How I started my house painting business with under $500

[heyheyheynoname]

In order to get started, I had to take care of a few things:

Legalities:

• Luckily in FL I didn’t need a license to paint. It’s a county by county law, and fortunately, my county didn’t require it. - $0
• County Business Tax - $35
• Workers Comp exemption - I started my business with subs, and I heard I needed an exemption…so, I got one. $50.
• General Liability Insurance - Pretty easy, went with a large company, $80/m

State filings:

• I filed and registered as an LLC (Later changed to S-Corp) with FL - $125

Website / Marketing:

• I built my own website and did month-to-month hosting on it, $20/m
• I signed up with HomeAdvisor for leads, paid $175 annual fee (Lead fees were due on a weekly basis)

Equipment:

• I financed a paint sprayer for $650 through PPG at 0% interest for 12 Months
• I financed all paint for 30 days rolling credit at 0% through Sherwin Williams

When I sold my first job, my deposit paid all of these expenses ($500)

Labor:

• I paid labor once our first job was finished (easy)

What's really interesting is, the cycle hasn’t changed. It’s always been the same, and still is until this day. Currently, we gross right around $950k/Year.

It’s a simple rinse and repeat method…same exact principles are applied. I finance paint, and pay it off on a monthly basis at 0% interest, this frees up cashflow.

The reason I’m posting this, is because I did a Business Breakthrough (can be found here) with someone wanting to scale their house painting business but lacking cashflow.

I couldn’t understand it. But then I realized, he was mis-allocating his resources…he was too afraid to finance, even though there was so many great 0% programs available.

Another reason I'm posting this is because when I was thinking about getting started, I would go back and forth about how much I needed to have saved in order to do it...I probably spent an additional year saving money. I saved all the way up to $20k... Never touched it... the $500 I used was all put on a credit card.

 

[btcc]

@heyheyheynoname Gross is nice, but what's your annual profit after you pay your taxes, employees/subs, etc? Basically what's left for you after everything has been paid?

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@btcc It’s been around 24-29% average over 4 years

 

[btcc]

@heyheyheynoname Thank you. That is actually useful information that a lot of posts here seem to miss. Revenue means nothing if your margins are super tight or you run at a loss.

 

[wanderlustinginfp]

@heyheyheynoname Are you saying you are making 250k/year doing this?

 

[heptatron]

@wanderlustinginfp Technically The Company is making $250k/year doing this. Not sure if expenses like reinvesting into the company come out of this(Do we need to buy a work truck/van to scale?)

Basically the only thing you can be sure of it owner's take home pay wouldn't be more than $250k.

 

[lollypoppies]

@heptatron Well. We also don't know if the owner is removing their salary before they get to their net number. In my businesses I always paid myself from day 1. That number was an operating expense and a part of the overhead. I could make 65k for my labor and the company only net 25k to reinvest etc

 

[jubbajubba]

@heyheyheynoname Did you have any experience ?

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@jubbajubba Basic starting out, nothing incredibly intense

 

[deliverusfromevil]

@heyheyheynoname Do you do inside and outside painting? Also, how do you go about finding reliable employees?

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@deliverusfromevil Yes, both.

I have a detailed 7-step hiring process

 

[ashleynicoleyoung2016]

@heyheyheynoname which is?

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@ashleynicoleyoung2016

https://www.reddit.com/r/Entrepreneur/comments/ds7h8o/how_to_hire_allstar_employees_part_3_of_3

 

[613jono]

@heyheyheynoname What if somebody wants to do this but can’t finance due to poor credit? I get saving up for equipment and what not then, but for paint, is it a case of quoting the customer a materials price and having them swipe their card at the store, or you pay that out of pocket and reimburse yourself?

 

[joshua28]

@613jono Ask for a deposit

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@joshua28 Yeah, bigger deposit for sure.

 

[brothermichael]

@heyheyheynoname Sorry in advance for being off-topic, but having watched The Irishman yesterday night, your post title did strongly disturb me at first.

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@brothermichael Lol!!

 

[cufr]

@heyheyheynoname How well does the home advisor leads work? Would you mind elaborating on that, I've heard good and bad about them. Never really give. Much detail either way though.

 

[heyheyheynoname]

@cufr Sure, they work as good as you work them.

If you don't understand sales, follow ups, and have automations...you're not going to get good results.

If you know how to sell, they work great! I average 4/10 about in terms of conversions. 4 leads are ready to go and buy, 3 leads want to wait, 3 leads suck and are a waste of money. That about sums it up.