limbwalker54
ArboristSite Operative
Well guys, I'm here asking for some business/life advice.
I started a landscape company when I was eight years old, and about 7 years ago, I began having an interest in arboriculture. I went through a failed partnership in which i lost a lot of clientele to the other guy, and was too proud to take it back when he offered it to me.
Thinking I could get the same amount of business we had prior to the partnership, I financed too much new equipment and got screwed on a finance deal on a truck.
This came to a head this year with the loss of about 20k on a landscape job gone wrong. All issues were resolved but the money was still lost.
I have been developing the company into a tree and landscape service, since I was 16, and I am learning everything i can from a certified arborist friend of mine who is my teacher, and trusted advisor.
With the amount of debt I am in, I took another job recently to try to get myself out of debt. I recently got married (very happily). The job I took is, however, great money, but its not what I want to do in life. Its just a temporary income source to help myself get straightened out. I am an outside process operator at a well known oil refinery. I much rather would be out climbing trees in the fresh air doing what I love. I want to convert my company to a full service tree and on the landscape end, a design-build firm. I have education in mechanical enginneering as well as horticulture and landscape architecture.
My question, after all of this rant and rave, is : When others in your life told you "you should stay at a good paying job" vs. the risk of owning your own business....did you feel afraid? I feel like I want to tell them that I really can do what i'm going to do....that is build a quality tree and landscape company that provides my wife and I, and future children (much much later....) with a good source of income and a sense of personal satisfaction you can't get anywhere else..... Those that havent had their own business just don't seem to understand how great it feels to do what you love and be your own boss...
I feel like I understood this early on. I am only 23, and I feel like if I use this other job for a while, get back on my feet, and get back into it, that its a god plan and i shouldn't feel bad about it. How did you guys fend off the people who may have been close to you but almost wanted you to fail?
-Michael J. Platt
I started a landscape company when I was eight years old, and about 7 years ago, I began having an interest in arboriculture. I went through a failed partnership in which i lost a lot of clientele to the other guy, and was too proud to take it back when he offered it to me.
Thinking I could get the same amount of business we had prior to the partnership, I financed too much new equipment and got screwed on a finance deal on a truck.
This came to a head this year with the loss of about 20k on a landscape job gone wrong. All issues were resolved but the money was still lost.
I have been developing the company into a tree and landscape service, since I was 16, and I am learning everything i can from a certified arborist friend of mine who is my teacher, and trusted advisor.
With the amount of debt I am in, I took another job recently to try to get myself out of debt. I recently got married (very happily). The job I took is, however, great money, but its not what I want to do in life. Its just a temporary income source to help myself get straightened out. I am an outside process operator at a well known oil refinery. I much rather would be out climbing trees in the fresh air doing what I love. I want to convert my company to a full service tree and on the landscape end, a design-build firm. I have education in mechanical enginneering as well as horticulture and landscape architecture.
My question, after all of this rant and rave, is : When others in your life told you "you should stay at a good paying job" vs. the risk of owning your own business....did you feel afraid? I feel like I want to tell them that I really can do what i'm going to do....that is build a quality tree and landscape company that provides my wife and I, and future children (much much later....) with a good source of income and a sense of personal satisfaction you can't get anywhere else..... Those that havent had their own business just don't seem to understand how great it feels to do what you love and be your own boss...
I feel like I understood this early on. I am only 23, and I feel like if I use this other job for a while, get back on my feet, and get back into it, that its a god plan and i shouldn't feel bad about it. How did you guys fend off the people who may have been close to you but almost wanted you to fail?
-Michael J. Platt