Quote:
Originally Posted by Maestro
SE3P_to_E90, had the right idea, anyone who has money, VC, Investors or Banks want to see the list above without this no one who interested in making money will give you a penny, I am sorry that sound harsh, but if this idea is worth something to you, you need a well thought out business plan.
I'll help you a little, what is you market segment, sounds like high networth individuals, so how many of these people exist in the country, it about 0.2% of the population, next how many of them buy high end cars, well that is about 0.02% of the US, of this how many live in the NYC area, about 0.002% which is about 60K people. So this gets you down to your target market, you just have to figure out of them, how many will customize a car. Those are real numbers by the way, usually to get that kind of information you will pay someone 10 of thousand of dollars to figure out. So I just made a 10K investment in you.
Next, you better understand a balance sheet, and you talk about keeping it simple, well a balance sheet is as simple as it gets. This simply says how much money comes and goes each months. First, you will need lots of upfront cash, which you already figured, but you need to know how long that will last before you run out of cash. Also, understand no customer will front you cash for parts, you pay first and if they are happy they pay you. Oh and figure about 10% of your customer will not pay you or 10% of your receipts will not get paid. again those are real numbers in the retail business.
Hey, you got a good idea and worth pursuing but you need to understand what your getting yourself into and ebay is no model to go by since you probably never carried any inventory and if someone did not pay, you did not ship the product.
I use to restore old cars and did lots of work on them myself, it is a labor of love, but it does not make as much as you think. Now, I have a friend who does the same thing, but he does no work himself, he is more of a broker, people come to him who have vintage cars and want them restored, so he locates people all over the country to do the work for him and he never touches a car. He has been doing this for over 10 yrs now and just now is he make big $$ and guess what his over head is the office in his house and his client base is the baby boomers who is about 20% of the population. He makes $20K to $100K on a restoration depending on the car and does maybe 5 to 10 cars a year if that, and the last two years have been slow too.
One time he made $600K on a car he found that was very rare and the owner had no idea what it was worth, he bought it fixed it up and sold it at auction in Vegas.
If you want to do this, I would advise you to come up with a plan that does not require you to have upfront cash, since no one who has that kind of money will loan or invest it in you without a thorough understanding what your business plan is about. This mean how you make money and what are the risks of you not making money and how long it will take you to repay or buyout (this is know as the exit strategy for the investor).
One Last point, just because these millionaires you meet said you have a good idea does not mean it is a good idea. Most people got rich because they knew what to say to people and one thing is you never tell someone they have a bad idea. The true test of whether they think your idea is good enough to give you the money. Trust me I make investments and I only invest in ideas or companies which I truly think is good, because I lost money on the one I was not 100% sure about and did not check into the details.
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thanks for the input and the investement
. i really like everbodies input and i thank you for it. i will continue to develop on these and who knows maybe i will get a shop going next year and prove all you guys wrong
then we can all chill and be
haha. but really thanks and any more info please do share.
the balance sheets i learned last year in college on quickbooks (much better then doing it by pen paper).
target client wise don't you think is not just in your neighborhood but all around the states. that is what the shipping companies are for. my main idols are d/a, aa, and cec. i don't see much in wcc or unique but all the tuner shops don't just get business from their area its clientele and reputation that give you customers around the states.