Several weeks have passed since my business startup. I got the free business cards and the car magnet that I ordered and I passed out some of the business cards to homes in my neighborhood. So far I've received no calls. In Hind-sight I should have written the amount I would charge to clean their driveway on the card. They may not realize how reasonable my prices are.

I've done a couple jobs for free just to see how long it takes. A typical driveway seems to take about an hour (not counting set up and take down).

I took some before and after pictures.


BEFORE


AFTER

This Job was at the church. There were several areas that needed to be pressure washed but this was the only place that had a faucet I could turn on. The rest needed a special attachment. I decided to clean the wall, too, since it looked really bad.

BEFORE


AFTER

I'll usually come back the next day to take the "after" picture so that the ground has had time to dry so you can really see the difference.

Startup Woes

Well, getting the new business going is going a little slower than expected. I ordered the pressure washer and surface cleaner from the Northern Tool & Equipment website and to save on shipping costs, I requested that it be shipped to the store.

Well, the other day, I got an email stating that my order had arrived and was ready for pickup. Excited that my wait was finally over, I drove to the store only to find out that only the surface cleaner had arrived. The Pressure Washer hadn't even left the warehouse, yet.

Now if it were the other way around and the pressure washer had arrived but the surface cleaner was delayed, I could have at least used the pressure washer without the surface cleaner attachment.

I try to find the positive side of each situation. So, I've used this delay to start organizing the financial part of the business. I installed the accounting software on my computer this morning before leaving for work and have already began recording (on paper) the assets and expenses and owner capital Journal Entries.

I also began looking into other ways to promote the business and making network contacts.

Winning in the Margins

My mom gave my wife a book--The Five Lessons a Millionaire Taught Me for Women by Richard Paul Evans. I started reading it. It was very interesting and got me thinking about how I can improve my finances. One of the chapters is called "Winning in the Margins", which discusses ways to make extra money, either through savings or earnings.

Several months ago I'd considered starting a side business, pressure washing driveways. I put the idea in the back of my head but after I read the book, it was brought back to the front (back to the front? is that an oxymoron?) Anyway, I had just gotten an unexpected bonus at work so I started researching--even borrowing a friends pressure washer and pressure washing my own driveway to see if it's something I would even want to do.

Well to make a long blog short, I ordered a pressure washer and a surface cleaner online from Northern Tool and Equipment and asked my brother to design a logo for the business. It had to have a Texas Theme. Several drafts later this is what he came up with. I really like it. What do you think?

The company slogan is "your driveway can look brand new".

New Blog

So, I've finally joined the computer age and started blogging. This should be fun. Hopefully I'll have interesting things to say.