From redundancy to new business venture

keverton · September 9, 2013

At the start of the year I was told I was being made redundant at the end of September or I could move office to Liverpool which was not a option as there was no way I could get there for 7am. Anyway so made the big decision to take redundancy. My last day will be in 3 weeks after 12 years. I'm going to be starting up a power washing business, ie leaning drives and re-sanding them, cleaning patios and decking etc etc you get the picture. During the winter months I can imagine it being pretty quiet so will be hoping to make money by clearing blocked drains and guttering and even wheelie bins. Hoping to buy my industrial power washer this week which will set me back £600-800 and then hoping to find a good reliable van. With me luck guys I know it will be hard work but if it pays the bills that's all I want.may be doing some market research soon on here but any ideas welcome.

thanks

kev

Pat's Van · September 9, 2013

best of luck mate, hope it works out for you

ricardobee · September 9, 2013

Good luck mate, you can't beat working for yourself.

steken1 · September 9, 2013

Best of luck Kev. Requires a tremendous amount of hard and smart work as people have gotten out the habit of spending money frivolously.

Bungle · September 9, 2013

Best of luck mate, hope it goes well and you can make a living from it.

Foot Long Hot Dog · September 9, 2013

Good luck mate, I hope it works out for you.

Ralphie Boy · September 9, 2013

Good luck, biggest advice I could give is to make sure when pricing to include everything. When I first started on my own I would always find receipts for things I should have billed the customer - not a lot but enough over a year to make me think about it, always have loads of cards, Vistaprint is good, and never take on a job that you know you cannot do, reputation is everything.

Once again GOOD LUCK!!!!!!

roydo · September 9, 2013

Good luck mate. Make sure you either really bone up on tax rules/deductions/allowances etc, OR get a decent accountant to help you out for the first year or so. Rule of thumb, put 25-30% of your earnings away for the 2 horrid tax bills you pay every year, and keep NI upto date via DD.

Bungle · September 9, 2013

roydo said:
Good luck mate. Make sure you either really bone up on tax rules/deductions/allowances etc, OR get a decent accountant to help you out for the first year or so. Rule of thumb, put 25-30% of your earnings away for the 2 horrid tax bills you pay every year, and keep NI upto date via DD.

hahahahaha

Tax isn't that exciting.

Hellerad · September 9, 2013

keverton said:
At the start of the year I was told I was being made redundant at the end of September or I could move office to Liverpool which was not a option as there was no way I could get there for 7am. Anyway so made the big decision to take redundancy. My last day will be in 3 weeks after 12 years. I'm going to be starting up a power washing business, ie leaning drives and re-sanding them, cleaning patios and decking etc etc you get the picture. During the winter months I can imagine it being pretty quiet so will be hoping to make money by clearing blocked drains and guttering and even wheelie bins. Hoping to buy my industrial power washer this week which will set me back £600-800 and then hoping to find a good reliable van. With me luck guys I know it will be hard work but if it pays the bills that's all I want.may be doing some market research soon on here but any ideas welcome.

thanks

kev

Good luck! If you are compensated as part of the redundancy, make sure you are not signing a non-compete which prevents you from starting your business for a set amount of time within a certain area!

Whitebootman · September 9, 2013

Best of luck Kev I hope it works out for you. We have a crew cleaning wheelie bins round here. The follow the same route as the binmen, clean out the bins and leave a bin liner, I think they charge a few pound a go but they get regular customers. Must mount up over a week.

Deleted member 28206 · September 9, 2013

Good luck Kev mate. I can't offer you any business advice as I'm useless, there are various grant offering enterprises at your disposal too, start up business's are the apple of the government eye and you'll get loads of support ( advice and financial ) if you look into, I know Barclays are alleged to be the best at this.

heatmeiser · September 9, 2013

Best of luck mate, hope you're a success.

Actually, reminds me of the time I was a part-time binman, while I was at uni. There was this one street where they couldn't have wheelie bins because of the way the houses were built (through-light upper dwellings or something), so they still had the old school dustbins.

One morning I lifted a binlid to grab the bags, as usual, and as I did a King Cobra reared up out of it!

King Cobras are my least favourite snake so I didn't hang around, I just gave it toes out of there. I quit the next week when one of my colleagues thought it was funny to put a load of used syringes in my hood.