Starting my own fish store?

[Anthony.Luciano]

the pond is upstate haha and attached is a picture of it without exposing to much of my family. i have tons of pics but like i said there all with like my family standing in it or swimming. but my business is selling coral, ecotech marine products, and custom LED lighting. the reason i said im trying to become more professional is because my LED lighting seems to be taking off very well and thats where 95% of my profit is coming in so im working with people on making real aluminum enclosures and more of a professional looking design with the awesome features i have on the diy ones i make. so hopefully those plans will work out well.

if a sophomore in HS has a 1M gallon pond with a 1 mile plus easement for piping the water to it IN THE BRONX you're doing right by following your dreams. that sounds awesome man. keep it up!

what is your new idea/business though. just curious. i won't bash it. i don't bash anybody's stuff. i have my own stuff to ridicule.

 

[A Reef Scene]

Running a fish store is a pain, If it is just the aquariums and fish you like start a aquarium maintenance company. You and do it out of your house. Low over head. If the area you want to open a fish store in can not support a maintenance company, the fish store will fail. Most of the fun of fish keeping for me is the maintenance and install of the aquarium.

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

age is just a number. and why not trust someone who is actually succeeding at what they are doing no matter how old they are.

I would bet that most LFS (especially, in this area, and certainly online) are marking up livestock, a minimum of 200%, probably 300%! (Divers Den...5-10X cost) If not, there is no way to cover the cost of DOAs, both in store, and to customers.

Long story short...to OP, don't waste your time, $, or education on a LFS.

You want security... forget college and get a grossly overpaid Gov't job, with pension and benefits...you'll be retired 20 years before your friends!

PS...and NEVER take advise from a 15 yr. old!:lmao:

 

[b0bab0ey]

The wife and I made an offer to buy a LFS here in the KC area and when that didn't pan out, we toyed around with opening up our own. For those of you not familiar with the LFS scene here in KC, it's severely lacking, especially when it comes to s/w. There's about half a dozen spread throughout the metro area that seriously dabble in s/w, and of those, I'd call only one a heavyweight.

After doing a ton of research, we concluded it would be financial suicide here. Overall, interest in the hobby here is lukewarm at best, and most do a lot of online buying, craigslist, local reef club buying, etc.

It's always been my dream to someday own a LFS. And maybe if we move to a different part of the country I'd reconsider. But take it from me, do your homework before getting too serious about it. As snorvich has already pointed out, there's a lot more $$$ in maintenance than owning a LFS. You might want to consider that. For a lot of your potential clients, it's a tax write-off anyway, so they don't really care what you charge them...

 

[fullmonti]

I'm kinda surprised every one is talking so much about the business aspect & ignoring the personality part of the equation. You can have a MBA & be an accounting expert, have all the start up money you need. BUT if your going to be the one talking to the customers & your a jerk, to shy, short tempered, easily annoy or discouraged your not going to be in any business long. If you have the right temperament for the job you can resource & learn the rest. After running my own business for almost thirty years, I'm convinced in any small business (or life) the ability to maintain good relationships is the most important thing. Just one more opinion.

Jim

 

[snorvich]

A 15 year old who is not self supporting is not making a profit. He has an avocation that may or may not translate into an actual business in the future. And that business may or may not make a profit.

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

im paying for everything except electric but i do calculate it into my profit to see how much i would lose from it and i do pay for supplies, taxes, insurance, and everything else a business needs. oh and this is not what im doing as a real business. this is just something fun to do while making money at the same time. for a real job i will use my real skills of computers to make a living.

A 15 year old who is not self supporting is not making a profit. He has an avocation that may or may not translate into an actual business in the future. And that business may or may not make a profit.

 

[Faye]

This has to be a joke?! Sounds like someone that never went to college and realized its true value in todays extremely competitive marketplace...

ive owned my own buisness for the last 20 plus years, i have work in one of the worst recessions in decades. I have no education. I know othets who have opened local fish stores with no buisness degree. One of my uncles started out in sales and rose to VP with nothing more than high school. The kid is not looking to be general electric, he is looking to open up a store in a shopping center. He askef a question and i gave him my advice. I pointed out your mistake in an attempt to keep him away from misinformation. Settle down. As long as he understands basic math and supply and demand he'll be fine.

 

[Faye]

And you know this how?

Because I have seen it first hand numerous times. To think you would need a degree to open your own shop is rediculous. A lot of people with no degree venture out into opening their own buisness because they don't want to work for ten bucks an hour. Society now is just hammering education in all areas where a simple high school degree would have sufficed years ago. Hell, illegals are coming from across the ****ing border and starting their own land scaping and painting services. A lot of that is my competition. The kid needs to know what his monthly overhead is, and make a percentage more than that to make a fair wage. He needs to pick a prime location, and he needs to keep his prices competative. Telling him to rake up tuition debt is one of the stupidest things you can possibly do to become self employed. With the miracle of google, you can probably google basic buisness sense if you have to and avoid the cost of college. This is what I did, (with the exception of googling buisness sense) and I say I did quite well.

 

[organism]

im paying for everything except electric but i do calculate it into my profit to see how much i would lose from it and i do pay for supplies, taxes, insurance, and everything else a business needs. oh and this is not what im doing as a real business. this is just something fun to do while making money at the same time. for a real job i will use my real skills of computers to make a living.

If what you're doing is working for you then keep at it, it's great that you're doing something constructive and that it's going well for you. Just remember though that profit takes on a whole new meaning when you have to start paying for food, shelter, gas, insurance, bills, car, and entertainment. That free time you have is technically being subsidized by your parents, but it's good to see someone put that free time to good use

btw, your sig is ridiculously long...

 

[phenom5]

Another good piece of advice I wish somebody had given me...don't major in business. Major in engineering. Any kind of engineering, although industrial or mechanical are probably your best bets. There are never enough good engineers and every market in every economy needs them. Make a pile of money in engineering and then start your own store once you're set for life!

Best piece of advice in this thread...coming from someone with a BSBA (MIS, but business none the less).

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

yea this business thing is more of like you said. something to do on my spare time because i was bored of just having a reef i wanted to do more and owning a reef business where I can share experience in everyones tank by having my stuff go in them. so this is more like a "fun" teenage job instead of what someone said earlier not making $10 an hour working i can just enjoy what I like and do fun stuff in this business while helping people. like i mentioned earlier i have no intentions of making this my career. ever since i was young my family knew that i would do something in computers because everything i liked had something to do with electronics so for a living im trying to pursue a career in network engineering and hopefully after many years of working in that field i can hopefully own a real networking business to support my life and family and maybe still keep the fish thing for fun on the side or maybe who knows it could become big one day. because its not just coral. my LEDs are the main thing here and i haven't released my new ones yet but as crazy as it sounds I see them very very comparable to AI with even more features. my only problem is that i don't have the machinery to make the amazing designs they have but thats what im working on through other aluminum enclosing companies to make enclosures for my LEDs. im still figuring it all out but when i get it all finished i really think these can stand side by side with AI and have some features that the AI doesn't. also they will be similarly priced around $500-$600 range per module. so hopefully i will get these out soon. im making 16" modules because i see the with the AI multiple modules are needed for larger tanks and they cant be placed low because of the spread so my LEDs will fix this problem by being longer. so this is just one of the many new features my lights have. and hopefully i will do good. as for my signature yes its long lol its so it explains everything about my system and no one asks me questions

If what you're doing is working for you then keep at it, it's great that you're doing something constructive and that it's going well for you. Just remember though that profit takes on a whole new meaning when you have to start paying for food, shelter, gas, insurance, bills, car, and entertainment. That free time you have is technically being subsidized by your parents, but it's good to see someone put that free time to good use

btw, your sig is ridiculously long...

 

[snorvich]

Well, if you are making these in the USA, you will not be able to compete with AI unless you are willing to pay a royalty to Orbitec. Patents are funny things, they are very, very enforceable and Orbitec is very much into doing so.

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

any what patent will I be breaking by making a 16 inch led fixture?

Well, if you are making these in the USA, you will not be able to compete with AI unless you are willing to pay a royalty to Orbitec. Patents are funny things, they are very, very enforceable and Orbitec is very much into doing so.

 

[jlylec]

my LEDs are the main thing here and i haven't released my new ones yet but as crazy as it sounds I see them very very comparable to AI with even more features. my only problem is that i don't have the machinery to make the amazing designs they have but thats what im working on through other aluminum enclosing companies to make enclosures for my LEDs. im still figuring it all out but when i get it all finished i really think these can stand side by side with AI and have some features that the AI doesn't.

you, my friend, should go to school for electrical engineering. network engineering isn't bad but is much more specific. it sounds like you could be good at mechanical engineering as well which is also great.

It is unfortunate (or not really...it's what makes small businesses possible) about the whole patent thing. that is a very real concern that you should not mess with. just avoid any real commercialization and you should be ok.

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

my uncle is an electrical engineer maybe ill look into that. thanks for the tip. i didn't really know patents were such a big issue. its not like im copying anyone else's stuff i'm making leds like a diy then placing an aluminum frame around it but they will be longer then the AI lights. and have ballast style driver boxes to give the actual fixture an ultra thin look and it will have an hdmi as a quick connect and the driver box will have ethernet to connect directly to an apex controller or any 0-10v controller and i will make my own ethernet based controllers to. so as you can see its just an advanced diy i dont see how if im using my own ideas and just diy materials, how can they say im using one of their patents. im not doing like the 3 led group thing like AI mine will be separated evenly. how can someone even patent something for laying down LEDs evenly on a heatsink thats ridiculous.

you, my friend, should go to school for electrical engineering. network engineering isn't bad but is much more specific. it sounds like you could be good at mechanical engineering as well which is also great.

It is unfortunate (or not really...it's what makes small businesses possible) about the whole patent thing. that is a very real concern that you should not mess with. just avoid any real commercialization and you should be ok.

 

[Anthony.Luciano]

never mind i see the patent, that really is ridiculous, a patent for using LEDs over marine tanks.

 

[aandfsoccr04]

I think the thinking between younger people less than 30 and people older 30 is education. 30-40 years ago it wasn't mandatory to get a degree and be successful. With the economy the way it is today and how competitive business is it will do nothing but help you to get a degree especially at this point in time in society.

Even if you do have a business plan that is really good (I wrote one over the past year) nobody is going to lend you money in this economy. With no experience and a first time business owner, no bank or venture capitalist or angel investor is going to take that kind of risk.

Therefore, go get a job part time at a local fish store while you go to school and earn your degree in business or something that interests you.

 

[frankpayne32]

I think the thinking between younger people less than 30 and people older 30 is education. 30-40 years ago it wasn't mandatory to get a degree and be successful. With the economy the way it is today and how competitive business is it will do nothing but help you to get a degree especially at this point in time in society.

Well said.

 

[snorvich]

I think the thinking between younger people less than 30 and people older 30 is education. 30-40 years ago it wasn't mandatory to get a degree and be successful. With the economy the way it is today and how competitive business is it will do nothing but help you to get a degree especially at this point in time in society.

Even if you do have a business plan that is really good (I wrote one over the past year) nobody is going to lend you money in this economy. With no experience and a first time business owner, no bank or venture capitalist or angel investor is going to take that kind of risk.

Therefore, go get a job part time at a local fish store while you go to school and earn your degree in business or something that interests you.

Very well said. The issue is all about options. If you have credentials such as degrees it gives you options. In some cases that knowledge can even be useful; in other cases, it can be superfluous. I would say that I use 10% of what I learned in B-school, but that 10% is essential. If you have options the world can be a much easier place. As one who has on occasion been a "venture capitalist" I can only tell you the questions that I would ask and the stuff I would look at if someone wanted to "use my money". But you are totally free to ignore me (my feelings won't be hurt). But wait until you try to get money from someone else who is not a relative. We all ask the same questions and evaluate the same way. The stuff that Anthony is doing sounds very exciting and potentially good and I admire the fact that he has ideas and wants to pursue them. That is the mark of a good entrepreneur. But a strategy of Ready, Fire, Aim is not a good one.