Do you own/run a business? What is it, where is it, how do you get customers?

As I've posted previously:

I ran a one-person network company. "We" got bought by a huge multinational with the agreement that I would have to work for the new mother company for at least five years. I'm economically set for life. I'd do it again knowing what I do now.

The five years have passed. I now manage several employees, do completely different things than I used to and get paid a lot for my technical skill set. I mostly deal with emergency issues for our largest clients when they have issues, especially if the issues aren't actually on our end.

The buying company agreed to put a lot of things in writing to ensure the sale would go through. I'm sure they've made a lot of money on the deal, but it was totally worth it for me. I never had ambitions for building a large company or dedicating my entire life to work. I never had aspirations for getting really rich; not having to worry about money again isn't something I would say no to.

To the questions (in order):

I sold networking solutions to large companies, maintained them.

The business was entirely online-based. I'd only meet customers at their locations if they insisted.

I got a foot in the door, got a good reputation and customers found me more than I found them. The business got good within the first three months, so good I didn't have to worry about recruiting customers, so I know very little about that.

I made way more when I ran my own company than now, but selling the thing made me never have to worry about money again, and I can stop working whenever I want or do whatever I want for the rest of my life.

The best thing about running my own business was that I could just do stuff. Didn't have to have meetings or difficult decisions etc. Many things customers expected would take weeks to decide or whatever I could agree to then and there, or quickly and deliver quickly too.

If I'd done it again, I'd probably hired someone to handle the "office stuff". That way I'd have more time to do the fun things (and I'd also made way more money, even paying someone handsomely to get a person to do the job long-term). I would also probably have sold the company sooner for more if I'd built things that way. Otherwise, I was incredibly lucky and found a niche others didn't see where there was a huge willingness to pay money to save on bad networking systems.

What bothered me the most about running my own business was when stuff broke, or customers got downtime from other services/equipment so I'd essentially be on call 24/7/365. That was paid very, very handsomely when they did silly things I'd have to fix, but it's a hassle having to bring a computer and be sure you have a fast internet connection that can handle a heavy-duty VPN wherever you are, always.

I was working in an adjacent field, had an acquaintance say their large employer needed such-and-such system. I said I could build that in a couple weeks, could surely sell it to a couple smaller companies quickly to demonstrate that it worked, and others were willing to pay for it. Then I'd get back to him in a couple months. I ended up getting a bank and a software startup as my two first customers. That made getting new customers VERY easy as they both said they'd be references if I neede it (which I did until the first huge company told their suppliers they should buy my service as it'd saved them quite a bit of money and they were safer to boot.

(Sorry I'm a little vague on the details, giving more I'd be real easy to identify)

I've discussed this a few times prior when it came up - my main income is my home electronics lab and my combination online / in-person sales of (for the most part) lab electronics like Multimeters and Power Supplies and such.

Earlier in my life I burned out HARD working a rather exploitative contracting job installing cable services for Charter Communications (before they renamed to Spectrum) - there are in-house techs and contract group techs - I was with a contract group. Basically in-house techs have comparatively more 'normal' hours and employee rights, and then the contract groups are used to intermittently pick up the slack.

I suppose I don't need to exhaustively explore that phase of my life, but suffice it to say I worked 80-100 hour weeks with one stretch of 101 days without a single day off and just burned out and quit, never wanting to feel like that again.

...

It took me a while to figure out and work towards what I do now, but I built my home electronics lab, have continually developed and expanded it, and established myself as a seller on eBay at first. Things started out slow, grew gradually.

Now I list stuff on eBay, Facebook Marketplace (I hate Facebook passionately but can't overlook that a LOT of local customers find me through there), and Craigslist.

I buy from auctions, both online and in-person and from so many other sources, inspect / test / clean / repair and refurbish electronics instrumentation of all types: multimeters, power supplies, oscilloscopes, function generators, precision sources and standards, soldering gear, electronic loads and a laundry list of more esoteric / niche gear, as well as physical metrology gear to a lesser extent like micrometers and calipers.

My first eBay sale was my old-version Milwaukee M18 grinder. I had upgraded to the FUEL version and had it lying around, and knew that Milwaukee battery powered tools sold reliably so I listed it for slightly under the average price and it didn't take long to sell. After I had my first sale on my eBay account I was able to start expanding on eBay from there (there is a staged system of expansion for selling on eBay to cut down on people spamming new accounts and scamming people en-masse - I had to gradually list more, have a certain number of items / dollar value sell before I could list more than a total of X dollars worth of stuff or a quantity of Y listings).

I'm based out of Grand Rapids, Michigan. Not particularly sensitive information since I do in-person sales.

I don't really find customers (and I've never paid for advertising on eBay or Facebook - my analysis is that's set up as an extraction racket where you have to just keep paying more or they cut your exposure off), I just make really, really over the top high quality listings when it comes to the lab gear specifically (comprehensive testing, video explaining product and demonstrating function, sometimes going into the history behind the company that made the device, etc... - and then I package with the same attentiveness to quality. For one guy that bought a multimeter from me he asked for some information on how to use it and I hilariously decided to produce an hour long video exhaustively going over usage and all the functions. That has earned me positive, often really effusive, feedback (if you click on 'Received as seller' and scroll down until you start seeing the longer entries you'll get the idea, especially if you go to the next page of feedback) which helps to show other customers that they can expect to receive quality for what they pay, which has somewhat snowballed for me in a positive way.

Can I live 100% from my business? Conditional yes? I do have one, maybe two other intermittent income sources from people / contract groups I know and have good relationships with - one in telecom survey which is VERY intermittent since I don't take work more than an hour drive from home - I can go a year without something from them popping up - and the other both intermittent and seasonal with most of the jobs for them happening in winter since that's the hardest season on their equipment.

So, everything that I have ever listed on eBay in my primary focus (lab electronics) has sold, sold without a long wait, and for higher than market rates. I think I only have one instrument in that primary-focus of mine still unsold, and it's a part of a system, not a whole device, so not sure how much that counts. Ironically this means my eBay page, for a seller that purports to focus on lab electronics, is largely devoid of lab electronics the vast majority of the time. This is not helped by the fact that for a confluence of reasons I am quite slow to list individual items - partially due to executive dysfunction issues from a combination of past burnout trauma and being AuDHD, partially due to being a perfectionist regarding lab electronics listings and being unwilling to list something if I feel that it is too distant from 'perfection' in either it's condition or in the quality of my listing / testing / documentation, etc...

Now, the lab electronics I look for and sell are the kind of stuff that has a lower bound of around $200 to $300, and a typical upper bound of around the $2K+ mark, so I don't actually need to list stuff / sell stuff all that often to pay the bills and live comfortably, which really helps make all of this work for me in spite of my mental health issues.

What do I like most about it? Free time and personal freedom in general. I work from my home office except for auction pickups and meeting customers for local sales. I probably put in less than 15 hours a month (yes, I did say a month, not a week) of the part of the business I actually consider 'work' and that's enough to keep me going and keep my bills paid with enough after to watch for and buy instruments for testing/repair/resale. I also really, REALLY love talking shop with my customers, especially my local customers, and helping them get into or get further along in their journey with electronics. I enjoy supporting the local electronics community, be it keeping super-cheap basic gear in stock for high school and college students (or just giving them some stuff that needs repair so they have a freebie project to start with that will end up as a useful tool), or getting to meet local business owners and getting a tour of their lab or manufacturing setup. I'm largely an introvert, but do need some socialization, and that gives me one of the types of social interaction that I enjoy most.

What would I do differently? Quit a job that demands a hundred hours a week sooner, and seek mental health services sooner to help me have a happier and more effective life.

What bothers me the most about it? The frankly enormous testing and documentation time investment I can't seem to convince myself I should scale back for each instrument. It triggers my executive dysfunction issues and sometimes ends up as this 'too big a hill to climb' amount of effort that then sends me in to a cycle of demotivation and/or mild depression at not doing what I know I need to get done.

How did I get the idea? I've been an electronics nerd darn near my whole life. Literally since elementary school I would buy broken electronics at yard sales and take them apart - eventually I started fixing some of them. In terms of the idea of taking that and making a business out of it - I think it crystallized during early COVID when I was looking for options that would keep me at home as much as possible.

What do you do?

I do freelance tech work for churches. It can be a variety of services ranging from A/V work for rental events, some minor IT services, small system design and installation, and training workshops for volunteers.

Where are you based?

A large city in the Canadian prairies.

How do you find your customers?

It has been entirely through word of mouth and connections. I rarely approach others, and instead most come to me. I have a handful of repeat client churches, especially with running A/V for events. Before doing the freelance work, I was on staff part time at a large church in the city. This church had some unhealthy dynamics which has lead to various staff members leaving and working at other churches, so that has helped grow my network with other churches.

Can you live 100% from your business?

Nope. this is my second year doing it, and it has helped fill the gaps as I have been searching for permanent work. It has been averaging out to about quarter-time work, although this year has been a bit more busy, so will probably average out higher than that.

What do you like most about it?

There tends to be a wide variety in the work I do, and I just have to be able to adapt quickly. There has been periods of time where my work has ranged from just cleaning up how a system is wired to programming lights for a dance recital.

The other fun thing is seeing how different churches approach their tech. Church tech is an interesting space because it is normally professionally installed systems that then volunteers without formal training adapt to fit the needs of the church. So there is a mixture of following industry standards but also some personalization to try and solve problems. An example is one church I work at frequently has figured out a way to put their entire gear storage room on wheels so that they can roll out all of their equipment onto the stage for setup.

What would you do differently?

Not do freelance work. I personally do not like the unpredictable nature of it. Also, not a fan that a lot of the time I am working events, so working evenings and weekends.

The other thing is trying to figure out a way to have the energy to cold call other churches, to try and get more work. When I am already dealing with the discouraging work of applying for jobs, and sending my resume into the void when there is a job posting, I just don't have the mental capacity to do cold calling.

What bothers you the most about it?

Probably the above section, where I do not enjoy the hours and the unpredictable nature. The other thing is just learning that not every opportunity pans out. It has taken me a while to adjust to the idea that when someone approaches me with a work opportunity, that it may end up falling through for a variety of reasons.

How did you get the idea?

I didn't. Just as I was searching for permanent work, I have just had various people reach out to me to do various jobs for them, and I have just capitalized on that.

This comment should likely be marked as noise, as I do not and have not ever run a business.

But this is the perfect topic for me to share that I frequently fantasize about running one. I'm a software engineer I've spent many an evening wishing I had a great SaaS idea. I fantasize about the software stack I'd use. I fantasize about using European services to run my business (think Scaleway instead of AWS and Proton over Gmail). I've thought up most every aspect other than a product to sell and business plan.

Maybe someone else's success story here will inspire me to finally land on an actual idea to execute.