Hi Bryan!
First off, sorry to hear you have to delay the trip. Been there myself recently.
This is long, but I was struck by your question. Disclaimer: I am not a small business consultant. I'm a fairly together, college-educated guy who lucked into a career path that created odd opportunities. I'm not qualified to give advice on a professional basis. This is just two guys talking. Fair? Rule number one, a lot of it is luck. But rule number two, you can create anything, including the luck.
I never wanted my own business, but it just kept trying to happen. I'll give you a background, then my rules for survival. I've evolved from a business education, a sales engineer background, and a fascination over the years with computers. At my last sales oriented job, as a VP of Sales for a mighty small company that programmed MRP accounting systems for the food service industry, I started to get more "hands on" with my computer knowledge, in an effort to "lead by example" in getting the salesmen to educate themselves. I got my Microsoft CNE, climbed elbows deep into Access, and slowly visited every faction of the business hands on, doing everything from building custom-Linux systems from the ground up (used for Internet servers in wide area networks, very stable!) to the intricacies of fine-tuning specialized accounting functions (relatively as exciting as bowling on TV -- all due respect to bowling fans).
Over those years, I kept trying to go into my own business when I found a "nifty, neat, new idea," always failing (four times, I think) due to failure to execute on several factors, outlined below.
A friend had a small business (750k gross sales per year) publishing magazines in a technical industry. He bemoaned the lack of subscription-based software that was reasonably-priced, and that both reasonably-priced software and even obnoxiously-priced-software couldn't overcome the strange needs he had (figuring out international postage on a small scale while spending as little as possible is a pain). To flex my new programming muscles, I offered to put him a beta program together for free. It took about 30 hours. I estimated finishing it to spec would take another fifty and I asked him what it was worth. He said "ten grand, easy." "Hmmmmmmm," says I.
Rest assured, they aren't all like that. But it whets your chops. I sold him the program. Within a month, publishers from the Asian market were literally calling me at all hours of the night (of course, our night is their day). It took a year of developing a business plan and continuing to work a 50 hour per week "desk job" while spending even more time on startup (and it took a supportive, patient spouse, albeit a greedy one), but in 1998, I kissed my boss goodbye.
How I succeeded (I think):
The basics.
1) 4 out of 5 startups will fail. Don't lose site of that. Realistic expectations make the business. If you fail, and crumble when you do so, you'll never try again. And over half of the 1 out of 5 that make it are trying for the second time. Don't be afraid of failure. Try to avoid it, of course. But don't fear it. If you don't let it kill you, metaphorically speaking, it WILL make you stronger.
2) Have a business plan. No one accidently succeeds or makes a mint. Example: if I'd have quit my job the day after I sold that program, I would have failed. That money was desperately needed for startup costs, I still had to pay mortgage while getting ramped up, and it took me nine months to make another dime. Due to my cushy lifestyle, the eventual lack of cash would have caused me to throw in the towel, or do something extremely dumb like make house payments with credit cards (don't have the figures, but credit cards and business loans in the wrong hands can kill a small business).
Your business plan should include some very basic things: What am I going to do? Who will pay me to do it? How will I make money? How much money do I have? How long will that money last? What will it take to succeed in this business I'm trying? With whom (and what) will I have to compete? Do I know what I need to know to be a success? And do I have the strength (emotional and physical) as well as the knowledge to be an entrepreneur?
Robert Sullivan, my guru (writes great books on small startup) believes there are many reasons small businesses fail, but most are simply subsets of three basic shortages. They are:
Lack of Entrepreneurial Qualities
Lack of Information
Lack of Planning
So do an honest checklist of your business skills; gather a pile of information; and then plan.
3) Find an idea that's going to survive, yet is at the same time unique. In my case, I can continue to do custom programming for probably some time to come. I don't know how long this current window will be open. In your case, the "unique" that may be there would be mobile service. Know that every small repair shop makes house calls. Can you run a business where you're able to "snap to," yet still have enough business to keep afloat?
4) Do something that makes a large profit, obnoxious if possible. In your case, if you're to make it work, you may need to work on a business plan that has you billable only 30 hours per week. Because if you start billing 40-50 hours per week, then you're too busy to offer quick service. Therefore, your billing rates must reflect, on a less-than-40 hours per week schedule, a comfortable profit. And there must be enough business to warrant charging such rates. And understand two basic principles of earning in this scenario. There are two ways to make money. Either do something for which you can charge such an obnoxious rate that you can live comfortably, or choose a field where down the line, you can hire others, charge a rate about four times what you're paying them (that's industry standard), so your job is "running the business" and, when need be, filling in.
5)Prepare to work your tush off. Normal folk work 40 to 45 hours per week. Executives are more like 55-60. In the waking hours of my "small business," it was not uncommon for me to see 100 hour weeks. I don't do that now, and I don't claim it was a five year long thing, but that's what it took at first, because in a technology field, you've not only got to do your startup period, but you've got to constantly keep up with technology, which is a part time job all its own. And don't forget you have to sell, and selling is something that while it will pay off in the long run, at the time it does nothing but cost time.
And "weekends" will have to, for a while, be a distant memory, like high school. You remember them fondly, but you don't have time for them anymore.
6) Diversify within your field. Obviously, if you want to be a computer repair shop, you don't also sell ice cream out of the front as a backup. But you do figure out six or seven things a computer repair shop can do, and do more than one of them. I break this rule (only one I break mind you) because I am so specialized at this point. I could ultimately be SOL if people actually start doing everything online and quit mailing magazines and technincal journals. I'm banking that they don't. But I keep taking updated programming courses in case I need to re-enter "the real world" at any point.
But the best example I can give you of doing it right is several of the publishers that contract me. They're all technically-based and have specialties, but they're constantly coming up with a new magazine, because if one market comes crashing down and no one buys the magazine, then they lose the ad revenues that drive their market. So they're constantly coming up with a new magazine in an emerging field within their genre. Make sense?
7) Seek some professional help. Talk to your local Chamber of Commerce, local business schools, etc. There are small business classes. Listening to some 25 year old with perfect hair talk about how he made a million in real estate isn't what I'm talking about. I'm talking about what forms to file, how to cover your butt on contracts, how to handle your taxes and what status will reap the best benefits, etc. For the record, I'm an S-Corp, but I won't go deeper than that. Woe is the jerk that gives tax advice to a stranger on a WDW planning board.
8) Think, look, and walk proud. If you're going to do this thing, win-lose-or-draw have fun. When you're relaxed and ready to go, you feel better, you look better, you live longer. And you project that image to the public with which you're trying to do business. Ability to deliver is priority number one. But being able to convince people before the fact that you can do so is priority number two, for sure.
I hope that all helps. That's just some random musing from a disjoint business owner who's mind is more on his pending fatherhood than finishing this WAN patch. Serious, this is fun when it works, and amazingly, this is still a country where a person can, with proper planning, put themselves in a situation where if they work their can off, they'll see results.
Good luck!
