General population of employed people completely underestimate the costs and
RISK associated with starting a business, especially if it is a brick and mortar location, not home based or small office lease based. The cash flow required where employees, lease, taxes, benefits etc are involved can be immense.
Turn3 started from a dream. Opened with 2000sq/ft, 3 hoists. Everything dialed and pretty in terms of physical plant. Grew to 4000sq/ft and then 6000sq/ft in the same location. Then needed more space and we moved 8 years ago to our 11000sq/ft facility, that is dialed and pretty. The cost associated with acquiring new equipment, training, marketing, updating software for tools, heat, AC, electrical, taxes, strata, upgraded lighting and security, insurance, WCB, taxes blah blah blah are amazing.... It cost us over 150K just to move- (at 8 years ago rates) but we planned that so we were only closed for one day over a long weekend as we can't stomach a loss of income for 3-4 weeks to do a more gentle move.
SO in a business like this, where you want to grow, a lot of profit money gets reinvested in the business to support that expansion and growth. Yet, many people look at owners of nice looking facilities and think we must not have time to count all the money we make. Nothing is funnier....
Then the time commitment.... If you want to grow your business and make a "brand" out of it, be prepared to spend 1.5 or 2 times the number hours you think it will take. And be prepared for the stress that comes along with
HAVING to make payroll every 2 weeks, and lease payments/utilities/taxes/etc at the end of every month. You can't miss these payments.
It is all different if you are a "one man band" or "two man band" where you are setting up something small so you can work for yourself and earn good income as opposed to being an employee. The scale of expense is completely different. But at the end the day, if you want to build a Brand that is an Asset, fasten your seatbelt...
Cheers