How hard is it to run a business? Any guesses?

[troyes]

State Tax. City Tax. Government Tax. License Fee. Insurance Fee. Worker's Compensation. Bonding Fee. Tax for the location of the business. Cost of Supplies. Cost of Labor. Vehicles for the business. Separate business car Insurance for each worker.

Now, you spend all that. Take that huge risk. And so your business is up and running, with significant cost. It's a service business. How much do you think people want you to make?

I pay my workers $10/Hr. It costs us $15 per customer, to get them. Add all the above. How much do you think is okay for your business to make? My business was making $8 per hour. Pay tax on that too. And the customers want cheaper!

Well, a couple months into it I realized that no business is better than bad business. I can just go work in a freaking grocery store for that money.

And so, from now on I decided I'm going to make a profit or I'm going out of business. And I'm fuming because all the above does not matter to people...

Anyways, I guess that's what a business is. You work hard, provide a quality service, and you aim for a profit. It is a risk that you take, and if it doesn't work you go out of business. It's that simple.

You don't work for $8 an hour, which is essentially free. It's not a non-profit organization.

[dent81]

Depends on how dedicted you are to achieving your career ambitions. Willpower can get you anywhere and things will seem a lot less difficult when you enjoy yourself on the path to success.

[celeste]

That is probably because the country is no longer in need of people who create for their own personal needs so much as for the need to make things work better for us all. So now anyone that wants to participate in social work they can do so just like anyone else and get paid just like anyone else. To say that your time is more valuable than the time of any of your workers is a fallacy that was useful in the past to get you to do this in the first place. But now times are changing and you are no longer so important as to think your above someone else because you created something for them. Now if you want to create such an activity you are welcome but don't be surprised that you can only take out of it what anyone else can and no more profits going into your personal bank account but into the businesses bank account that is part of all of us just as much as it is part of you. If you don't want to help us then don't. Don't think that there are not plenty of social entrepreneurs out there who are interested in creating business for social reasons instead of personal reasons.

[kendell]

I don't know how small business owners do it, it is so difficult, especially in the current economy. My Mother had her own business, I saw what it was like first hand.

[syvwkh]

Right. And then some. I once set up a whole school to provide a new kind of training Insurance Agents were going to need in my state, and six weeks before the start date the legislature changed its mind and dis-required the new training. Gee thanks guys -

That said, you should be able to charge between two and three times what a thing costs you to produce or re-sell. If not, you are either competing with Walmart or else not charging enough. Best to look to the future - to things people may not need a lot of today but will tomorrow. LIke, maybe, smart phone migration into whatever new thing comes out in a year - things like that maybe.