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Had to pick between a steady office job and starting my own landscaping gig
Last spring I got laid off from a data entry spot I'd been at for 6 years. Two weeks later I had an offer from a different company making $48k a year with benefits, but I also had a chance to take over a neighbor's lawn care route he was leaving. I sat on it for three days, even made a pros and cons list on notebook paper. I went with the landscaping thing because I was tired of sitting in a cubicle staring at spreadsheets. First month was rough, I made maybe $800 because I didn't know how to bid jobs right. But by August I had 22 regular clients and started pulling in more than the office job would've paid me. The wild part is my back hurts worse now than it ever did at a desk, but I don't dread waking up. Has anyone else made a jump like that and ended up surprised by how it went?
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charlescraig7d ago
Wait you only made $800 your first month and still stuck with it? That's wild man, most people would've bailed right there.
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emerym367d ago
How long did it take before you started seeing real growth then? Like was it a slow climb or did things suddenly pick up after a few months... I've heard some people say the first year is just about building trust even if you're barely breaking even.
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the_diana5d ago
Used to think that if you weren't making money fast you were doing something wrong... but honestly watching my own numbers crawl up month by month changed my mind. It's like the first six months I was barely covering costs but then referrals started coming in and it doubled almost overnight. That slow trust building phase feels pointless until you realize it's what makes the later growth stick.
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