Starting your own business

[Craphouserat]

Hi all

I have no idea of where to start with this. So far in my life I've done a bit offshore work and worked in Forensic Science for the last 15 years. For the last 5/6 of these years I have become disillusioned with my job/bosses and generally fed up. In saying that I get on with the job professionally and do it well.

I would like to start my own Chaffeur company - live near ST.Andrews and recently been looking at wedding cars - virtually none in this area. We were let down by the people we originally booked and had to find someone at short notice. Got one - but most were fully booked. The guy I got was nice - told me he is constantly busy with corporate clients - only does weddings here and there.

Anyway - I would love ( like everyone ) to start my own business. Don't have a clue where to start - I'm not in a rush and want to research it fully before doing anything. I've done the IAM thing and love driving/cars. So a buisness based around this would be ideal. Finance can be in place in a year or two. Can't say how much at the minute - but there will be some.

So far I have stated reading http://www.bgateway.com/bdotg/action/home?site=202

Thats basically it.

Anybody got advice on where/what to go/read up on when thinking about your own business. As i said some finance can be put in place in around 12-24 months. I want to research properly.

Any basic advice appreciated - sorry for the long post !

[Doofus]

My advice would be to narrow down what it is you want to do, and the research that specifically. Trying to research "starting a business" is too broad a subject.

If you want to start a wedding car business, research your competition, and other companies elsewhere. Then spend the time to learn all you can (the internet is excellent for this) about potential earnings, the hours needed and so on. For example, most work would be at the weekends, with much less going on Monday to Friday. If you're on your own, you couold probably only manage three weddings a week. Will that earn you a living wage? This is what I mean by 'research'.

Business Link, Chamber of Commerce etc will be of little use to you at this point, because they won't know any more about wedding car businesses than you do.

Use PH, by all means, but if you ask focussed questions, you'll get more relevant answers.

[rog007]

Know friends in the wedding trade; if you have a specialist car good enough only for short journey weddings and no use for anything else then it will be little more than a weekend hobby for beer money at best, or making a loss would be normal (cars (need two of them cos if one breaks you just cannot not turn up as you'll never work again) insurance, maintenance, fuel etc, etc). If however you have a standard car (think S Class Merc), then you could use it for corporate/airport runs during the week. Problem there is, noone wants a 'normal' car for their wedding! From what I've seen, wedding cars are a hobby for someone who already has a good income from a pension.

[Craphouserat]

Thanks for replies.

I am thinking about corporate stuff. Maybe weddings at weekends. I have been surprised by the lack of comapnies in this area - St.Andrews is a pretty affluent part of the country. The expensive hotels ferry their golf clients around in high end Mini buses/coaches. There's a lot of tourists all year round with money to burn in St.Andrews.

The wedding thing struck me when I was first looking when we got engaged in 2009 - I was surprised at how busy the car companies were back then. In 2009 we set a date of August 2011 thinking we'd get what we wanted - wrong. We got a decent company that pulled out on us early this week - making me look at it again. Trying to book a comapny for August wasn't easy. Eventually got this guy that does mainly corporate - he makes a living from it. Does weddings if there is nothing else. Again I was shocked at how few companies there are here. Surely some golfers would rather be ferried around in a decent motor rather than sit with the rest in a posh mini bus. There are also lots of rich students - they may want transported to Edinburgh/Glasgow shopping trips etc.

This is rougfhly what I'm looking at and going to try concentrate my research on. not specifically a wedding company. Will do most things at a decent enough price. I'm only at the beginning of looking into this - but I really think there is a market here. My wedding car company is 40 miles away - the one that cancelled was 50. A hell of a lot of comapnies I called looking at booking for August were fully booked. This is in a recession. If you are willing to do most things from ferry posh student totty on shopping trips, doing weddings,golfers and then any corporate stuff I reckon there is a market for it here. now - as I've said I'm just at the beginning of looking into this, so please don't shoot me down in flames, I realise there will be a hell of a lot I have not taken into account - and I know the running costs of the cars would be high - but I was thinking of starting with 2 maybe 3 cars depending on cost. Recently, a couple of hours last over last couple of days, I've been pricing up 6/7 year old 7 series. These are coming in at not too bad a price. I thought two of these same colour - invest in a couple of private plates. If i could get two of these and a similar price range Merc/Jag, make sure all are good examples been well looked after etc. Not all brides want to be transported in Astons - if it/the driver looks the part and your giving them a decent looking well presented car at low cost then everyones a winner - my wife to be couldnt care what transports her to the church and then onto reception - admittedly she grew up next door to the church and will be staying at her old home night before so doesnt require transport ! Point being cars are low down on the price priority list for some people.

I will do as the first reponse said - focus my research and check out competition.

Cheers all.