Landscaping New to me

[rpiolends]

My partner and I are looking for a business we can join together and to stop working for someone else. In our area a lawn care business is for sale, and we are thinking about buying. The problem is we are concerned we do not know much about lawn care. My partner is a sucessful office manager, and I am a computer programmer. Growing up I'm mowed my parents lawn and some of the neighbors for a couple of bucks. My partner can run a business but probably would have a hard time simply starting a lawnmower. Should we be concerned that we may not know alot about the physical lawncare, or maintence of equipment. Even though we have the sales and office management down. Is that going to be sufficient to take over an existing lawn care business?

[Steve]

Lawn care business tips

Welcome to our forum! You have a lot of great questions there. First off, what got you to consider purchasing an existing lawn care business vs starting one from scratch? Can you tell us a little about this potential business you might buy?

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[rpiolends]

Originally Posted by Steve

Welcome to our forum!

You have a lot of great questions there.

First off, what got you to consider purchasing an existing lawn care business vs starting one from scratch?

We were leaning on buying an existing business, presumable the previous operator, knows or has learned which equipment works, and has right sized the hardware to what the business uses.

Secondly, we are looking for a business we can transition to without losing are lifestyle in the transition. By acquiring a company, there will be accounts, employees and cashflow in place to allow an easier transition.

Originally Posted by Steve

Can you tell us a little about this potential business you might buy?

It's a mostly residental lawn care business with 100 or so accounts 2 large trucks and grossing 300k or so per year.

[Steve]

How much does he want for this business?

Also, why is he getting out of it?

What are some of your thoughts on this business so far?

The thing is when you are looking to keep your lifestyle going, which I can totally understand, you will need to potentially spend quite a bit to get a business where the income is similar to what you are used to. However the downside to this is when you spend that money, it is gone, and these businesses at times look good from the outside but when you get them and look inside, they have the potential to be rotted.

There is always another option of using that money you would have spent to maintain your lifestyle until you are able to get your own business started up.