Business owners

[Swamp Fox]

You seem to be hung up on the difference between doing "the work" yourself and having other people do it for you.

This is not the distinction between owning a business and owning your work, no matter what some self-promoting weenie on the internet says ....

I dare say no small-to-medium business is perpetually self-sustaining, yet this is what your link seems to offer as the dividing line .... while at the same time stressing constant owner oversight---

Nonsense.

 

[rentalrunner22]

Mining and refining consultant focused around reliability.

 

[grfox92]

I met an out of state hunter last weekend and we hit it off and talked for a while. I asked him if he was on Rokslide and he said he used to be, but there is too much bickering and he doesn't visit very often for that reason.

Here we are. Someone arguing that people who own their own business don't actually have a business. Pretty silly honestly.

Owning my pretend business allows me to work as much or as little as I want. I hunt as much as I want during hunting season and answer to no one. My kids have some type of event at school, I go to it. Even if it's 11am. My wife has an appointment, I go home and watch the kids until she's done. I pay no income tax and get money back at the end of the year. I have no employees and don't have to worry about making payroll for anyone but myself.

That "Job" doesn't look anything like any of the jobs my friends have who only hunt on the weekends, have a supervisor, a boss, an HR department, limited time off ect.

I'll take the "Job" that I "own" any day over the latter.

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[Beendare]

Funny discussion.

Anyone with a lot of employees knows….they are your number one PITA.

Employees make or break you…its a constant effort to find the good ones.

 

[Jbogg]

I’ve have been a one man show in the past, and currently have a business with around 35 employees. It was much more fun when we could hire staff. Ever since Covid it seems like a lot of folks don’t need to work. I’m a little jealous of a couple of hunting buddies who have sole proprietorships. One has a pool maintenance company, and the other a tree removal service. They both work hard, but dial it way back in the fall and spend weeks at a time in the woods.

I did realize at one point that if a business was 100% reliant on my participation that it would not have much value to someone else. My goal was to grow it to the point where I could build equity, step away from it, and have something to sell eventually.

 

[Red Letters]

I breezed over a few of the comments at the beginning of this thread.
To me owning a business means it would function, operate and make money without you being there and or you could duplicate it in another location.
Self employed is where most contractor types fit including myself, not that you necessarily do the work yourself. I’m a general contractor but the wheels fall off if I’m not there to baby sit on a regular basis. And it isn’t getting any easier.

 

[Mt Al]

I've never owned a business, so I'm clearly an expert in this discussion. However, I've consulted with sole proprietorships and larger operations with a few hundred people. May not have seen it "all", but have seen quite a spectrum.

IMHO, the distinction doesn't matter as long as the 'owner' is doing what they want to do for whatever reason they want. Worked with a one-man taxidermist who worked out of his garage and made sick amounts of money, fired idiot customers all the time, made his own schedule, wrote off pretty much every aspect of his life and did anything he wanted. Also worked with larger companies with low profit, high debt, terrible financial ratios where the company owned the owner. Vice versa, too: one person operation with zero profit and no future and larger companies that cash flowed and sold for high dollars.

Who the F cares as long as the person's meeting their own goals?

 

[AKDoc]

I've never owned a business, so I'm clearly an expert in this discussion. However, I've consulted with sole proprietorships and larger operations with a few hundred people. May not have seen it "all", but have seen quite a spectrum.

IMHO, the distinction doesn't matter as long as the 'owner' is doing what they want to do for whatever reason they want. Worked with a one-man taxidermist who worked out of his garage and made sick amounts of money, fired idiot customers all the time, made his own schedule, wrote off pretty much every aspect of his life and did anything he wanted. Also worked with larger companies with low profit, high debt, terrible financial ratios where the company owned the owner. Vice versa, too: one person operation with zero profit and no future and larger companies that cash flowed and sold for high dollars.

Who the F cares as long as the person's meeting their own goals?

That is extremely well said sir...especially your conclusion sentence.

 

[hunterjmj]

Have a small commercial refrigeration company. It's new but it's been going well. I've done the work most of my life but the business side is new to me but it's a fun challenge. We pay a bookkeeper to help with the paperwork side of things. So far I'm wishing I would have done this a long time ago.

 

[Marshfly]

I breezed over a few of the comments at the beginning of this thread.
To me owning a business means it would function, operate and make money without you being there and or you could duplicate it in another location.
Self employed is where most contractor types fit including myself, not that you necessarily do the work yourself. I’m a general contractor but the wheels fall off if I’m not there to baby sit on a regular basis. And it isn’t getting any easier.

This is the distinction.
If you take off for a week or two vacation and the entity continues to make money while you are absent, with only occasional management and guidance from you in your absence you have a business. If the income stops, you do not. Pretty simple. I have friends that are physicians and attorneys with independent practices/firms. They do not make money when on vacation. That is a job with support staff. Not really a business. I call that a practice or firm. Think contracting firm. Architecture firm. Nothing wrong with that but the distinction is absolutely there. Businesses are sellable for the goodwill, reputation, etc. and not only the customer list.

My wife and I own a marketing firm and multiple local publications in a town across the country from where we live. Max of 25 employees before covid. That "business" is becoming less so due to not being able to recruit solid people to maintain the hands off aspect of it. My wife is working more than ever and it is slowly becoming way more "job" than directing the business.
As said above hiring people that are skilled and willing to work has become all but impossible, at least in that market. I am building a trading income that will soon surpass and rocket away from anything we have ever made in our business (which is not a small amount) with zero employees and zero customers. Literally my dream situation.

I like what Mt AI said above. Make sure your goals are being met and ignore the rest. My wife's and my goals are directing our income and not having a job per se. If you get pleasure from the doing, do that and do it well. I get pleasure and fulfillment from the directing.

 

[banded_drake]

I started an agricultural drone spraying business last year. It's a side business for me aside from my full time job as a firefighter, and yes I do a lot of the work myself along with a couple employees.

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[Delta21]

This is the distinction.
If you take off for a week or two vacation and the entity continues to make money while you are absent, with only occasional management and guidance from you in your absence you have a business. If the income stops, you do not. Pretty simple. I have friends that are physicians and attorneys with independent practices/firms. They do not make money when on vacation. That is a job with support staff. Not really a business. I call that a practice or firm. Think contracting firm. Architecture firm. Nothing wrong with that but the distinction is absolutely there. Businesses are sellable for the goodwill, reputation, etc. and not only the customer list.

My wife and I own a marketing firm and multiple local publications in a town across the country from where we live. Max of 25 employees before covid. That "business" is becoming less so due to not being able to recruit solid people to maintain the hands off aspect of it. My wife is working more than ever and it is slowly becoming way more "job" than directing the business.
As said above hiring people that are skilled and willing to work has become all but impossible, at least in that market. I am building a trading income that will soon surpass and rocket away from anything we have ever made in our business (which is not a small amount) with zero employees and zero customers. Literally my dream situation.

I like what Mt AI said above. Make sure your goals are being met and ignore the rest. My wife's and my goals are directing our income and not having a job per se. If you get pleasure from the doing, do that and do it well. I get pleasure and fulfillment from the directing.

Would you care to elaborate on your trading business you are talking about?

 

[Marshfly]

Would you care to elaborate on your trading business you are talking about?

I've detailed a ton in the Rockslide Stock Traders thread.

But to give a quick summary, I day trade my personal money and run that just as I would a business with proper risk management, reinvestment of profits, etc. I use automation to place 100% of trades and the management runs independently of me. It's as hands off as it gets. It took a ton of time, trial and error, and learning to get here but it was definitely worth the thousands of hours put into learning.

Currently 100% of profits are reinvested in the trading "business" to grow the account but when we get out of our marketing business in about a year this will become our sole income. It could absolutely support our lifestyle today but why not dip into profits if I don't have to?

 

[recurveman]

Sold my fire protection business in 2021 at the age of 50. Will never need to work again. Last year in business I took 12 weeks off and my business flourished while I was gone. A lot of business owners own their own job. It works for them because of the flexibility. For me a business was a vehicle to create an income stream that an investor would like to purchase so I could no longer work (unless I want too. Which I currently don’t want too). Depends on what you want but I believe if more owners understood how to create a business that is valued by investors they would work hard to create that business. It really isn’t difficult once you understand the concept.

I might do it again once my noncompete is over. It’s just to easy to create a business that is worth life changing money.

Chad

 

[Collin68]

Commercial meat processing. Slaughter, processing, curing, smoking, jerky, and specialty sausages. Used to have a taxidermy business as well tied to it but I don’t do that anymore.

I would love to get into this

 

[Marshfly]

I would love to get into this

There is a very busy existing processing business in Missoula that is currently looking for a new owner. The owner died and his wife has been running it and she is ready to retire.

Another Decades-Old Missoula Business Will Be Closing Its Doors

Sadly, just not a lot of this kind of business around anymore.

kyssfm.com

 

[t_carlson]

Law firm.

 

[flatlanderhuffandpuff]

Precision CNC machining shop.

 

[YellCoAR]

I own a small software company. Some of you may have heard of it Microsoft

 

[butcherboy]

I wouldn’t recommend getting into the commercial meat processing business. It’s really really tough work. You have to slaughter and process a lot of animals to make any kind of decent money. That comes with dealing with employees and the work force for this kind of work is not so great. It helps to be USDA or State inspected. If you bought one then make sure it has a good customer base and good employees that will stay with the company. I would much rather just make specialty sausages, jerky, and smoked meat products to sell instead of slaughter and processing.