what are some succesful businesses to start?

Question

my parents are thinking about starting their own business soon. we currently dont have any, but my dad has started a lot of businseses in his past so he knows what its like. anyway, i was just wondering what are some succesful ones to start, preferably that dont cost too tooooo much money, but any suggestion is good :)
thankss.

ps. its not a small town or anything, about 282,924 people in the urban area.

by the way, online businesses arent an option
thanks ! :)

Answer 1

Start off as a gutter cleaning service, then as profit grows, expand into chimmney cleaning, gutter repair, then as time goes expand into small home repairs, handy man, and then could even expand into a remodeling company. Dad doesn't have to know how to do any of this but the gutters, and really doesn't even have to do that, as employees are the ones that will know it all, as he will hired skilled craftsmen.

So lets just run the gutter cleaning biz, it can start for as little as $35. Use $10 on GoDaddy.com and get a dot com, free email and a free 1 page web site, its gutter cleaning, don't need much more than that. Take other $25 and get basic business cards at Kinko's.

Toss some trashbags into the car, tie the ladder on top and head out to the nearest rich neighborhood. Knock and explain what you do, noticed the gutters were bad, cost is $50 to clean them out. They agree so Dad gets busy. Hour or less later, he knocks, gets paid, thanks them, and goes to the next house. 1 day he can knock on 30 doors and 6 will say yes. So thats $300 a day in sales or $1500 a week in sales. Minus gas, trashbags, more biz cards, employment tax of 16%, he'l have right around $1000 as a paycheck.

But since this is dad, hire a kid to do the work, after 1 week of sales/profit, use that money to hire 2nd kid, following week, hire the 3rd kid. Each kid gets paid $400 a wk, plus taxes, etc, dad will still get bout $450 per kid working, or 3 kids x $450= $1750 a wk for managing 3 kids cleaning gutters. Then go back to what I said at beginning, now expand into other fields. In just 5 yrs he could be a remodeling company.

Anything for home is always growing, as homes always grow and so few even know how to mow the grass let alone change a lightbulb. Some form of handy man is one of the fastest growing biz's out there, and majority are independant.

Answer 2

1. Fiscal displine. 2. Focus. 3. Quality. 4. Visibility. 5. Pricing. 6. Promotions.

Answer 3

I just read an article somewhere about how easy it is to start your own collections agency--you buy unpaid bills from a dentist or auto mechanic at a percentage of face value, and then you phone those debtors to bug them until they pay up, and you get to keep whatever you collect. all you need really is a desk and a phone and computer.

Answer 4

i would encourage them to start a business that, when built, generated passive income so that they can move on to other endeavors if they wish to. of course the success of a business depends on how well it's built and the owners of it. best of luck