Starting a new business

I have been reading this forum for about a week now. I am 16 and I am trying to start a commercial lawn business contained in my neighborhood in Northern Ohio. I want to use the mower to go from house to house. I need to know where to start. When do I start advertising?How? What mower should I buy? I could use any helpful comments, so feel free to give them.

 

Mowing way before I was 16 I started mowing here in fl. If you are just going to mow around the neighborhood go out and buy a 21" walk behind or push mower for around a 100 dollars, blower, and weedeater. Then once you start getting some accounts you could move up to a cheap riding mower. Then if you are still in it you start buying better equipment. I wouldn't worry with licenses or insurance or anything like that until I was 18.

 

How much money do you have to start with?

 

if you have enough money to advertize then i would try to advertize in the local newspaper and a val pack. Flyers are good depending on the area. But if you want to go house to house with a mower then snakes advice is right on.<br>

 

Are val packs worth it in high residential areaa? I would figure most people like this would just throw it away before opening.

 

Thanks everyone for your replys. I have been mowing lawns w/ a 21&quot; for 4 years now. And I and hopeing I can make the jump up to commercial and get 20-25 customers this year. My friend in a different neighborhood did this and ended up with an Exmark Lazer Z 48&quot;, and 45 customers in his neighborhood. I don't think that I could just use a push mower on 20 lawns. That wouldn't be very practical, would it? By the way I am starting out w/ $1200 from savings from last season.<p>

 

Thanks everyone for your replys. I have been mowing lawns w/ a 21&quot; for 4 years now. And I and hopeing I can make the jump up to commercial and get 20-25 customers this year. My friend in a different neighborhood did this and ended up with an Exmark Lazer Z 48&quot;, and 45 customers in his neighborhood. I don't think that I could just use a push mower on 20 lawns. That wouldn't be very practical, would it?<br>

 

Find a good used walkbehind and get a velke. I dont like them for mowwing because of the added lines they leave but for going job to job it would save you time. Also since your tring to stay in a smaller are flyer. Valupaks and so work but they are to far spread. Print up some flyer or have some printed and put them on doors NOW. With a walkbehind you can put the string trimmer and blower on the deck when going job to job. Or like I seen a couple kids do around here they took a small garden tractor cart and made a bracket to hook it up to the mowwer and built rakes for the trimmer blower edger and so forth then stand in the cart and go lawn to lawn. BEST OF LUCK TO YOU

 

Dingo, <br>i dont know if it is worth it but val pack in my area costs $320 for 10,000 mailings and if firgure at lest 10 people should call back. Whether its worth it or not i dont know but its a start.

 

Hey everybody, I don't want to sound stupid but what exactly are &quot;Valupacs&quot; or &quot;Val pacs&quot;???<br>I haven't every heard that term.