quote:
I’m not in the fencing business but I’ve done enough residential remodels to know I think it’s prettyq laughable you think you can run a full time business using IC’s only. Maybe to scale, but you are going to need at least one crew of employees that rely on showing up on time to be paid.

Well the thing is, I already have the people to rely on. They've been working for us for years. I'd love to go the W2 route but that's not feasible until you have enough work.

quote:
If you or your dad are not planning on being on site building fences daily until you get your business up and running in a year or 2, then you are wasting your time. You have no idea about the business, have very little fence experience, and you think you can come in and just do the office work and make money without the grunt work? Come on OP.

Never said anything him not being on site. However, he doesn't need to be doing to manual labor for us to be profitable.

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Posted by cgrand

HAMMOND

Member since Oct 2009

38957 posts

Posted on 12/16/18 at 9:10 am to nugget

you’ll need a specialty license in LA. Since you included decking in your scope you may as well go ahead and get a building construction license in case you want to do arbors or other enclosed structures.

you’ll need GL and WC.

you’ll want to have some sort of drafting software which will make your life exponentially easier.

you’ll be better off hiring a crew of direct reports to get going, and then as you add casuals you can put one direct report on each casual crew. You’ll need to carefully train one guy per crew minimum on equipment and safety. You must be zero tolerance on injury or you will quickly be out of business.

draft and stick to a simple contract that holds you harmless for existing conditions above and below ground as well easements, property boundaries etc. finally, pick a niche and stick to it

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Posted by baldona

Florida

Member since Feb 2016

20542 posts

Posted on 12/16/18 at 10:48 am to nugget

quote:
Never said anything him not being on site. However, he doesn't need to be doing to manual labor for us to be profitable.

You realize that profitable is different than worth your time to make a profit? What the heck does someone do on site for a fencing job and not do manual labor? It’s not rocket science, it’s 95% manual labor. Bidding and buying materials is extremely easy. Most guys in fencing can bid you almost blind by just knowing sq ft and gates.

You are doing this back arse words so I’m just trying to help and save your time. I don’t see anyway it will work. You can’t simple step into a manual labor job with very little experience and expect to hire contractors and just make money.

First off, if you are a small business starting out the first thing people expect is being able to work immediately and get the job done quick. With IC’s they will be tied up with other jobs.

The way I would expect most to start off is a 2 man crew with one being the owner and the other an employee. Owner puts up fence from 6:30-3 and quotes at the end of the day, does book keeping and advertising outside of that.

If you don’t have enough work for a single crew, how are you going to make any profit and keep your IC’s busy enough to care to work for you?

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