Calebite (Business plan)

Caleb saw a poster in a book for two young boys who made a lawn mowing business.  From that poster, he proceeded to spitball with me his own ideas for such a business:

"I think we could start when I'm 10 and Colin is 12, because then we would be old enough to do the work..  We could hire Ben once he turned 10.

"We would mow lawns in the spring and summer, rake leaves in the fall, and shovel snow in the winter. We would have to set the price different for mowing lawns, because if it's bigger it takes more time.  Small, medium, and large, probably $10, $15 and $20.  The same with leaves, because the work is about the same.  With snow shovelling they would have to pay each time it snowed.

"We could also offer to water people's gardens, but that would only be $5 because the work is easier and shorter.

"In order to get the business we would have to send flyers around the neighbourhood.  I bet I could pay our newspaper boy $25 to deliver our flyers at the same time.  I would have to pay that on my own, because Colin would draw the poster and that would take him extra time, so that's like his share of that money.

"We would have to be very specific with our scheduling, because we would have to make sure that we only booked one at a time.  Unless it was a smaller job and we could split up.

"We would have to make sure we did an excellent job.  If the job wasn't done well, then the person could ask for their money back and I would have to give it to them because the work wasn't good.  And then they wouldn't ask me back. If I want to make more money I need to make sure they want me to come back each time.

"I would have to make a certain amount each year for it to be worth it to do it again next year.  Probably $100, at least.  And then the next year I'd want to make a little more money than the year before.  And once Ben was working with us we could make even more."

***

I told Caleb that I think he had just covered everything from a first year University business class.  And probably understood it better than many people out there.