5 ms·

Restaurant knife sharpening is another small business that prints money.

dsfyu404ed 8y ago
There's tons of businesses that "print money" as one or two man LLCs but they don't scale well beyond that point. There's several overhead jumps as your company grows to a point where you have to pay someone else to do something because you can no longer do it yourself (hiring your first few employees, company gets so big you need to get someone to do HR/payroll stuff, company owns so much stuff you need to hire someone to specifically maintain the equipment, etc, etc). Sure you can scale but then some other smaller business with lower margins comes along and out-competes you. For businesses where the cost of entry is low this happens fast. It also is worth mentioning that owning a small business is not nearly as good of a work/life balance as being an employee. Expect to work 40hr week managing the business directly and then another 20-40 doing all the behind the scenes stuff that the business needs in order to run. Obviously conditions vary a lot based on what you do and the local economy.
- jeletonskelly 8y ago
  Yeah, our 2-man devops consulting business was printing money until we tried to scale up. Consulting needs a constant stream of new clients so you need a sales guy, then you need to carry a bench so you can start working on new contracts ASAP, then you need benefits and salaries to attract the kind of senior talent you expect from a consultancy, computers, desks, space...
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    It's even worse in blue collar industries where you have OSHA and possibly DOT circling like vultures waiting for you to slip up. The regs are basically written in a way that it's impossible to comply with the letter of the law 100% of the time at scale. You can't possibly be sure every employee will do everything perfect all the time. It's like speeding. Everyone does it and the unlucky pay the price. One person can't be bothered to tie off to the scissor lift and there goes everyone's bonus.
- mattmanser 8y ago
  In the UK we also have a VAT tax cliff that further compounds this problem. If your business makes more than £80k you have to add 20% VAT, but before that you don't. It results in strange scenarios like an accountant recently told a family friend to take more vacations as she was getting too close to the cliff. Makes a lot of small businesses unscalable, but also makes a lot of smaller business ideas viable.
jeletonskelly 8y ago
Do they bring the equipment in and sharpen on-site or do they bring freshly sharpened knives and take the dull ones to be sharpened? Seems like if you had enough initial capital you could buy a ton of new sharp knives, swap them every day, and then spend a whole weekend day doing the sharpening of the knives you rotated out. Then you could keep your 9-5 M-F and make some cash by working a pretty low stress weekend day.
- jressey 8y ago
  I worked in kitchens for about 10 years and the most common model I am aware of is to pick up the knives weekly and drop some other ones off. I assumed the knives belonged to the sharpening folks. They were garbage knives, but garbage knives are as good as your $300 tempered Japanese knife if you sharpen them.
  - wl 8y ago
    While you can get a good edge on a knife made with garbage steel, the edge goes away quickly.
    - aquadrop 8y ago
      But if you think about it, maybe that's much better type of knife for the sharpening company. You need their service all the time.
      - sandworm101 8y ago
        Many sharpening companies provide knives and keep them sharp for a flat rate. The more they have to be sharpened, the faster they get worn out. If it is on the sharpening company to replace worn blades, they will want to strike a balance between lifespan and replacement costs. The fancy "Japanese steel" knives cost the earth, but high-quality commercial knives (99% identical) don't. Commercial knives are designed with a different approach to safety. They usually have larger grips/guards that, while cumbersome to noobs, reduce injuries. A blade destined to be used constantly and resharpened many many times will also be substantially heavier. That may seem a problem for cutting tomatoes in your kitchen at home, but try prepping a few hundred chickens each day for a week and you will appreciate the heft.

There's tons of businesses that "print money" as one or two man LLCs but they don't scale well beyond that point. There's several overhead jumps as your company grows to a point where you have to pay someone else to do something because you can no longer do it yourself (hiring your first few employees, company gets so big you need to get someone to do HR/payroll stuff, company owns so much stuff you need to hire someone to specifically maintain the equipment, etc, etc). Sure you can scale but then some other smaller business with lower margins comes along and out-competes you. For businesses where the cost of entry is low this happens fast. It also is worth mentioning that owning a small business is not nearly as good of a work/life balance as being an employee. Expect to work 40hr week managing the business directly and then another 20-40 doing all the behind the scenes stuff that the business needs in order to run. Obviously conditions vary a lot based on what you do and the local economy.

jeletonskelly 8y ago
Yeah, our 2-man devops consulting business was printing money until we tried to scale up. Consulting needs a constant stream of new clients so you need a sales guy, then you need to carry a bench so you can start working on new contracts ASAP, then you need benefits and salaries to attract the kind of senior talent you expect from a consultancy, computers, desks, space...
- dsfyu404ed 8y ago
  It's even worse in blue collar industries where you have OSHA and possibly DOT circling like vultures waiting for you to slip up. The regs are basically written in a way that it's impossible to comply with the letter of the law 100% of the time at scale. You can't possibly be sure every employee will do everything perfect all the time. It's like speeding. Everyone does it and the unlucky pay the price. One person can't be bothered to tie off to the scissor lift and there goes everyone's bonus.
mattmanser 8y ago
In the UK we also have a VAT tax cliff that further compounds this problem. If your business makes more than £80k you have to add 20% VAT, but before that you don't. It results in strange scenarios like an accountant recently told a family friend to take more vacations as she was getting too close to the cliff. Makes a lot of small businesses unscalable, but also makes a lot of smaller business ideas viable.

jeletonskelly 8y ago

Do they bring the equipment in and sharpen on-site or do they bring freshly sharpened knives and take the dull ones to be sharpened? Seems like if you had enough initial capital you could buy a ton of new sharp knives, swap them every day, and then spend a whole weekend day doing the sharpening of the knives you rotated out. Then you could keep your 9-5 M-F and make some cash by working a pretty low stress weekend day.

jressey 8y ago
I worked in kitchens for about 10 years and the most common model I am aware of is to pick up the knives weekly and drop some other ones off. I assumed the knives belonged to the sharpening folks. They were garbage knives, but garbage knives are as good as your $300 tempered Japanese knife if you sharpen them.
- wl 8y ago
  While you can get a good edge on a knife made with garbage steel, the edge goes away quickly.
  - aquadrop 8y ago
    But if you think about it, maybe that's much better type of knife for the sharpening company. You need their service all the time.
    - sandworm101 8y ago
      Many sharpening companies provide knives and keep them sharp for a flat rate. The more they have to be sharpened, the faster they get worn out. If it is on the sharpening company to replace worn blades, they will want to strike a balance between lifespan and replacement costs. The fancy "Japanese steel" knives cost the earth, but high-quality commercial knives (99% identical) don't. Commercial knives are designed with a different approach to safety. They usually have larger grips/guards that, while cumbersome to noobs, reduce injuries. A blade destined to be used constantly and resharpened many many times will also be substantially heavier. That may seem a problem for cutting tomatoes in your kitchen at home, but try prepping a few hundred chickens each day for a week and you will appreciate the heft.