# Starting company for first time



## Jaint (Jun 16, 2015)

Hey Guys
I'm new to the site.. But was just wondering if any of you have advice for someone wanting to take the step of starting their own carpentry business. I am licensed, Have plenty experience, but i only have enough work to last me just over 1 month as it stands (4 separate jobs). How much work would you suggest have ahead of you before taking the leap? Did you find it hard to pick up new jobs after making the transition? any and all advice/comments welcome!


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## CStanford (Feb 5, 2010)

Jaint said:


> Hey Guys
> I'm new to the site.. But was just wondering if any of you have advice for someone wanting to take the step of starting their own carpentry business. I am licensed, Have plenty experience, but i only have enough work to last me just over 1 month as it stands (4 separate jobs). How much work would you suggest have ahead of you before taking the leap? Did you find it hard to pick up new jobs after making the transition? any and all advice/comments welcome!


It would surely be nice to have six month's worth of work lined up.

That said, it's often a matter of leaping and trusting that a net will appear. You do need to do some marketing of a sort and urge your current customers to refer business.

Being married and having a spouse with regular income is also a big plus but I don't know if this applies to your situation.


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## TaylorMadeAB (Nov 11, 2014)

A month of work is a good start, just work hard at getting new leads while you are doing the actual jobs.
My situation forced me to start with absolutely no work lined up. I have been incredibly fortunate that I haven't had any down time since I started.
In my market I've found that anything more than 4 months booked Nd you tend to loose a lot of work due to the wait time. People want to get started immediately. 
If you can maintain 6 months consistently, then you are in great shape.


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## mezzfloors (Jun 19, 2015)

6 months work is an ideal but as long as you working on getting new leads in as you go, you should be fine.


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## Britchippy (Aug 6, 2015)

*Re: starting company for the first time*

Don't know how much of this applies to the U.S. as I'm in the UK but when I first started my company I looked for a good accountant that worked with companies my size, found a bank that offered a good business account, I went to a few business classes to learn about keeping the paperwork etc in order. I started working for various guys as a subcontractor while I advertised for my own work and learned quickly to stick to my guns on my price and be confident enough to turn down work once people started talking about cheaper materials, discounted work if paying cash etc now I let clients know that my price is my price and I'm happy for them to give the job to someone else if they don't agree with it. I like to have work booked for at least three months ahead, six months is perfect but it doesn't always happen as has been mentioned above people want their jobs started yesterday and unless they're repeat customers or you have been recommended by a preview customer they aren't always prepared to wait


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