Six years ago I came on here to talk about my journey will my little pressure washing start up and had a decent amount of interest. At the time I had just hit my goal for 100k in sales for my first season full time.
That following year I hired a helper who is still with me today. I did vinyl wrap the truck and bought a new machine like I talked about. Since then i sold all my original equipment after doing almost 900k in sales with it and bought all new equipment. Ideally I would like to continue selling old and buying new every 2-3 years.
Today my little business averages around 200-240k a year gross. It’s just me and my helper. One truck operation. In NJ so this business can be very seasonal and I’m starting to realize that more and more each year but that’s okay. We work very hard March-June getting a break in July and august when it’s scorching hot. September and October pick back up again and then the November-February is pretty much dead.
I don’t really have an exact reason for this post other than to say it’s okay to stay small. I talk to others in business with 5,6,7,8, etc etc trucks and employees and the more I talk the more I realize the risk, time, headaches, aren’t always worth the reward. Once you get to a certain point you need to hire day to day operations managers, secretary, in house mechanics, laborers, someone for advertising and marketing, etc.
Will I ever buy a second or third truck? Maybe. But I think I would keep it at exactly that. I truly believe that would be a very happy ground to be at where I could be extremely profitable but still handle the day to day operations myself.
All that being said I came from a landscaping background. Five trucks, ten employees, trailers, all sorts of equipment, etc etc. But I never had any MONEY. Since I started my little one truck power washing operation in 2017 I’ve managed to buy a very nice house, get engaged, go on vacations, buy a nice brand new personal car, nice dirtbikes, go out to nice dinners, AND on top of all that I will pay my 30 year mortgage in less then 10 years all while managing to put away over 450k into my retirement account at 32 years old.
Bigger isn’t always better in the small business world. One of these days I will do something to supplement my slow seasons (Christmas lights, snow removal, real estate, etc) but as for right now everything is pretty good.
submitted by /u/lawnboy232
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