

Ask HN: Has anyone started a non tech related business before? - FreeRadical

Has anyone here started businesses that are not in the tech field, for example coffee shops, food franchises, worktop manufacture etc? What were the outcomes...
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nate
This dude seems cool <http://doejo.com/>. I saw his design work and was
impressed. He has an address listed on this website and I looked it up and it
turns out to be this coffee shop near me. I chalked it up that he must work
out of that coffee shop a lot.

A few months later, I just realized the guy OWNS that coffee shop :) And
another one too in chicago. He also owns a vintage clothing store across the
street from me, and sounds like he's building bar.

Looks like he's constantly still designing web applications and manages to run
all these other non techy successful projects (his 2 coffee houses are pretty
busy and get very positive reviews).

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rishi
Yeah - I'm friends with Phil. He owns <http://nobletreecoffee.com> and
<http://www.dollopcoffee.com>. Sometimes I wonder if he ever sleeps. He is
trying to also open up a bar. He is also constantly photo blogging
<http://philcoextra.com> and just launched www.texthog.com

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percept
I see he had a nice write-up here:

[http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-
bin/article.pl?article_id...](http://www.chicagobusiness.com/cgi-
bin/article.pl?article_id=27423&seenIt=1)

It's a couple of years old but describes his strategy, which seems to be: get
a loan to buy a business, add value, sell and move on to gradually bigger
loans and businesses.

Nice execution!

P.S.: I don't know why somebody voted down your comment because to me this
adds helpful information.

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zefhous
I'm part of a company that my brother started. We oversee the production of
fair trade products in Zambia and sell them (mostly) in the US. Right now we
have an organic beeswax lip balm, and also soap. Other products are in the
works as well.

<http://zambeezi.com/> <http://zambiansoap.com/>

We're doing pretty well, have a couple employees that we pay — one hourly and
one on salary/commission. We aren't yet making enough that the owners are
getting paid, but that may soon change.

I am also writing two web apps that we use for managing customers, ordering,
invoicing, etc... I'm planning on releasing them as SaaS for other small
businesses, but have not yet done that.

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matthodan
I started a cafe while I was in college, which is still in operation today (4
years later). I no longer own or manage the business, but it's exciting to
grab a brew there when I visit my old campus.

Looking back, that cafe gave me a huge insight into leading a creative team--
we had 7 very active employees-- and taught me to to appreciate the less
glamorous side of starting a business-- like staying late to clean up or
restocking the shelves.

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outotrai
How did you finance the café initially, as a college student?

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eserorg
I started an Oil and Natural Gas E&P (exploration and production) company when
I was 25.

And no, I didn't have an "in" to the hydrocarbons business (a lot of people
ask). My background is Stanford CS.

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mattiss
Much success yet? This sounds like a very exciting business to be in.

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eserorg
Ask me in 20 years.

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mattiss
I don't get it? You haven't yet struck riches or you are operating covertly
and don't want Chevron to drink your milkshake?

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tedshroyer
I have a farm with my grandmother. We grow blueberries and figs. It's very
interesting to make decisions that take years to see how they pan out.

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chaosprophet
It wasn't exactly a business, but a couple of friends and I used to buy
suburban railway tickets from the automatic vending machine. The machine
required a smartcard whose minimum denomination was 10x the maximum ticket
price, so people would rather wait in long ques to get the ticket from the
clerk rather than use the ATVM. We bought some cards and people were happy to
buy tickets through us for a small surcharge. We also made money on recharge
options for the smart card. There were others who did the same thing and this
is where I got my first taste at stealing customers.

As for the outcome, we got bored after we had saved enough for a PS3 ;)

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arfrank
While in college I started and still run a summer storage company for college
students. The problems associated with it were primarily customer service and
logistic based for dealing with people stuff. I can't imagine it was much
different from generally having to do customer service for a tech company,
just different fields.

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HeyLaughingBoy
That sounds like an excellent idea. How is it working out?

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arfrank
It's very seasonal.

There is a lot of money it, considering that parents usually just pay for it,
but me and my cofounder decided are taking a humane approach to it and trying
to not rip off students.

A bunch of the big companies charge upwards of 50 dollars for a box that is
about 2x1x1.5 feet. I realize business is business and that people are willing
to pay that much, but it's nice being able to half those people's prices and
still make a good profit.

We're looking to expand and maybe go head on with a bunch of the companies.

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JMiao
comic book studio in middle school. i had a high school friend who was an
amazing penciler/inker, so we teamed up and pretty much blew our friends away.
we stopped after he went to college in oregon and i repressed my creativity to
make room for practical stuff like AP classes, standardized exams, etc. i
always look back on those times fondly and hope to revisit it someday.

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rishi
I tried to start this: <http://www.HapTap.com> in college an emoticon
keyboard. What do you guys think?

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keizo
I am part of a company that manufactures canoes for competitive racing. It's
been two years and we are doing well enough to live off the business. The most
positive aspect is that we have 7 months of backorders. Our biggest problem is
trying to expand without funding or loans. Another major hurdle is increasing
production without a loss in quality.

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hop
Are they composite? Do you have only one plug/mold thats causing the
bottleneck?

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keizo
yes. Two molds in production. A third entering soon and we are making more
molds. So it's part of the bottleneck, but skilled labor and shop space is
also a challenge.

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hop
Most of the composite shops I know are somewhat to very slow right now. Maybe
you could farm it out to someone in your area. Where are you located?

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keizo
We are in Hawai'i and I only know of one other real composite shop here. If we
were in California or someplace else I could see that being a great option.

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hop
Yeah, you are quite a ways away. Maybe you already do, but using prepreg can
make the process a lot faster, much easier layup, and better final quality -
but I doubt there is an autoclave that size on the island.

You could easily make an unpressurized one though, I made an autoclave for a
15"x8" solar car body I designed in college out of plywood, insulation, and a
heater/thermostat.

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radu_floricica
A local courier company in Bucharest. Mainly fast deliveries on scooters.
After about one year it paid its bills, but I didn't get along with my partner
and got out. Since then he turned it into a sub-contractor for a larger
courier company, and swapped the scooters for vans - more profit, but a whole
lot more risk.

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mr_pants
I've started 2 business. The first was renting inflatables for kid's birthday
parties. It was a small, part-time business that I started to get experience
marketing, dealing with customers, etc. It was fun and quite a work-out (they
weigh from 300 to 500 lbs). I sold to a competitor when I moved and
essentially broke even. My wife tells me every few weeks we should have kept
one (we have lots of kids in our extended family and usually rent one for
birthday parties).

My wife and I bought a business that does ultrasounds of expectant mothers
(she's an ultrasound tech). It will be 2 years in Jan. Business is still
growing, though not as fast as I had hoped. My wife mainly runs it and has
learned quite a bit about business. Not yet profitable, but we're hopeful,
we're working on getting a lower-cost lease and more clients each week.

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dtap
I started a company looking to do some small scale manufacturing. In a non-web
space, it really depends on IP, either currently had or to be developed. Also,
any product that is larger than a hand-held widget is going to cost into the
hundred thousands to produce (molds, jigs, etc.). There is no open-source
manufacturing.

Anything like coffee shops or restaurants are going to take all of your time
and be difficult to scale. Only if you reach a level where you can franchise
can you get to sustainable growth. Otherwise, it is how much time can you
spend on growing it. Anyone who would be capable of taking over some of your
responsibilities is likely to go and start their own restaurant.

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loganfrederick
A friend of mine from high school (we're both at different colleges now) and I
have put on a few local theater plays. If you keep your costs low enough and
can find actors for free, you can make some decent money (couple grand).

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dan_sim
I don't know what to think of this. Sure you are working to get this working
and you deserve to be paid for it... but so does the actors. In my opinion,
you were making money on the back of other people's dream.

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dkokelley
Well, the actors _were_ getting paid, just not in money. The actors obviously
decided it was worth the experience and publicity to invest their time.

That's why the acting trade is so hard to get in to. There are thousands of
people willing to supply their skills for free. The supply vastly outweighs
the demand.

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jseliger
I haven't _started_ a non-tech related business, but my parents started their
own consulting company, which you can read more about through our blog:
<http://blog.seliger.com> . The outcome was good, since we've been in business
for 16 years.

What in particular do you want to know, aside from the outcome?

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hop
Put my design engineering company on part time 6 months ago to start a new
company selling a new type of eco-friendly lawn seed.

<http://www.earthturfco.com>

Stays green and low growing without fertilizer or chemicals.

Built and sold coat racks when I was a kid.

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sachinag
I do freelance tutoring on the side. Eventually, I'll put up a website and
write some materials for sale.

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annoyed
i've been toying around with the same idea for a while, but the things i've
thought about seem to be capital and time intensive. i recently read an
article that compares opening your own restaurant to throwing your money away.
i guess it depends on location and product/service.

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blackguardx
I know the guy who started Ike's Place in San Francisco. He went from being
homeless at some point in his life to the number one SF restaurant on
yelp.com. I think the reason why he is so successful now is because he has
some big failures under his belt. He has a tech degree but was always
interested in starting non-tech businesses.

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gcheong
That's quite interesting. I live a block away from Ike's Place and have seen
several businesses come and go in that space. I figured the location was just
not good enough to support enough traffic for a business. Then one day this
little sandwich shop opens up. I write it off as something that won't last
based on what I've seen happen to other shops in that space. We'll I'm glad
nobody was taking bets that day. Oh, it's lunchtime, I think I'll treat myself
to a sandwich.

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dkokelley
A friend and I are starting a retail sales consulting company. We're planning
on developing training tools for managers to use with their sales staff. It's
in its infancy still (started the 1st of the month), so no results yet.

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drhowarddrfine
I own several well known franchised fast food restaurants for 25 years.

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Shamiq
Do you have anything written up about being a franchise owner? I've heard of a
couple people doing quite well, but I'm not sure what kind of effort goes into
it.

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drhowarddrfine
I forgot the OP asked about the outcome.

I started with this franchisor when they were virtually unheard of, and now
I'm sure all of you have eaten in one. For me, it's been highly successful and
I earn a substantial income from it. However, the first few years were very
difficult because it wasn't what I was used to. It's a totally different
environment from professional engineering including the people. Dealing with
them is quite different.

Running a restaurant means it's always on your mind. Things are always going
wrong, mostly from people quitting, so it requires a lot of hours. It's also
very hard on other family members, or perhaps due to other family members,
that might want to put their two cents into how you should be running things.
(Mostly wives.)

Almost everyone I know has provided themselves some income to a good salary
but there were a few who went bankrupt. Now that's a few out of a hundred in
my region.

