Help!!! Mid-life Crisis to Woodwork or Not to Woodwork
Hello Again,
I have been a member of this board a short time and each post has lead me to a great variety of advise and I need help again. I am 36 years old and I feel like my life is about to get turned upside down again. I have been in the computer industry for 18 years now and have done it all, owned 2 companies, been in every position more than once, made lots of money, made little money, been broke, and been well off. I have been thinking of building custom homes or buying a cabinet business or something like that. I am still very new to woodworking and my enthusiasm is very high but I want to make a change career wise regardless of income and or status, I just want to do this because I enjoy it.
Dazed and Confused,
<O:p></O:p>
Ben Roman :confused:
Starting a business? Something I know about.
I rarely post here and I hope this isn't an intrusion. I have started a few software companies myself and have done pretty well. Let me comment about accepting this money and the chances of success.
You MIL from your description here can't lose all of this money and survive can she? No matter what, buying, starting, or running a business of any sort is high risk. Are you ready to BK your MIL, and put huge pressure on your marriage when things start to go badly in your business? I don't think I would go there.
Let's discuss for just a second the economics of any business involving wood here in the US... right, there isn't much money there. The profit margins are way lower than technology companies. Barrier to entry by competitors is nonexistent. There are lots of people who have the skills, equipment, and drive who are going to come and try to eat your lunch by cutting prices. Ever notice how successful software people are buying nice custom furniture for their offices and successful wood business people are wearing tee-shirts, driving old trucks and working really, really hard? --- And then there is China. You understand that they are talking the low-end and driving prices down in all goods of this kind? Where the economics weren't terrible in wood products 10 years ago, China might be enough to kill you without anything else going wrong.
Don't underestimate how much people have been doing woodworking their whole lives know that we don't know, the same way that we know more about computers. I have a buddy who owns a custom cabinet shop and several related side business, it is just scary how much he knows that I don't. From how to lay brick, to using straps to hold a load on a truck bed, to economical design of cabinets. It doesn't matter if you are smarter in most every way, a lifetime of experience is powerful stuff. I would bankrupt his business faster than he would running my current dog.
Once I took a couple of years off from work and built furniture. Running a software company is way more fun to me. There aren't enough hassles in a shop for my taste. :o Now I build furniture for fun a few hours a week.
Hope this gives you some ideas of what can go wrong. Hopefully it will not stop you from pursuing your dream (is doing a wood business your dream?). Maybe you should go work in a shop for a year and see if you like it? Lot cheaper to learn on someone Else's nickle.
Good luck whatever you decide,
Peter