Less than $15k seems questionable. He has a van to carry the supplies around. Sure, you can lease or borrow, but there's $5k (for a used beater) to $20k (for a new Transit Connect cargo). Two commercial buffers at $1000/each (less used). Good shoes, heavy duty work clothes, another couple hundred. It adds up pretty quick.

Then you add insurance. No idea what that costs, but between risk of injury and liability, it's probably not pennies.

Then you add the health risks of traveling all the time (driving is the riskiest activity most people take on, and more miles means more chance of collision. Also the health risks of having to sit many hours in a car, although could be negated if you are able to get a workout in on the job.

The biggest risk of all though is that there's a much greater chance any injury can ruin your income potential, as opposed to office or desk jobs where many times you can still keep working. And overtime, rote physical activity will wear away at the body, especially bending over or being on your knees and carrying heavy things on your back.

Health is wealth (quite literally too in the USA), and if you have an option of being well paid without sacrificing it, I suggest taking it.

Carpal tunnel almost killed my father's business completely. He used a "wand" with a trigger that sprays water/soap requiring him to squeeze his hand hundreds of times per job. After 20+ years of doing this, his wrists and forearms were shot/inflamed. He required surgery, and was able to resume work.

Image of wand: https://www.worldwidecleaningsupport.com/media/catalog/produ...

It's a shame we don't have more public health efforts to inform the public about the long term damage from repetitive motions. Especially when the person willing to do long term damage to their body is heralded as a hard worker, and the person that protects against it by working diligently and not over exerting themselves will be punished by not getting work. Similar situation with office work and skipping on sleep.

> I get that he's just starting

He says he's been doing this for 5 years.

My bad, I got the impression he was just starting. Thanks for the clarification. Not sure how in 5 years he still thinks he has almost no overhead - maybe on relative terms? He claims to make "6 figures" which was similar top line income to what my father generated.

It may be that he thinks of overhead as fixed costs (as opposed to variable costs). If you have very low fixed costs, your business can scale up and down on a whim, without terrible consequences.

Good point. My father operated the business out of his home, the most expensive thing he "needed" was a heated garage which prevented his machine/lines from freezing. Before this, he used space heaters inside his van.

Machine maintenance was his largest cost, and because he had to perform most repairs himself (due to financial restraints), it kept him up at night.

When he started the business again after we moved, he saved enough to buy a new truck/machine which helped ease him mind. However a machine you use everyday stops being "new" rather quickly.

Or his profit margin is large enough he's never needed to actually consider his costs.

If that's the case, I'm guessing he learns a thing or two if he ever expands to the point where his margin gets compressed enough to need to be managed.

It could also be that cleaning hard flooring and cleaning carpets have different levels of overhead. Carpet cleaners are nowhere near the mechanical simplicity of a spinning floor brush. The floor brush probably lasts 20+ years, needing only scrubbing pad replacements.

You're probably right, although many carpet cleaners also clean hard surfaces/flooring with the same equipment (truck mounted hot water extractor machine) Probably not 20+ years if you're working daily, but not every year.