Ask a fag that just started his own business anything.
Back story: Worked about a decade in the environmental, health and safety field. Worked for good companies and bad, good bosses and bad. Last two years for a good company but absolutely shitty boss. Got fed up, saved up some money and started my own consulting gig.
Guess I'm not that interesting.
How many clients did you need before you felt comfortable going solo?
Ha! I had less than 5 prospective clients before I blew my lid called it quits.
The number of clients you need vary on the industry and type of clients. For me, getting more of the equipment up front would have been more helpful.
need a chemical engineers with a background in organic chemistry research?...
Unfortunately I'm not big enough yet for employees and the best work I could offer someone with you background is helping managing RCRA hazardous waste along with usual field technician stuff.
Need someone with degrees in both accounting and industrial management?
How smart do you have to be to run your own business? Do you know your IQ? I honestly don't think I'm smart enough. I have ideas but they all involove employees and I just know that I would suck at managing them.
Age?
Net worth?
Unfortunately I'm not big enough yet for employees.
Chem Eng. would most likely find employment for a larger corporation. Though if he had an interesting innovation he could try and take that solo.
For the accountant, if you want to stay doing accounting work you'll probably have to get on with a larger company or accounting office. You could try going solo but it seems a tough gig to get started in. I'm afraid I don't know anything about industrial management.
I've known a lot of stupid people who have successfully run their own business. If you have the right personality type you can find a way in a lot of industries.
I've had some IQ tests in my life but I don't really know how good all of them were. Based on my results and knowledge of IQs in my family I estimate I'm around 131. However, I don't think it helps me much since being smart isn't the only thing you need.
33. Never really calculated my net worth.
Bump
How's it going?
OP here. I'm still here.
Still haven't made a enough to actually support myself, but I'm hoping to sign on some contracts soon.
Ballsy move but I support it. If all goes to hell then you can just jump back to working for someone. I'd like to start a little business of my own.
What's the shittiest thing a boss has ever said to you or asked/told you to do?
At the time I just didn't want my life and well being dependent on someone else's mood (my incompetent jerk boss at the time).
Every industry is different in how starting a new business looks. If you do it you will have lots of friends, family and acquaintences all give advice despite never doing it themselves. If I could do one thing differently I would have focused in my business plan on a more specific specialty and gotten more things lined up for that and then spread out from there. While you want to be open to every possibility, the reality is that you can't. At least not in what I do.
My first boss who was in bed with an abatement contractor tried to instruct me to clear a former meth lab that was obviously still contaminated. In that case I went to my office and type up my resignation letter with no further plan. Fortunately I was working for a new and much better company by next Monday.
My last boss would just like to passively make threats about firing me by saying stuff like "everyone should be fired at least once in their life, its good for them." It might make more sense if he was in the right but he wasn't, he couldn't get anything done and was constantly chasing good people away from the department.
Bump
Specifically tell me how that boss was able to keep his job... (connections, etc..)
Damn now that is some shit
Here's a pic from a project I was on several years ago. Bonus points if you can figure out what is going on in it.
Asbestos removal?
Which one? The first was the owner of the company so no wonder there. The second... well I don't know. Everyone hated him, even the managers of the other departments. People who left before me were actively going to HR about him. I guess he had good relations with upper management and that upper management just didn't really give a shit about the EHS group.
Yeah it sucks. I would stress not all places I worked at were like that. I had some good years at other places, but those two bosses were pretty crap.
Yes, can you guess more about it?
The job was in the states, it's what we would call a type 3 removal in Canada, looks like removing fireproofing from a school ceiling? Maybe pipe insulation
It was in the US. Here it would be an OSHA class I job. They were removing insulation from a section of a coal fired power plant. The small boxes on them were personal air samples I was collecting to verify their respirators were still adequate for the work. (already had air data showing the respirators were good enough, but we want to document other activities on the project)
nice, I'm an OHS professional up here, been involved in some airport terminal and parking garage demos with asbestos in both. Spent a season air monitoring before that... lots of our schools are full of the asbestos lol
I did surveys of several of the border stations in Montana, some shared with Canada. Was told sneaky Canadian contractors would try to use asbestos containing materials in new construction. Never found any asbestos in the new construction though.
I once did some work doing noise dosimetry and silica monitoring in Alberta Canada. The company I was with didn't go through the trouble of getting work permits for Canada. I was in my last two weeks at the company and was hoping the Canadians would turn me around at the border. Instead get the most helpful border agent who started doing internet research to determine my company was an international conglomerate with connections in Canada so he let me through. I honestly wished he had looked me in the face and said "no, not in country" and sent me on my way. I was so burned out by then from all the travel and distant projects.
lol, what part of AB? I've done some work near Bozeman MT, made Alberta my home 5 tears ago. You have a CSP? I'm a CRSP thinking about writing the CSP exam next spring. Would like to start a consulting company but the steady cheque is too tempting to keep...
I was doing work in and around Edmonton for several locations of an aggregate company.
I am a CIH with the American Board of Industrial Hygiene which is more in the direction of the type of work I prefer to do. Looked at the CSP but it doesn't add a whole lot when I have the CIH and honestly, while I respect safety work, it is kinda boring compared to industrial hygiene (you might call it occupational hygiene or occupational health up there). I'm not familiar with CRSP.
If do start your own business, start saving all the contact information you can now and keep doing it. All the people you did work with in your previous life are going to be the initial best bets for work. Save all your contacts information, I mean all of it, even the mail room guy for the company that kept trying to sell you shit. Being able to recall some kind of connection with someone helps make you a person and not just a nuisance.
OP here.
I have to go now. Good talking with you all.
thanks for the tips Cred Forumsro