Going full mad man prepping mode now. Cut drinking, going out to eat, entertainment that isn’t free etc. I only eat at work now. Trying to only spend money on my bills and prepping. With the evergrande ceo resignation and inflation soaring I feel we are at the beginning. Do you think this crisis happens before or after the mid terms? Or do you think this crisis will get gradually worse over time.
Trying to be prepared as much as possible with the little time we have left.
Honestly, I think it’s “already started”. I know the big break in the dam is yet to come, but the rain from the storm is already really pushing my household despite of prepping ahead of time for so long.
My family has a business that makes marketing materials for tiny to national sized businesses… And they’re suddenly seeing people who are NOT typical entrepreneurs opening side hustles (doctors/lawyers/etc). There is a sudden and very clear lack of faith in going about business as normal. And everyone is scrambling to start businesses that can run during bad times.
Also lots of people buying a piece of equipment and building a business around it, often they come to us for marketing and are also asking us about sales tax laws and for other random local/state laws related to running a business. We don’t mind telling them where to find what they’re asking about, but it’s definitely a marker of people jumping into putting their money into what they consider a safer bet than the dollar and trying to figure out the details after.
And my parents say it reminds of 08 with how clients are acting. But this time we’re having issues hiring working age people who can lift over 60bls and procurement issues for what we make stuff with on top of that.
Yup. We’re in the middle of the recession, we’re slowly running out of steam, it doesn’t just derail for nothing, the economy has slowed down, people and small businesses are feeling the heat, but not quite to the point of shit hitting the fan quite yet.
The news saying we’re in recession calms normies down because they’re thinking it’s not so bad even though things are more expensive. They don’t know we’re not even halfway through the ride.
Mind sharing some of the start ups you've been seeing? Been looking myself for something to start up now that could keep going through hard times.
When we see a surge of new entrepreneurs we always a lot of people who decide to do lawn care, car detailing, window cleaning, power washing…. Some dabble in realty, chicken eggs/goat milk, cleaning, general handyman, and misc freelancers who have a skill they never attempted to monetize before.
Of the people who seem to be suddenly opening new businesses, There are two main types that seem to do better than the others. And that’s generally the ones that buy/lease a piece of equipment and utilize it as much as possible… And the ones who get very niche with what service they provide. (Instead of handyman service, be a fencing service.)
One example is recently I’ve seen two unrelated guys in the same week get into bush hogging/mulching. Seems the business relies on truck/trailer/small bobcat/and special bucket attachment and they the owner operates all of those pieces. I imagine they’ll do okay because the area we live is very prone to land becoming overgrown to the point you can’t walk over it.
My bet on the future if I had some starter money and a close enough skill set would be to buy smallish tilling equipment (so you can fit in suburban areas) and a trailer to be able to transport it. I bet in the next year there will be a large amount of people who will want to turn yard space into gardens efficiently. Plus I’m sure there are a lot of high value vs cost up sells you could do.
If I had less money than that, but still wanted to buy something that will keep producing money… I’d buy an enclosed trailer and offer to let companies rent it for signage purposes. Lots of restrictions for signage, but the sign codes can’t touch the what can and can’t be on a trailer that just happens to sit in the parking lot of a business. Also, trailers let you get into moving stuff. Which can be done professionally or more casually for cash.
I have less experience for online businesses, but if someone asked me about starting a business online…. I’m personally hawkish on telling people to self host a Wordpress site (simple if you do it with a service like bluehost or siteground) and use woocommerce, and use a free Astra theme that uses elementor, and then market hard with video on social media and start a email/text list. Because it’s insanely cheap to start this way and doesn’t have as much risk of wasting your advertising efforts like sending people to an Etsy or eBay store. But it requires decent understanding of tech + problem solving skills… Probably can get set up for a year for $150-400+whatever your product stock costs. (Which is why selling downloadables or services this way is super amazing).