New business,finance problems( sort of)

jaynemaria

To give you soe background, my OH was made redundent 2 years ago and has only be able to find work with agencies and these have been temp jobs and inbetween he was signing on.
After the last agencies work stopped he decided to take the plunge and start up a dog walking.pet care business rather than signing on again. I have a long term deteriorating chronic illness which means I had to give up work 4 years ago, and at this time I had a couple of credit cards and catalogue debts, and to allow me to make reduced payments I had to let the debts default, so that means our credit rating is shot to pieces.

Now on to the business, we scrimped and saved to set up, i.e insurance, advertising etc three months ago, our problem is the business is sort of overtaking us in moving forward, in the three months he is averaging around £100-£120 a week income, which is slightly less than when he was getting benefits bit better than signing on, but in the last week alone we have had four enquiries as to whether we will board on our home. To do this we would need a licence which for now till December would be £150 plus we would need to do small adjustments in the home and make some purchase for dog beds etc, so would need around £500 Just to board one dog for one week it would bring in £120, so its worth doing.

Im really just wondering what others would do, should we try for a loan/credit card even though my credit is poor and OH would be associated as we have joint account and mortgage, or should we just carry on as normal and try to save up and then start this part of the business.
Decisions decisions;)

Savvy_Sue

I can't advise, but would you HAVE to buy dog beds initially, or could you request owners bring their own? I don't know what the cross-infection issues might be, but I kind of thought that one dog might not want to sleep in a bed smelling of another dog.

jaynemaria

Thanks Savvy Sue

To meet the enviromental health criteria for the licence you have to provide a bed for each dog your licensed for (with us it would be 3), that are made of a material that can be disinfected,i.e zippy beds, or normal baskets with disposable vet bed, even if the client supplies their dogs own bed:doh:

Alos we would have to convert an area of our utility barn as a isolation area if a dog becomes ill,

paddyrg

Can you stagger the purchases (ie you don't need 3 dog beds at once - yet at least!), do the minimum of repairs, and offer a discount for advance bookings? That way you can use those advance bookings to pay for the work, and soon enough you'll be in profit :-)

paulwf

When I worked in a cycle shop as a sideline we hired out roof boxes. For the summer holidays we could have hired out 10 boxes a week for those 6 weeks. The rest of the time we got very few enquiries, perhaps a couple of hires over Easter and the odd one here and there for the half terms.

Be careful the same isn't happening here. Every dog boarder might be absolutely packed in the school holidays but the rest of the time demand might be much lower and every other boarder may have spare capacity.

That's a very long way of saying unless you can raise the money and get the equipment in place NOW and know that 6 weeks of boarding can pay off the loan be very careful. Once you get to September you might well get no bookings until Christmas. I might be being cautious but a lot of these things aren't just slightly based around the peak holiday season, they can be 90% based around it.

hermum

Our freecycle has the plastic dog beds quite regularly as do most of our local charity shops, for a couple of quid each.
Could you get the materials needed from freecycle to do the isolation bit?
Have you looked into how much deposit is usually charged on booking? I would expect to pay a non refundable deposit if I booked my dog into a kennel and would be happy to pay 50% upfront so that I know she's got in, you can't book your own holiday until your pets are sorted out.

jexygirl

I never disagree with Paul, however lol... 4 enquiries this week alone @ £120 = £480.. you say you need £500 to break even (as in do the things you need to do to allow you to take the £480) It pretty much means if those enquiries alone became bookings, any further bookings would be profit.
Whilst I do agree with Pauls seasonality, to me this would be a calculated risk.

With 4 enquiries in one week, that would pay for the mods and licenses you needed - I would contact the enquiries, get them confirmed and booked and beg or borrow from whoever as you need it, staggering what you can (relatives / friends / re invest a couple of weeks takings even if it means you live on pasta etc) to get the money to do it. Work out from what you get booked what you HAVE to spend, ie. one dog bed and licence - 180 quid or if you get 2 dogs in, then 2 beds - only spend IF you have to WHEN you have to and not before so you beg or borrow the minimum and pay back ASAP so then it's all your income.

Even if you get one booking over your 4 potentials, then its extra profit. If you took / managed to get only one dog, for one week, every month thats an extra £1400 income, (less obvious tax /ni deductions - because you are ofc registered with HMRC and paying NI etc. and also have buisness costs) and not unachievable imo. (It may be 3 dogs a week for 4 weeks which produces the same income but satisfies Pauls seasonality cause I don't want to upset him )

Would also agree with hermum - if you are booking in boarders and have limited space, take a 50% non refundable deposit. We dont take deposits on our rooms, but if people cancel within 48 hours and we cant re-let the room, we take the full amount (we do take their CC details to hold the booking) - we would be better taking deposits - a film crew who booked 3 rooms (we have 4) and 2 of our boats (we have 3), have cancelled 3 times so far in the last 6 weeks - weekend bookings - due to weather or sick camera crew 3 days before arrival, when we have turned bookings away because we were full. Didn't re sell the rooms, and got no income, so effectively lost 3 rooms over 6 nights, and 2 boats over 6 days... about £800 give or take... TAKE DEPOSITS!!!

I would say take a risk, go for it, work at it as you are - and whats good, is that you can both work together and help each other /do what you are both able to and build up what sounds like a potentially very profitable buisness. I wish you both the very best,
Jex

paulwf

jexygirl wrote: »

I never disagree with Paul, however lol... 4 enquiries this week alone @ £120 = £480.. you say you need £500 to break even (as in do the things you need to do to allow you to take the £480) It pretty much means if those enquiries alone became bookings, any further bookings would be profit.
Whilst I do agree with Pauls seasonality, to me this would be a calculated risk.

lol I think we actually agree. I did say that to make it work you need to get hold of the money now, as if it takes 2 months to sort out a loan it will be way too late

jaynemaria

Thankyou everyone,

Well we have decided to use whatevers in the freezer cupboards for the next couple of weeks (good job we like baked beans too;)) also listed aload of stuff on ebay to raise the money , especially as one of our regular customers has asked us to have her 3 dogs for 2 weeks in July and we would be silly to turn down £390. We will get 50% deposit up front, she is going to pay that on Wednesday whch we can send straigh off for the licence, hopefully it will be all systems go soon:D and the best part is its given OH some dignity back because he really hated signing on

jess_the_cat

good luck :T:T:T