A few years ago I was basically a homeless drug addict (parents took me in) at 29 years old and nothing good on my resume, I had spent my 20s mostly travelling up until drugs came into play at 26-27. My wife and I started a business, doing landscaping related work and have done relatively well compared to our life before. Not so much because we make a lot of money, but mostly because I am good with our money (we are going on vacation this year but I don't buy anything I don't need since I can remember) We have a $2400 Mortgage and save about $6k a month now. I got really interested in business and spent my evenings reading business books, finding mentors on industry forums, watching shark tank, etc.

I am thinking there might be more lucrative, although risky options, if we can save a couple or few hundred grand over the next few years. We could keep growing our business and make over 100k/year each, probably retire by 60 or earlier, but we would like a new challenge at some point. I know 250k is not a lot of money relative to what it takes to start many businesses, but compared to what we started with, a $2000 truck and zero reserves, it is something. Maybe theres not many options where we can make our current/projected income, but thought I would ask here anyway.

I'd open a creative studio and hire 1-2 very smart people to be constantly accessible. Use the studio to develop ideas and business models.

250k is not alot but very sizable chunk of money. I would look into low overhead business opportunities like dropshipping if you have the time and desire to enter into that kind of market. Otherwise just invest in a +EV hobby or hobby business with no expectations of profit or requirements of large regular capital inflows. The happiness and challenge will be worth more than money, just dont open a restaurant

https://www.nightingale.com/articles/acres-of-diamonds/

Acres of Diamonds Article by: Earl Nightingale
The Acres of Diamonds story ”a true one” is told of an African farmer who heard tales about other farmers who had made millions by discovering diamond mines. These tales so excited the farmer that he could hardly wait to sell his farm and go prospecting for diamonds himself. He sold the farm and spent the rest of his life wandering the African continent searching unsuccessfully for the gleaming gems that brought such high prices on the markets of the world. Finally, worn out and in a fit of despondency, he threw himself into a river and drowned.

Meanwhile, the man who had bought his farm happened to be crossing the small stream on the property one day, when suddenly there was a bright flash of blue and red light from the stream bottom. He bent down and picked up a stone. It was a good-sized stone, and admiring it, he brought it home and put it on his fireplace mantel as an interesting curiosity.

Several weeks later a visitor picked up the stone, looked closely at it, hefted it in his hand, and nearly fainted. He asked the farmer if he knew what he’d found. When the farmer said, no, that he thought it was a piece of crystal, the visitor told him he had found one of the largest diamonds ever discovered. The farmer had trouble believing that. He told the man that his creek was full of such stones, not all as large as the one on the mantel, but sprinkled generously throughout the creek bottom.

The farm the first farmer had sold, so that he might find a diamond mine, turned out to be one of the most productive diamond mines on the entire African continent.The first farmer had owned, free and clear … acres of diamonds. But he had sold them for practically nothing, in order to look for them elsewhere. The moral is clear: If the first farmer had only taken the time to study and prepare himself to learn what diamonds looked like in their rough state, and to thoroughly explore the property he had before looking elsewhere, all of his wildest dreams would have come true.

The thing about this story that has so profoundly affected millions of people is the idea that each of us is, at this very moment, standing in the middle of our own acres of diamonds. If we had only had the wisdom and patience to intelligently and effectively explore the work in which we’re now engaged, to explore ourselves, we would most likely find the riches we seek, whether they be financial or intangible or both.

you have A LOT of freedom with 250k

the obv would be rural area by a condo or some aprts if you can fix it yourself.

if you cant, there is still a few option sits just what do YOU want to learn and what are you willing to learn/do

Real estate is something we could do while still doing our business. We have very high prices right now, in BC, Canada. Paid 460k for a house that needs major Reno in ok part of town. If I go 2 hours over, we have 800k average home price, then double that again over in Vancouver... the area I am in is still just barely affordable for working class people

Branch off into side business that are related. Earl Nightingale is trying to tell you, you ARE already in the side business you should be looking at.
ie do NOT do a 180 and get into something you have no knowledge of.

try
maybe a backhoe for larger landscape jobs
Start selling sand/gravel/topsoil/ 3/4" crush/ fertilizer
paving stones
start a small nursery with plants that you use regularly.. (top sellers) etc.

The simplest version is to Scale the business you are in right now... if you have lots of jobs, get a second crew going.

If you are going to get into RE.. do lots and lots of homework and research. The risks and rewards are very high. A mortgage helper is fine, but for rental income and positive cash flow do not buy in the lower mainland of BC. The deck is stacked very heavily on the renter's side and the land costs are extra ordinarily high. If this is fix and flip. I do not have any comment, probably could do it here , but I am not knowledgeable in this area.

Oh yeah, and if you have not listened to Earl Nightengale's whole series of talks, do it now.

lots of luck.

I am lazy.. listen to Earl's talks....
Lead the Field.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bp8aP6pJB1Y&t=2264s

Moved from Victoria a few years ago to Nanaimo. The house we bought for 460k, was Probably 275k 5 years ago. If I wasn’t screwing around all of my 20s it would of been nice to have bought in Vic, but I don’t regret the travelling,

We do retaining walls and pavers, sprinklers, general basic landscaping etc. We are probably buying a small excavator next year. We can add landscaping carpentry, fences, lawn mowing etc.

I guess I sometimes see these other companies doing really well and think there are better options but expanding may be the safest option. Our man hour rate is about $60 and we are pretty swamped with 4 total labourers, myself and wife included. There is room to go to probably $70 with current demand, I do know several companies who are in the $35-40 range though which is crazy.

Anyway, I appreciate the advice

Expansion needn't be that linear, viz.:
https://www.lawnandlandscape.com/art...ot-revolution/

After years of working in franchise operations at Weed Man USA, Chris and Jennifer Lemcke are pioneering Canada’s first robomowing franchise – TurfBot.

i agree with most of the advice.

do not start a restaurant....... do not invest in something where you put up all the money at the start and then see how it works out, like a restaurant.

expand what you are doing now (i.e. basically a labour supply company).

think about doing reno flips on houses...... it leverages off what you are doing right now........ you may not know this, but if you live in the renovated house for a year or two, you then aren't taxed on the renovation work you did. so you did labour work and paid no tax instead of 40% (or whatever).. and i think nanaimo is a good R/E town. so much cheaper than vancouver but very accessible to vancouver. so many people will move there. similar to squamish which has exploded the last 10 years.

expanding a hobby is good too....... but should be online so very few fixed costs.

Great advice, I've personally witnessed millions squandered on chasing trends that they fundamentally didn't understand

Yeah, a real estate developer is going to just crush it investing millions into her newest app idea... was heartbreaking to witness and everyone who tried to talk her out of it were ignored because of all those douchebag founders doing their fireside chats talking about "nobody believed in the idea and all thought it was crazy"

Slanging dope. Easy, clean, and fun business!

Service businesses are notoriously difficult to scale beyond a certain level. My hunch it’s that difficultly as opposed to “chasing trends” behind the op.

Haven't read the op he's on my ignore list but this was someone who'd build a commercial project, they'd profit like 4 million on it and then instead of doing what others in that situation who wanted to get into tech would do and invest in startups in the fields they were interested in she'd then found her own company and micromanage it while also giving out very little equity

End result is she couldn't get a partner with true expertise because without the ownership they'd rather not take risk of working for a startup so she'd flounder about just dumping good money after bad because she felt she could use the real estate money to found the next Facebook instead of using the real estate money to make more money on real estate

There is that and the part about this industry in particular is it’s not easy to get the right people with a particular skill set (like most trades) they were trained for, just need to spend a lot of time teaching people and pay enough, hoping they don’t leave for a better job or to start their own business. At least you can hire a plumber or electrician and know they were most likely trained properly and somewhat know what they are doing.

I wish this was true

Fellow businessperson here. I agree with everyone telling you to stay inside your circle of competence. The reason why all the stuff you know really well seems more suspect to you is that you know enough to know the risks. The grass only seems greener on the other side because you don't know about the problems over there yet, which you assuredly will learn about face first.

I also agree with everyone that 250k isn't a lot... except that it is enough to give you enough cash to easily survive a downturn or even expand when others are laying off valuable employees and selling expensive equipment cheap to raise cash.

Expanding your own business makes sense, but you should do it at a controlled pace. Adding a second crew probably isn't the worst idea. I'd definitely do that before I raised my rate. Maintaining quality when extending beyond what you can directly manage his hard, but it's something you have to figure out to scale your business. Raising your rate risks accidentally taking a demand hit while simultaneously lowering the quality of your service temporarily. That could be a bad combo that dooms the second crew and costs you a lot of money.

i like the fix/flip houses........ partially because of your background and where you are... there definitely needs to be a "fix" involved (could be moderate).

as i said, in BC (canada?), if you live in house for awhile, you don't get taxed on your renovation labour (i.e. yourself).....

i think lots of people would like to invest in that...... i see dan harrington's, the famous poker author, mortgage company in santa monica is now the largest fix/flip financier in the USA. i just assumed it died during credit crisis......

https://www.anchorloans.com/about

that's alot of flips..

https://www.anchorloans.com/press/an...-neighborhoods

BTW, i am not some "love R/E flipping real estate reality show" person.. i just like it in your circumstances (and maybe some other people's).......... R/E laws/regulations vary alot geographically

I do like the idea of buying and fixing up homes, we are actually in the middle of putting about 100k into our first home and wanted to keep this one as a rental possibly or sell and buy a larger property in rural part of town. Probably doesn't help that I can't do any of the work myself, other than landscaping. I do look at the listings and sold prices around here and it does look like some may be doing pretty well on flips after 1/2 years.

can't you learn 70% of the reno skills, and bring people in for very specialized stuff?

i understand there are different levels of renos.... but some just need the place not to look some beaten down, so $10K work (like painting walls and replacing kitchen floor)

i see that anchor loans site has some interesting downloadable books.

one thing i like about nanaimo (and squamish) is they have good population growth (squamish i know for sure, nanaimo =educated guess)

i would fix/flip and not hold for rental. that will tie up your cash. and my sense is rental yields aren't very good.. of course much better with $400K house than $10M house

i love a town near courtney.... cumberland. old japanese coal mining town.

Never spent any time in Cumberland, Nanaimo is nice though. Used to think it was run down 12 years ago when my mom moved from Victoria, 4 years ago though since I’ve moved, I really like the city and area.

Anyway, we could do the Reno’s, but If it’s not something we are making a full time career out of, it would be nice to have employees doing this type of work and use them on landscaping as well, maybe. As it is if I’m staying in my current business, I have almost no free time to work on anything that would take more than an hour of my day.

My mom also retired this year and has put in about 100 free hours on my house, she doesn’t want money (good pension), but she may be interested in some part time work as she has done a lot of Reno work over the years.

I know timing the market is bad, but just sit on it until the stock market tanks, then buy some companies that still look solid. If want a business, don't sink money into unless you are passionate about that work.

Tinder for pets.