality testing, weird competence tests, pretty much anything asked. I’m starting to suspect that the recruiters don’t look at those either. Most of the jobs I see are just sales jobs for robbing rich boomers. I think that’s what bothers me the most. The best jobs are scams, it’s a scam economy. Want to make more than a doctor? Just sell 50,000 siding jobs!
I mean im mostly looking in IT, so competency tests are not untward and usually if I go the distance at least 3 interviews, but it does feel often like they just don’t want to commit. I can say that winter of 24/25 were everything seemed to stall when I did recived replies it was often they are not moving forward whereas I identify stuff moving somewhere after spring 25 because I would get some that they went with someone else. I think this where I really got screwed. Being let go a month and a half before the election is what pushed me to over a year not working and now its a black eye along with my age. That being said the whole field seems to have gotten wierd with ai and purple squirrel type of thing. It reminded me a bit of around 2000 where adverts are asking for a set of requirements that are or virtually are impossible to fullfill. Again I feel its gotten a bit better but kinda anemic. Like they realize they need people but just don’t want to commit funds and are super easy to pull back. So I can say that before companies I worked at were pretty much identifying their budget for the fiscal year and committing to it before the year started. I feel now they are not deciding their budget till the first month of the fiscal year and are now very tentative about everything they do.
I’m looking at sales jobs with proficiency and personality tests. Usually in between multiple interviews. The analyst jobs make sense but a 45 minute test with a pass and no interview is also insane. I’ve had a lot of job offers with unpaid training or paybacks or just about any predatory practice they can imagine.
I tried doing Customer service thinking it would be easy and I swear to god that phone rang every second I was logged in. Endless emails and teams messages from corporate simultaneously. $16 an hour and I got 2 higher ups paid to listen to my calls, and the machine made sure I never had a chance to breathe during 10 hour shifts. Oh and 10-50 hours a week with no say in the schedule. So some weeks I was bringing home $90. Hour long commutes and $17 an hour economy. I moved $300k in merch for them and was paid less than $3k. Between that and the multiple layers of supervision that don’t offer support, I assume they could raise my wage by 25% without cutting into their insane profits. That is my state’s biggest employer $1 billion revenue business.
Anyway I’m broadly moving around multiple industries and it’s all the same practices and it’s all a joke.
If nobody will hire you, then hire yourself. It has never been easier to start your own business, and make it pay. The Internet makes it almost free to start. You may not become wealthy, but it can still generate steady revenue.
In America your business either gets big enough to get purchased by private equity, or small enough to crushed. How am I going to start a business in a state with no jobs, who are my customers ya know?
I’ve managed to keep my one man operation going for 18 years, and I’m not quitting any time soon. I know lots of other people with small companies like mine.
I guarantee that there are lots of small businesses where you are, even if you think there are “no jobs.” That’s kind of my point - If there are no jobs for you, create your own.
Stop blaming others, circumstances, the economy, etc. Nobody is stopping you but you.
Here’s a softball; which industry or market is underserved in the north east United States, specifically Maine? Let’s get a data supported answer. No one’s holding you back but you!
That’s not how you start a small business. Either you figure out a way to carve out a niche in the business you already know, or you look around your community and try to figure out what it needs.
Are they building a lot around you? Maybe there is something in construction. I just wrote in another post about a friend who was starting a cleaning business for real estate agents, cleaning houses, condos, and apartments between tenants/ buyers. Every day there are multiple Craigslist ads for people to do just that. I used to own an ice cream shop (not an example of a cheap business), and the guy who cleaned my windows was an actual meth head, but he showed up every week to wash my windows. Neither one of them had any education or experience, but they both could start businesses.
What do you care about the industries that are in your “region?” You care about what is needed in your immediate community. That’s where you will be operating your business, in your own backyard. Don’t worry about the macro-economy, think about you’re local micro-economy.
If all you’re looking for is a part-time income, even just driving people to the airport can be a good part-time job. I have a list of a dozen people in my neighborhood that will drive someone to the airport for cheaper than Uber or a Taxi. You could do pet-sitting, teach music lessons or do after-school tutoring, you could teach part-time at the local community college, or even high school. Even my neighborhood offers classes taught by residents, who can charge for the lessons.
If you think you’re going to end up on the cover of Forbes, you’re probably delusional, but if all you want to do is make a part-time side hustle, or create a business just large enough to support your family, that’s something people do every day.
Everybody wants me to hand them a blue print, a map to follow, but nobody did that for me. You have to use your brain and figure it out for yourself. You can see that others have done it, so why can’t you? Stop squandering your mental power on excuses for why it’s impossible, and spend that effort on thinking of solutions.
Have you ever thought about offering useful advice instead of useless advice to make yourself feel better? What should I do Mr business guru. Which market am I missing out on in my local economy that you might be so hip too?
I’m trying to get you people to understand that nobody is going to just hand you your new business. YOU have to figure that out for yourself, based on your own knowledge, and your community. That is your first challenge as a business owner.
All of you are so willing to surrender, and go work for some company that was started by someone who wasn’t willing to surrender. You see evidence of small businesses every day, from that beat up work van next to you in traffic, to the guy painting a house, or the guy washing all the windows of that shopping plaza you drive past every day. Those windows don’t get clean and shiny on their own.
There are small businesses everywhere, all started by people who were told it was impossible by nearly everyone they knew. Yet they did it anyway.
Are you going to be the Dreamer or the Dream Stealer?
Congrats I ran a 20 man 120 light cannabis cultivation facility for 10 years. It got destroyed by margin compression and over competition. I’m sure your business is great having no overhead, no employees, no market over saturated, no legislators and private equity changing the rules every 6 months.
If you’d like to offer a suggestion on what kind of business to run here in the great state of Maine I’m all ears! Keep in mind I have limited startup capital and I’m unemployed and unable to obtain startup capital. I do own a 3 acre farm lot with a house so I got that going for me. Which business do I start?
I was in the music business, which I targeted as a teen, and customized my entire education toward that goal. I made a living in it for a long time, and it seemed like a business that would last forever, but it all collapsed in the early 2000s, the victim of computers, the Internet, and automation.
I tried making am independent living in that world for a while, but I couldn’t stay ahead of the inevitable collapse, as my clients, mostly independent record labels and record stores, folded, one after another.
So I had to pivot into an entirely different industry, which I had never prepared for, and it was scary. I concentrated on sales, because that’s was the heart of most of my business experience, and also the most important skill you can develop as a business person. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you can’t sell that idea to those who need to hear it, you’ll never get out of the gate.
You were in the cannabis growing industry, a new and growing business that promises to only get bigger. Nobody believes that they’ll go back to making weed harshly illegal again, and start throwing thousands of people in jail over it. If anything, it will be totally legal within a few years. You already know and understand that business, which is growing steadily.
I’d be offering myself as a consultant to others who are just starting to get their farms going. You can offer yourself as an experienced commercial grower, who can keep them from making the same mistakes as you did, and get their farms off to a faster, more profitable start, without the rookie mistakes. I operated a side consulting business in my industry with that exact pitch - “I screwed up EVERYTHING when I first started, but I figured it out, so I can help you avoid all those same mistakes.” It’s a surprisingly effective pitch - “I can keep you from being as stupid as me.”
f I were you, I’d be starting an independent consulting business in the Cannabis Growing Industry. I wouldn’t hesitate at all, there is definitely a business to be started there.
Beyond that, if there wasn’t a glaringly obvious hole in the local market for a service, I would be looking at creating a business on the Internet. Anyone under about 35 has no concept of how miraculous the Internet is, and how transformative it was for the world. It offers the easiest, cheapest ways to start making money, that mostly require just the time to work on it, something unemployed people have plenty of.
I’m exploring some of the online market places and potential products, distribution etc and it’s also really pricey and kind of exploitative. I do remember doing business out of the yellow pages and I wonder if the internet has become to convoluted and concentrated. Who do you ad spend with for services and products these days?
I found the transition from brick and mortar to online to be really daunting and it probably is because I’m a phonebook generation.
I’m old school, too, so my business has been built on networking, word-of-mouth, and good old repeat business. I’m worthless on Social Media, so I’m currently learning how to work with it, and making a little progress, I think.
My experience in the past with advertising is terrible, so I almost never spend money on it. I’m trying to launch a new online business, and I may have to invest a bit to jump start it, so I’m doing research before I blow my money on nothing.
Usually the best advertising is to get people to experience it firsthand, so samples or demonstrations are effective, but can be pricey and time consuming.
Yea I just shoved a vase full of flowers into a guys hands, so we come from the same school of thought. Good to hear on the ad spending I was trying to avoid it but its seems like a lot of small Direct to customer businesses have to use Instagram/Facebook/google for growth. I’m having a hard time getting serious Face time with local businesses as well, which is why im considering DTC. I guess the retail mark up is nice too. The only advertising I did in my previous business were local news prints and fund raising events for charity. Neither were very fruitful.
That was wonderful advice and I’m very impressed. Thank you for taking the time to think and write that out. I was really not expecting that much. I’m currently working down a similar path. I have a real estate license but that market has oversaturated and declined as well. I have certainly not giving up and am pursing more angles. But I gotta say it is not as easy to start a business as it was back in the 90s, 00s or 10’s. Having a more hostile business environment is as the kids would say “pulling up the ladder”.
Anyway, I really do appreciate the thoughtful response and I’m sorry if I was rude earlier. My concerns are less personal and more “why are we building a society like this”
One of the things I forgot to mention from my pitch was that I would say directly “I will give you enough tested tips, tricks, and advice, that I will pay for myself in mistakes you WONT make.”
And then I would give them a free example: You can buy a dedicated cart to carry around the gear you’ll need, and it will cost $2000, and take 6 weeks to arrive. Or you can go up to Harbor Freight, and buy this cart for $250, and it will do everything that dedicated cart will, do, plus more, AND you can stand it up against wall so it has a small profile.
There, they just saved $1750 off my fee.
And don’t let that Real.Esrate License lapse. Stay in touch with the biz, because at some point the market will turn around in a big way, and you can be in a position to recognize it, and get in early. It might be 4 or 10 years from now, but it will happen. You’ll need money then, too.
Yep I’m keeping the license up. this fall is my 4 year so I am eligible to start my own brokerage. I will probably at least go out on my own. Absolutely going to need some ad spend for that start up. I’m going to absolutely fuck my competitors and do half price deals. Drive bomb real estate commissions rates like they were cannabis prices. Won’t be looking to hire, that market always rebounds, but my entire 4 years have basically been the slowest years in real estate history. It was still kinda hot when I got in but instead of having more clients every year, its less, and more work. I’m not afraid of work, 1% commissions will bring in customers. But there just has to be real estate sales or else its just me paying fees and chatting with old ladies about their unobtainable housing needs.
I’ve interviewed with 5 brokerages in the last 2 years all desperate to bring people on. The other thing they had in common was no work. They could not convince me to jump ship to not work for them. Im a super low volume agent and they’re recruiting because I managed to scrap together a couple sales in the drought but damned if anyone can provide me with leads.
Yea im working on that too, but businesses don’t turn profit over night, they take investment money, it’s risking your savings. Some of us came from business, and we got wiped out competing with private equity running their shop at a loss.
Not all businesses require investment money. Every business I had started with nearly nothing. My first business started with a legal, pad, a pen, a phone, and a list of potential clients, and a lot of cold calling. When you don’t have money to invest, you tend to have to substitute your own sweat and determination.
It means that your new business might not be in the field you want, or be as big as you want, etc. You may have to start with a smaller concept, and evolve into a bigger one. The guy who started Chipotle wanted to start a high-class restaurant, but couldn’t afford it, so he started a small burrito stand to make the money for the fancy restaurant, and it became such a hit, he never started his fancy restaurant.
Your goal should be success, not the field. I started off in the music biz, but that collapsed, and I eventually ended up in a business that I never thought I’d be in.
It’s hard for people to drop the expectations they’ve been carrying their entire lives, and view their career path in a different way. Use your imagination, work as hard for yourself as you would for any other employer, and you’ll do well.
My goal is money, enough to pay the bills, say $24,000 a year. Which business do I start oh wise one. I have about 20k capital and a 3 acre farm with production and I’m already Cold calling my dick off trying to find a customer who wants a product.
Again this reads like a shitty self help book written by a business guru. Please spare the world the bs. Provide an example of a business one can start and scale with limited capital in the north east USA. Who am I cold calling? I’m pretty sure you just wanna sound smart and don’t actually intend to be helpful.
People start businesses every day, and make them work. Most of them are started with very little capital. If you are determined to start a business, you will figure out how.
But MOST people won’t start businesses because they are just like you - they have determined that it is impossible, despite the evidence of countless small businesses all around you.
What business can you start? Figure it out. It depends on your strengths, weaknesses, experience, knowledge, connections, contacts, imaginations, etc. That’s your first big challenge in being self-employed. If you can’t, then you’re fated to be an employee all your life.
My first business was a consulting business, and it made me a full time living for 5 years, and a part time living for another 5. Unfortunately, it was in the record business, which was diminishing the entire time, until there just wasn’t any business left.
Fortunately, I had seen the writing the wall, and had started a completely different business in a different field, and as that ramped up, my consulting biz was wrapping up, and I made a smooth transition into something new.
The consulting business was started with NO capital, and the other business was started with less than $1000. The second biz has been operating, and making me a full time living, for 18 years.
Most small businesses are NOT exciting tech businesses with some amazing new innovative product that takes over the world. Most small businesses are boring little services like dog-walking, or bookkeeping, or landscaping, window washing, etc. You won’t get into Forbes magazine, but you can produce enough income to survive and even thrive. Then there are those businesses that are entirely online, and there are lots of people making decent part- and full- time livings.
I once knew a girl who was looking for money, so she took a job cleaning a condo for a real estate agent before selling it. She did a great job, and he gave another, and another. She called me because she had a job that needed a ladder, and wanted to borrow mine.
The real estate agent had as much business as she could do, so I told her she should find an assistant, and give her one job, while she does the other, and take a piece of the assistant’s money. Eventually, she could just do all the bookings, and have employees do the cleaning.
She was really excited about that, and was going to follow that plan. Then she took her earnings from her first few jobs, and went on a crack bender, and I never heard from her again.
There was a person who had a chance to create a real business for herself, and she squandered it on a distraction. Most people can’t start businesses, not because it’s impossible, but because they’ve got other things they’d rather spend their time on - drugs/ addictions, sports, videogames, TV, etc. Society offers us all sorts of soporifics to keep us from getting too motivated, and upsetting their carefully curated system. You have to resist those distractions.
Sorry if I’m not handing you a blueprint, but everybody’s situation is different. Whatever it is, I’m sure there is a way to make a living somehow, but nobody is going to hand it to you. Whining that you don’t have the money, or the ideas, is just lame. If you are going to be self-employed, you have to stop thinking and acting like an employee. A boss sees the problem, and figures it out, he doesn’t whine that it’s too hard, or someone needs to give them their ideas, etc.
And I’ll say it AGAIN - not everyone is cut out to be a business owner, and that’s okay. We can’t have entire society of bosses, we need employees, too.
But before I went an entire year without a job, I’d be starting SOMETHING to make money on my own.
Starting the business is why I’m searching for part time jobs, so I’m really speaking from a position of intimacy with my local market.
If I can’t find a good job to support starting my small business than how am I supposed to find a customer with disposable income?
Which leads us to catering to the K shaped people economy and my original complaint. We cannot run an economy that entirely exist to serve the needs of the rich. We need a strong middle class if we want strong small businesses. I am kind of concerned at why you are so keen on the old pull yourself up by the boot straps trope. It’s tired and needs to go to bed.
I get it, believe me, I’m selling to that economy, too, and this year is off to a very slow start. Economic indicators always lag, and by the summer, we’re going to be discovering that the Q1 2026 was really bad. Small businesspeople already know that.
But that’s not necessarily a bad thing. I started my business in September of 2007, and immediately got clobbered by the Bush economic crash. We powered through, figuring if we can survive this, we can survive anything. We did, and then we survived Covid. And here we are all these years later, trying to survive the current wave, which promises to be the worst yet, frankly.
If you don’t want to have to cater to rich, then you should focus on things people have to have, like it or not, and position yourself to help them with that. Maybe you know stuff in construction, and can help with permits, or you can clean businesses or houses, etc. People in my Mom’s neighborhood are always looking for a handyman. If there was someone who was reliable, the guy would be booked all day, every day.
If you’re artistic, you can make music, write a book, knit baby blankets, etc. It’s never been easier to get your art out there online where people might discover it, and buy it.
The one thing I wouldn’t do is get into a brick & mortar location, unless it is some kind of incredible deal, although I don’t know what that would be.
Stick with a vehicle or home based or online business. Overhead will kill you more than anything else.
Man I’ve been praying for the cannabis industry to churn out its weak hands, but I feel like the weak hands sitting on the sidelines. I know a lot of these places are propped up by investors and can afford to run at a loss, but they’ve been doing it for years now. I tucked tail and ran when the margins compressed enough to make me worry about overhead. they held right through negative margins.
I agree there’s nothing better than a nice economic crisis to open up opportunities. I don’t think those opportunities are as lucrative now with liquidity behind big investors. I’ve lost a lot of faith in the system over the past few years. It’s sounds like you’re a small business person so you already know the drill. We’re going to operate a business for the love of the game. We’re not playing a fair game right now. It feels like fighting for scraps with the odds stacked against you. More than the usual amount lol.
The overhead killed me in the cannabis industry so I’m allergic to it. Having limited means of cost control was the death blow. I’d agree brick and mortar is on its death bed. I sold a large portfolio of light industrial/commercial mixed properties for pennies on the dollar a while back. Do not regret that at all. I’m in no danger of running out of money in the near term. I can be picky about taking jobs, and I am. But I still apply and interview for just about everything I can and its really just grim out there. I’ve got a decent resume. I’ll have my business up and running again eventually, but I still won’t feel good about the economy we’re leaving for the next generations. Some poor kid out of college shouldn’t have to compete with me undercutting him on the way to underpaid entry level work.
Between me and you I sold a Tesla put spread this week, $1400 risk, $400 reward which is more money than I can make actually working. Risking $1400 on Tesla puts should not be more lucrative than 20 hours of labor. It’s not a good economic system.
I guess you’re confusing me having a job and running a business, and my actual complaint which is I make no money. I offer many services to the public. I have many products to sell. I don’t think I ever said starting a business was impossible and give up. I just said it takes more drive to start a business because there is more resistance, more competition, and less disposable income. Like I said I’m a realtor so if there was any money being made in construction or real estate, I would be having my share of it. My last client got her development project turns down by four different towns. For a duplex with a shared garage in the middle. For her and her son. Half $1 million budget couldn’t get anyone to move on it. All the land sold by the time code enforcement told me to fuck off
that is so ridulous. taking time away from job searching to what. make youtube videos? yeah just go star a business that makes more than it costs to a level that its a long term option. or maybe just learn to code or any of the other inane offhand, low effort advice people like to give. I mean I assume your motivated from the best of intent but go start your own business is so. ugh.
How is it ridiculous? MANY people are self-employed. Sure, there’s daily stress, but I was under daily stress in my corporate life, too. At least my future and my fate is in MY own hands, and not being decided by the whims of some Sociopathic corporation that despises me, and is constantly looking for ANY excuse to replace me with anything cheaper.
Besides, I can’t think of ANYTHING more stressful than long-term unemployment. If I’ve been applying for jobs for months, with no response, I would try a different strategy. What have you got to lose?
And even if you do find a job, having a side hustle that actually makes money keeps your employer from being able to exploit you too badly, because you know that you aren’t 100% reliant on their Sociopathic policies.
But if you don’t get it, that’s okay. Not everybody can be a business owner, which is a LOT different from just being a boss. We need workers, too, and some people can’t see themselves as anything but an employee.
you hit the nail on the head. its not so easy and it takes a lot of time and much like a lot of things you need some talent in the area. I could go get phlubotomy training but I can’t stand needles and blood. I mean its not quite as bad as just go get a phd but basically you have to realize the average person and even exceptional people have a limited set of options that fit their background, training, and general talents. Well why not just become a professional sports guy. They make lots. or go become a famous actor.
Sure, choose ludicrous options to try to disprove my point. Nobody is expecting you to go out and become a professional athlete or artist, and to pretend that those are the ONLY options is disingenuous.
I used to be in the music business, a career I planned for, and tailored my entire education toward since middle school. After a couple of decades in it, the entire business collapsed, and millions of people lost their jobs, including me.
I tried a few other things, mostly sales jobs, and finally decided to start my own thing. That was 18 years ago, and it was the best decision of my life.
This is looking like the toughest year, due to MAGA screwing up the economy so badly (the indicators lag by a few months, but in a quarter, it will be apparent how badly the economy has slipped. Small business owners are already feeling it, including me). So I’m not sitting around whining about it, I’ve already started a few other initiatives to generate some money, including an online business. I have confidence that my regular business will survive this, but it will be good to have alternative sources of revenue, and when the economy recovers, I’ll have those side strategies boosting my income, which is always nice.
You have skills, and they are transferrable to other businesses. My music education and experience didn’t help my current business, so I developed the skills I did have - sales, negotiating, improvisation, quick thinking, etc. - and applied those.
You’re what Small Businesspeople call a Dreamstealer. You’re fishing for excuses, but if you don’t think you have what it takes to work for yourself, that’s fine, but don’t try to make it sound like I’m wrong for encouraging people to follow their dream, and Hire Themselves.
your treating running a business like its not a skill unto itself. people are better and worse at that. just look at the trust fund babies who burn down companies. its not a dream stealer to be rational about your own capabilities and what is most effective to do time vs result wise. building a successful business is way harder than all ludicrous options I gave. business is not this skill that is natural to the whole human population.
There are an infinite variety of businesses, they aren’t all the same. Uneducated immigrants come to this country without speaking the language, and start successful businesses every day.
The basics of business are easy. Business management is one of those college degrees that kids with no other skills get, like communications. At its core, business is just fairly simple math, with lots of percentages and what not. I’m pretty dumb about that stuff, and I managed to start my first business with no money, a legal pad, a pen, and a list of potential clients. Then I started cold-calling. Don’t know how to do that? Neither did I. You learn by doing.
Eventually, you can get into the advanced stuff like funding, going public, and selling your business, but most people just have a small business large enough to support their family, and they only have to worry about costs, expenses, and profit. Learn to balance those, and you’ll have a business.
Or you can keep convincing yourself that you can’t do it, and you will be 100% correct. Those that succeed don’t listen to that nonsense.
You can literally say this about everything. There are examples of undeducated people becoming superstars. Also if you look you will see many people from other countries who own businesses are not undeducated and many came with a nice chunk of money they started the business with. You have to make calls. Every hour trying to get a business off the ground is time your not looking for work. You call yourself dumb but its possible. Just possible. You have a knack for it but did not realize until you did it. You know most people in my age and my field went into management but I did not. Why. Because of my natural ability and inclinations or lack there of. Although also partially because the generation before held on far to long and by the time it came my way I pointed to the next generation who have the time to make a career out of it. Look im one of those people who think people know things the same as they but ironically I had to learn that is not the case and it just so happens one of my inclinations is education where that has good feedback to work against that particular inclination I have. Think about this. Can 100% of the total population run a business. Would a society work out that way. I would say no. My initial reply was basically. You can’t just tell someone to go start a business or go learn to code or do whatever thing someone thinks anyone can just go do.