A Struggling Late-Blooming Entrepreneur

I’m a 40 year old guy from Kansas. I’ve got the personality characteristics of a good, loyal employee, and tragically so. Finally, after years of work depression, mounting debt, and struggling to eke out a living on a paycheck that was increasingly failing to pay the bills, I decided to go into business for myself.

I bet a lot of us here on Steem are entrepreneurs of various stages, the new, the old, the successful, the struggling, and the simply aspiring. (Watch out for that last category, it’s easy to get stuck there indefinitely.) Anyways, not knowing what else to do, I decided to start one with one of the easiest start-ups of all, a lawn service. Not too many businesses you can start for under $1,000. I know, not very ambitious, especially for someone who doesn’t want to expand to manage a crew of workers. Still, on top of my part-time job, which gets me through the winter and supplies my family with medical, dental, and vision insurance, I am now slowly paying down my debts. There is now a light at the end of my very, very long tunnel!

It took a few years to build up my clientele, but now that I’ve stopped my backward slide into debt, I am planning what to do next. During the winter, when the grass isn’t growing, I have a fair amount of time on my hands. Last year, I had hoped to publish a book or two on Kindle, but didn’t get anything done. I did start selling stuff on eBay though, so there is that. I’m hoping to grow my sales, but will need to move beyond my current inventory sources to do so. I’ve got my foot in the door, but am not making enough money compared to the amount of time that I’ve invested into it. Not by a long shot!

Science, technology, and history all fascinate me. I really should have pursued a technical career of some kind, but let myself get sidetracked in my youth. I consider myself an amateur writer and artist. Those skills have suffered terribly due to neglect over the last twenty plus years. I’ve got pages and pages of sketches and outlines, summaries, descriptions, etc., and still hope to do something meaningful with them one day.

That’s me in a nutshell. I’d love any helpful advice and please feel free to share your experiences as entrepreneurs. Hope you are all well. Here’s to a future filled with success!

-Caith