Good or bad idea?

[lenhardt06]

I have been mowing for my uncles lawncare business for the pass eight years and i have made him more money in the past 4 years that he has made in the last 10. I was first put on the mowing crew he was paying out about 90 man hours a week and brought in about 3000 a week. Now i have droped it to 45 cause i mow on my own. He now brings in about 5600 a week. I make about 400 of that.
So after this year i have a chance to start my own buisness. Right now have everything i need equipment wise now all i need is the name and insurance.
I have a buddy that has a very successful lawncare buisiness and is looking to expand. He is located about an hour away in the country. I live near the city and around all the high end residents. He wants to become partners and we can use his name and his insurance and i would take care of my area and he would take care of his splittin it 50/50. He also seeds and fertalizes and thats where he says he makes alot of money and why he want to expand to my area.
I already have 20 residents that i mow now that i picked up for my uncle that would stick with me and and a 50 unit townhouse complex that im only responsible for mowing and edging that along brings in 2000 a month. I cut it once this year by myself and it took me about 8 hours.
I do want to become a very successful and somewhat large company. If i become partners with him it would much faster.
Should i just start my own with the ones i have or go on and join with him.
If i did my own and cut by myself for the first year i would start out making about 3500 a month not including cost. All of these accounts are within a 10 miles from my garage so not much travel time.
I have been wanted to do this for the past couple years and have got all the equipment along the way.
Any advise would help.

[GeeVee]

Stay on your own, partnerships have a high fail rate.

[roost-1]

Stay on your own, partnerships have a high fail rate.

I agree. A good partnership is rarer than a good marriage.

[dpld]

if you have 20 plus accounts and a big one that are all in proximity of where you live and you have all equipment why in the world would you go into a partnership with someone 50/50 just so you could use his insurance and name?

you will be giving up 50% of your income for something that only will cost you 10% max.

partnerships are more often bad and never work and eventually the partners start to lock horns and if you are already freinds and good freinds at that and want to stay freinds then i suggest you walk away.

don't worry about a name just use your own like jim doe landscape services or jim doe 4 season property care etc etc.
the best name you can use is your own unless you have some wacked out name like a guy by me that is lickmie landscape ( pronounced lick- my- A ).

do yourself a favor, you got the accounts, you got the equipment, so go down and register your business with the county and state, get a business checking account which so far cost about 150.00 bucks and then call around and get a quote for landscapers liability insurance and all that needs is a 25% down payment and they usually will break it into 3 to 5 payments.
a small guy with one truck and business liability will run you about 3,500.00 a year and from there if you have any workers get workers comp and also see if you got to charge sales tax and if so register with the state and get that going which cost zero dollars to do.

thats all you got to do to be a full fledged legal business and if you can scrape about 1,200.00 dollars together you will be set and the best part is it will be yours and only yours.

look at it this way, you and your buddy do the work you deduct all exspenses just like what you would do on your own and then whats left you split 50/50 instead of keeping all of whats left, it makes no sense.
then there are the veiws of what to do with the extra money like each take half or take a salary and put the rest back into the business.
and thats when things get sketchy because you have your stuff and he has his and then anything you buy is divided and then when the inevitable comes which is each of you go your seperate ways you are left to start all over and his name is built up bigger and he moves on and you are a after thought.

listen to me and all others who replied and come back here in a year and tell us who was right, i already know what the answer will be and i bet you do too.

[MASTERMOWER]

The partnership makes no sense. You'd gain far more working on your own. Just the fact this friend of yours offered you 50% of his business when you have very little of your own is odd. He has no business sense, partnership doomed to fail from the first day...

[clclawn]

Here is my suggestion, be vary vary nice and go talk to your uncle and tell him what you told us about what you make him vs what you get paid. Tell him your getting older and that its time you start thinking about the rest of your life. explain that you love the industry and love learning from him and that you would like to make more money and take more of an ownership role. see what happens. If he is a douche about it, make plans to move on, read every damn business book you can in the next few months, cause based one your questions and the numbers you gave, you have a lot you think you know that you need to learn.

If he allows you to move into a minority ownership or profit sharing or anything that allows you to learn more, stay with him, quit thinking you know everything and really learn from him.

Every jackhole who has been mowing for someone in this industry for more then 2 years thinks their boss is a moron and is taking advantage of them and thinks they can do it better. There is a reason the failure rate is so damn high, it isn't as easy as it looks.

[steve-o]

Good Advice............

Here is my suggestion, be vary vary nice and go talk to your uncle and tell him what you told us about what you make him vs what you get paid. Tell him your getting older and that its time you start thinking about the rest of your life. explain that you love the industry and love learning from him and that you would like to make more money and take more of an ownership role. see what happens. If he is a douche about it, make plans to move on, read every damn business book you can in the next few months, cause based one your questions and the numbers you gave, you have a lot you think you know that you need to learn.

If he allows you to move into a minority ownership or profit sharing or anything that allows you to learn more, stay with him, quit thinking you know everything and really learn from him.

Every jackhole who has been mowing for someone in this industry for more then 2 years thinks their boss is a moron and is taking advantage of them and thinks they can do it better. There is a reason the failure rate is so damn high, it isn't as easy as it looks.

however, what about us other jackholes who started with no knowledge? ole steve-o credits this forum to his success in the lawnturd business plus it don't hurt that i'm smart as hell besides not knowing how to post pictures of the hooterville empire...........

steve-o

[clclawn]

however, what about us other jackholes who started with no knowledge? ole steve-o credits this forum to his success in the lawnturd business plus it don't hurt that i'm smart as hell besides not knowing how to post pictures of the hooterville empire...........

steve-o

I dont know about you, but i didnt know **** and knew it. This guy dont know **** but thinks he knows everything.

He has a 8 man hour property that he makes 2k on? even if thats right, he will lose it next time its up for bid. He thinks he grosses 20k a month mowing by himself in 45 hours. Even mm would work 80 hours a week to bring in the numbers we never believed and this guys is higher.

This guy is in a situation we never were. he is working for a sucessful lawn company who is owned by family. He needs to make sure he tries to make it work or thanksgiving will be a beotch.

Now if he goes to his uncle and uncle tells him to get lost, he needs to move on cause either his uncle is a douche or the kid is full of it and uncle dont give a crap.