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.
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.
Valid
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