Re:The Dark Side of Entrepreneurship
by cmos on Wednesday July 08, 2009 @09:34PM
(#695030)
Perhaps more tragic is that in his industry he often get's a down payment of 30-50%, which is often enough to cover the costs of the equipment.
Scaling up to 40 people in the custom home installation market is very difficult. Cash flow is a big deal, and the number of rich people who won't pay you the final payment, often for reasons that are outside of your control, is staggering. (i.e. I paid you $100k and my satellite dish keeps going out on me) There's not much you can do about it when your customer has 5 lawyers on retainer.
You can make a lot more money with 2-4 talented people. This is an industry with 0% margin on flatpanel TV, 50% margin on wire and 70% margin on inwall speakers.
Scaling up to 40 people in the custom home installation market is very difficult. Cash flow is a big deal, and the number of rich people who won't pay you the final payment, often for reasons that are outside of your control, is staggering. (i.e. I paid you $100k and my satellite dish keeps going out on me) There's not much you can do about it when your customer has 5 lawyers on retainer.
You can make a lot more money with 2-4 talented people. This is an industry with 0% margin on flatpanel TV, 50% margin on wire and 70% margin on inwall speakers.