Help! Need advice.

[EssexLawnscapes]

Hello, I recently decided to make a lawn care/landscaping business, where I would start out with lawn care, and build up to the landscaping, after capital is obtained.

Well, here is my dilemma, and where I need advice. I have a job right now, merely a part time, kind of crappy one that allows me to save, but not much.
I have enough cash to buy a trailer, and I have a tow vehicle already. But I would need to get loans or a credit card or just finance the mower, trimmer, etc to be able to open up my business like I intended.

But would it be better to just quit the part time job/keep it and get a part/full time job IN the field of lawn care? Obviously I wouldn't be operating under my own business name, but I would be learning, and gaining money/experience I can use towards my goal..

If the info helps at all, I'm in the middle of Florida, between Ocala and Orlando. Would the business potential be great enough to just skip over the part time job I would get worked for someone, and be worth it to start the business up immediately?

[wildstarblazer]

Starting a lawn biz takes years. It won't pay the bills the first year or so, unless you have no rent etc...and don't need to make a lot of money.
Stay with the part time job and do it on weekends or after work.

[hurrikanelandscaping]

I agree with wildstarblazer. keep the part time job for constant income. put all the money you earn towards buying new equipent, paying your bills you need to, and financing a mower. probably wont make any money starting out, but after the first year you will become very profitable, just gotta stay with it.

[-=Shaw=-]

I only have life experience, nothing in the landscaping/lawn care field - but I'm working my way into it. I've been researching for two months just to get the point where I felt comfortable taking the first steps towards opening my own business, so I've done a lot of reading. Just wanted to list a few things that might summarize some of what I've learned about getting started (and relate to your question):

-Don't try to grow faster than the business dictates. I spoke with a guy in my hometown who has been in the business 10 years - he got started with a push mower that he had to cart around in the trunk of his two seat compact car (with the trunk door open). Another guy said, "If you have a job that you need a specific piece of equipment - rent it... when you reach the point that you need it so often that you are renting it once a week - buy it."

-The other thing I noticed is unless you know someone in the business - very few companies wanna hire someone who just wants to gain experience so they can open their own business (and eventually compete with them). You may get lucky though. If you can meet someone who is running a one man company, and ask him to tag along a few of your off days - you'll learn more than you realize (not to mention you'll find out if you actually LIKE lawn care).

-If you do find a company willing to take you on - be aware that they might ask you to sign a no-compete clause... if you're not familiar with what it us, it's a legal document where you basically promise to not start a company in their industry for a particular amount of time... understand that breaking it could cost you everything you own.

Just a few points that come to mind... good luck to you!

[Dr.NewEarth]

Apply for credit at Home Depot.

[GreyFlames]

Start small and test the waters. Keep your job and work on the new business with all your other time.

If possible avoid buying that trailer and work out of the back of your pickup until you have a handful of customers and can justify it with the time you will save.

From the very beginning keep track of how people calling or filling our a form on your website have heard about you. This way you can measure the effectiveness of your marketing efforts and double down on the ones that are working.

Take it slow and learn from small trials and errors.

Best of luck.