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I understand where you are coming from. But keep in mind that there are many factors to consider. Getting a van and buying supplies. Driving time. Having co

I understand where you are coming from. But keep in mind that there are many factors to consider. Getting a van and buying supplies. Driving time. Having consistent business to bill 40 hours per week etc. I would be very surprised if your overall net income or free-time was higher being a plumber.

gcp 12y ago
I would be very surprised if your overall net income or free-time was higher being a plumber. Plumbers run a business. If they run the business well, they can be quite financially successful. Do not expect any free-time running the business, but you might be able to retire early. My stepfather was a plumber, and he's earned (significantly) more over his career than I'm pretty sure I will. But he had to run a successful business to get there. Maybe it's on-topic for HN after all.
- DanBC 12y ago
  Be interesting to hear from plumbers about the risks that come with expanding the business. It starts with your good name getting around and more people hearing about you. Do you stay at that level, or do you take on staff to do the more boring jobs or to help cover the busier times or to give you an easier week. But with that kind of set up reputation is so important.
  - gcp 12y ago
    Without going into too much detail, his business was severely hampered in development for several years because they couldn't find good (extra) personnel. i.e. kids that graduated only wanted to work for bigger firms, had wage demands he didn't consider sustainable, or simply didn't seem good enough. During that period they tended to focus on bringing in as much big projects as they could by being friendly with architects and project developers. It's easier to do more with a tiny team if you can batch work on a single site. Getting a good reputation in terms of quality and delivery was obviously very important there - you do not want to race to the bottom on prices. Around 2008, shortly after the financial crisis, many business got into problems, often also because customers were insolvent. Suddenly it became easier to hire more people, and he did expand the number of workers, and consequently the business, at that point, but never more than what they could reasonably check up on himself. (I reminds me a bit of the story where just after the .com crash, Amazon suddenly announced that for the first time in their history they'd made a profit) It was basically a slow, very careful growth, taking opportunities when they presented themselves. Customer satisfaction was very important. If you leave people in the cold, literally, they will remember and tell others. This means leaving the house to fix stuff at 10pm Sunday evening in the middle of the winter.
hippich 12y ago
I have to by computer software, computer equipment, pay for courses, spend time researching. If you include everything I am pretty sure it still will not be justifiable to charge same or more for plumbing work than for architecting complex software.

gcp 12y ago

I would be very surprised if your overall net income or free-time was higher being a plumber. Plumbers run a business. If they run the business well, they can be quite financially successful. Do not expect any free-time running the business, but you might be able to retire early. My stepfather was a plumber, and he's earned (significantly) more over his career than I'm pretty sure I will. But he had to run a successful business to get there. Maybe it's on-topic for HN after all.

DanBC 12y ago
Be interesting to hear from plumbers about the risks that come with expanding the business. It starts with your good name getting around and more people hearing about you. Do you stay at that level, or do you take on staff to do the more boring jobs or to help cover the busier times or to give you an easier week. But with that kind of set up reputation is so important.
- gcp 12y ago
  Without going into too much detail, his business was severely hampered in development for several years because they couldn't find good (extra) personnel. i.e. kids that graduated only wanted to work for bigger firms, had wage demands he didn't consider sustainable, or simply didn't seem good enough. During that period they tended to focus on bringing in as much big projects as they could by being friendly with architects and project developers. It's easier to do more with a tiny team if you can batch work on a single site. Getting a good reputation in terms of quality and delivery was obviously very important there - you do not want to race to the bottom on prices. Around 2008, shortly after the financial crisis, many business got into problems, often also because customers were insolvent. Suddenly it became easier to hire more people, and he did expand the number of workers, and consequently the business, at that point, but never more than what they could reasonably check up on himself. (I reminds me a bit of the story where just after the .com crash, Amazon suddenly announced that for the first time in their history they'd made a profit) It was basically a slow, very careful growth, taking opportunities when they presented themselves. Customer satisfaction was very important. If you leave people in the cold, literally, they will remember and tell others. This means leaving the house to fix stuff at 10pm Sunday evening in the middle of the winter.

hippich 12y ago

I have to by computer software, computer equipment, pay for courses, spend time researching. If you include everything I am pretty sure it still will not be justifiable to charge same or more for plumbing work than for architecting complex software.