JIM (OP) replied with this 3 years ago, 1 minute later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,198,233
@1,198,227 (Kook !!rcSrAtaAC)
My father had a very scalable and profitable (ie franchisable) original branded business that he did part-time for years before going full time during the pandemic. It failed because he was a first time business owner with no knowledge of how businesses operate and are structured. I quit my job around the time he went full time and started helping him. I did all of his social media marketing for him, and it proved to be effective, as our sales nearly tripled when I started working for him. My only semblance of a business background was my management of a gas station in my early 20s; no formal education or anything, just research I did on my own, and I took on the task of shittily keeping his books for him and trying to track everything that I could.
I'm going back to school and learning everything I can learn about business and how it operates. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur, but I find that it's hard to find actually good resources online and so I decided that the best way for me to become an entrepreneur is to go to school, study business, and come out hungry on the other side. And brother, I'm hungry.
We've talked in length about reviving the business. It's all about finding a location, gaining the capital, and going through with it. I 100% believe that we can open one successful location. I'm only a little bit less convinced that we can franchise our concept out to others and scale the business to be a fairly decent-sized regional chain.
JIM (OP) replied with this 3 years ago, 31 minutes later, 3 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,198,239
@previous (Kook !!rcSrAtaAC)
The business is only part-time right now. When it's on, it's on. Very popular and we make a lot of sales every time we work.
> My father had a very scalable and profitable (ie franchisable) original branded business that he did part-time for years before going full time during the pandemic. It failed because he was a first time business owner with no knowledge of how businesses operate and are structured.
Was it going good and he accidentally fucked it up somehow? The pandemic fucked up a lot of established businesses run by people who did know what they were doing.
If it's any consolation Henry Ford's first foray into car manufacturing (the Detroit Automobile Company) went tits-up and his second car company (the Henry Ford Company - funny enough the remains of that company eventually became Cadillac) also failed in less than a year. The third one (Ford Motor Company) did finally catch on.
Fords are shit. Henry Ford got rich off the work of the Dodge brothers, before they the told him to fuck himself and started producing their own automobiles.
I think you have to have the Ford mindset to enjoy them though. You have to enjoy learning things like troubleshooting and which noises and warning lights you can safely ignore and which ones mean you need to get the car off the road RIGHT FUCKING NOW.
JIM (OP) replied with this 3 years ago, 7 minutes later, 8 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,198,318
@1,198,305 (Meta !Sober//iZs)
He just didn't really know what he was doing and it took off faster than expected. We didn't really hire any accountants or anything, he did all his taxes himself with no knowledge of taxes other than his own personal income tax over the years (always used TurboTax), we didn't even have the proper facility to be running the business we were running. It expanded so fast and he couldn't keep up with it, aka he couldn't keep up with the negligence. He would often mix personal and business finances, which made my job a little bit more difficult. Didn't really hold onto receipts and invoices unless I absolutely forced him to. Just irritating stuff.
To answer your question about was it going good: I think it was absolutely going good. We were doing solid numbers and had a lot of potential for more growth. I think the pandemic helped us in a weird way, because it hurt a lot of our competition and they came to us instead, as we weren't affected by the pandemic because of a certain reason.
Meta !Sober//iZs replied with this 3 years ago, 34 minutes later, 9 hours after the original post[^][v]#1,198,320
@1,198,317 (H)
I'm naturally aspirated baby. 1.6L Ti-VCT Sigma engine. No direct injection either so none of that carbon buildup bullshit on the intake valves.