Stump Grinding business...

[Little Butch]

I'm looking into setting up a stumpgrinding business. I'm already in the arb industry (tree surgery) anyway, so ties in...
At the moment I'm a sole trader, subbing for a couple of different people. I'd like to set this up and run as a side until hopefully it got big enough to rely on!

I could pick a pickup and trailer up for 5k ish and a tracked grinder for about £18k. I'd like to put a deposit of about 5k on the grinder and finance the rest.

What are people's thoughts and advice on this?

I've got a 'company name' already that I use to send invoices to the people I sub for but was unsure of whether to use that 'Apex Tree Services' or start a more specific (to grinding) named thing?

Plan would be to get business cards handed out as well as emailing every bloody fencing, landscaping, tree, property development, building company I can find locally... As well as golf courses etc.

Any advice would be much appreciated. It's just an idea at the moment...

[Vincecj]

Have a look at the Stumpbuster website.

[jas xjr]

Companies that lay driveways might be worth approaching too

[rog007]

Have you done the market research to identify demand and how you would compete with the other providers? Essential to do this formally to improve chance of longer term success otherwise it's just another punt. Good luck!

[JimmyConwayNW]

There are a few travellers around my way into this sort of thing. They usually display checkatrade logos on their vehicles. Maybe you could advertise there ?

[Little Butch]

Out of the 4 tree I jobs I've had, only 1 had their own grinder. This plus the fact that most homeowners I've worked for ask about stump removal got me thinking...

I know there's a stumpbusters localish but they're not cheap...

[sideways sid]

If I had just stumped up* £23k on depreciating kit, I wouldn't want to be cheap either!

• 6 posts and nobody else had seized that - PH is losing its touch!

[RobinOakapple]

What it boils down to is -do you feel lucky?

You can do all the numbers and the market research, but in the end you either do it or you don't. If you do it and you don't get the business you hoped, what's the fallback position? Can you recover most of the cost? If you are leasing you need to check out the terms carefully, it might be better to consider a personal loan, and buy a second hand unit, or get new but one that is sought after and difficult to buy 2nd hand, which would give you a better chance of reselling if you need to.

I tend to be quite enthusiastic about such stuff, so I would probably go ahead and do it.