Forum Moderators: buckworks
[edited by: DaveAtIFG at 3:55 pm (utc) on Sep. 2, 2004]
Just because a franchised sandwich shop (for example) is still in business 5 or 10 years later doesn't mean the business is successful. Often the shop is run by a string of hapless overworked immigrant families. The franchisor keeps reselling it and pocketing a large initial franchise fee each time.
One linked article said 93% of franchises are successful. That's ridiculous!
Heck, franchisors themselves are rarely around more than a few years. There are about 3,000 franchisors around at any given time. And 95% of them will be gone in 5 years, I'd guess.
Franchisee failures often result in personal bankruptcy because they are pressured to borrow heavily. OTOH, female-run home businesses are usually very conservative.
heh..
It is extremly hard to work 45+Hours and try to run a home business or even get one started at that.
Yes, it's hard. The hardest thing I've ever done. I spent the last 5 years at a startup internet company that went public and made it. Still around today bigger than ever. I would spend 60-70 hours a week there, sometimes more, and yet I still found time between that and two young kids at home to build the business. Over the past 5 years I typically only slept 4-5 hours a night and my wife has often wondered how I ever sit at a computer that long or would come upstairs at 3:00 am to ask if I was coming to bed. I've fallen asleep in my chair and woke up to thousands of k's or f's going across the screen. (how many of us have done that?)
Yes, having the business open 24/7/365 is absolutely one of the best feelings I've ever had. There's nothing like fishing with my 2 boys and knowing your making money at the same time! The only problem with that is now your job is 24/7/365 too. Actually, it's more like 25/8/367. Everyone always says "Must be nice to own your own business?" Nice, yes, Work, 10x's the work! If you approach it like you will never see daylight again, you might make it. Statistics show only 1 in 10 new businesses succeed. I wonder if that's because only 10% of the population are willing to work that hard. ;)
Failure is only failure if you quit. Find a successful business model and don't ever give up! Now that I've survived the day job AND night job, I'm sure the next 5 years are going to be more of a challenge than the past 5.
Good luck and stay optimistic. You can get there. I'm sure my story is one of many like it around this forum.
youll make terrible descisions based on wanting to please them rather than whats best for the company.
I agree about the relative, however, I have a situation where the friend is my partner. We met through mutual friends, I did some Y2K work for his business and proposed a partnership and off we went.
Now the catch. He doesn't know a thing about computers and I didn't know much about what he sold, just the common knowledge. He runs daily operations and inventory ordering. I provide IT, reports to support ordering, online advertising and anything else to do with the computer. He does his job, I do mine and we rarely question each other's judgement when it comes to their respective area. It's been a nice partnership, so far. I think there are alot of opportunities like this out there where someone has something to sell and only sells in their stores. Find those people and get them on the web. I'm in the middle of starting another one with another acquaintance now.
I always kid him by telling the story to friends:
We met and he didn't know anything about computers, I didn't know anything about blue and green widgets. The only thing that has changed in our relationship after 5 years is I now know a little bit about blue and green widgets :)
