Hello, I’m still new at this “business” stuff. I’m actually the guy that quoted a guy almost $4k to build a bike rack 🤦🏻*♂️ I got a lot of (good) **** from you all that time. I’ve since learned better quoting strategies and have dialed it in and have had a more than consistent flow of work this summer. It’s still a side hustle, I still work my normal welding job in aerospace, but I can’t help but shake the butterfly feeling of waking up and going to a shop that is mine, set up how I want, etc.
This summer has been more than busy for me, I’ve installed railings almost every week, as well as taken on other fabrication and welding jobs too. Well, where I live, railings are unfortunately not a 52 week a year type of job. It’s getting colder where I am, and within a few months there won’t be a way of installing them till the spring.
I have been working with this customer from a large company that makes biomedical chemicals and been making a bunch of dollies and racks for their storage containers, with still more projects coming in from them. It would be great to have a couple of companies like them for winter work, but again, I’m still not doing this full time so I can’t just take everything that comes in.
When the time is right and my wife finishes her masters program and becomes full time in her field with the ability to have health insurance through her field, will be a better time to go full time on my own. The thing that holds me back is how to sustain a business in an actual winter climate. I won’t be on my own building structural beam work right away or anything like it, so it’s hard to tell if it’ll ever be a right time. Also, please don’t say “oh I make these little roses and sell them on Etsy.” Those will not support a nearly $2,000 average garage rental in my area and a $1,500 mortgage and other overhead costs.
Thanks!