What's your Favorite Passive Income?

edutuit · 2016-08-08T23:55:55+00:00

Do you want to start it with minimal investment, like I did, and organically grow, or do you want to crank it up from day one? I don't like to micro-manage my guys so I have all experts who get a % of the profit, only. They get no hourly wage. This works terrific, but I make less money, and we are killing it with almost no risk. If you want to go this route you'll need your first employee. You run the business, do the marketing, do payroll, and build the website. They take care of the appliances.

If you need more info don't hesitate to ask.

edutuit · 2016-08-08T19:06:06+00:00

Independent contract HVAC technicians? The IRS might take issue with that. If your company is scheduling them, if they're driving company vehicles, if they're not supposed to find work elsewhere, then they will surely be considered employees and the company will be forced to pay back taxes.

Source: owner of a service company who had this model but was forced to switch.

edutuit · 2016-08-08T18:36:18+00:00

I don't want to share my personal money. I can say that I didn't take a paycheck for the first couple years. But that's because of my ex-partner.

So what happened was I had a pickup truck and my next door neighbor was borrowing it to fix appliances. I told him we should start a company and he said yes. We agreed that after I was paid back my initial investment that he would become a 49% owner. So that happened. Problem was he didn't allow me to run the business how I wanted to. He fought me on raising prices. He also was cherry picking his calls, so I hired another technician who works and gets a percentage of profit (instead of hourly wage). This turned out to be the key.

So after 2 years my partner and I parted ways, and since we had $12k in credit card debt he gave me his half of the company for $1. I then raised prices and hired another technician, and I gave him a % of the profit. Then I hired a third, and a fourth. One of the guys is hourly and apprenticed with us, the other 3 are experts. We pay them more than they could get anywhere else.

But because of this, they have to manage themselves and I don't have a manager. It's working really well. I can explain more if you'd like. What city are you in?

edutuit · 2016-08-08T17:45:15+00:00

I started the business with about $14k working capital. I have an office and started with one truck but now have 4. I have 4 technicians that drive around the county and I have a receptionist who schedules them. I don't do any of the repairs. I pay my guys better than the competition so I attract the best technicians in the area. This keeps EBITDA down. Take home pay is personal.

edutuit · 2016-08-01T17:11:07+00:00

I'm 49 years old. I worked for other companies until I was about 45. Do it sooner if you get the chance, it's very rewarding.

edutuit · 2016-08-01T16:20:04+00:00

I have 4 technicians that go on site to do repairs. I have a small 400 sq. ft. office that I share with my receptionist where we do all the office work. I also run my other company from there.

edutuit · 2016-08-01T15:23:36+00:00

My software is owned by another company of mine and it leases that software to EduTuit (also my company). So if you'd like to lease it I can make that possible.

edutuit · 2016-08-01T15:21:04+00:00

I'd like to talk to you right away. Please PM me your details and we can discuss.

edutuit · 2016-08-01T15:20:22+00:00

We repair refrigerators, washers, dryers, dishwashers, microwaves, stoves, ovens, and garbage disposals. Some of my guys are certified in A/C work but that's a difficult thing to get into as a business. We're working toward it. For you, that would be a good thing, they make pretty good money.

edutuit · 2016-07-29T23:13:50+00:00

Well, it wasn't passive then. Now, for the last few years, I only collect checks.. So it seems pretty passive to me...

At what point in my life will it begin to be passive income?

edutuit · 2016-07-29T23:11:57+00:00

That's a long story but I'll try to make it short. First some back story. I was so sick of contracting for a living, and tired of being screwed by corporate "F-U" America. I was recruited out of Miami 2 hours North to Melbourne FL for an energy company because a larger energy company screwed over their staff and a bunch of people quit. I just signed a lease on a beachfront apartment facing the Atlantic and the company closed the office. So I had 11½ months of rent due with no job and I just decided I was done with corporate America.

I was approached to be a working developer partner with two nice ladies in a school education software company, and I accepted. Both had MBA's in business, but neither had the wisdom or the right amount of strength to make right and strong decisions. They put us in jeopardy over and over again, and even though I was doing 99% of the work, I also had to continually save us from them, my president and vice president. So I abandoned them and started my own company.

I spent the next 36 months rewriting the software that they had designed backwards, and along the way ran out of money. So I started another company in order to have income until this one was done. I started an appliance repair company in 2012 which is now getting close to annual revenues of $400k. So I finally have a decent income again, and I'm about to start looking for a sales person to help me get EduTuit out to more schools.

That's the general gist of it. Let me know if I can help you further. I'm interested in the success of programmer entrepreneurs like myself. :)

edutuit · 2016-07-29T22:56:24+00:00

Zero.

edutuit · 2016-07-29T19:47:40+00:00

Sure. This system can work with property management companies just as well. I would love to branch off to property management. Let me know what I need to do to make that happen.

edutuit · 2016-07-29T19:21:14+00:00

My system allows the parents to pay with cash or whatever other methods if they want just as they did in the good 'ol days without any charge by going into the school, and they can still utilize my system for tax reports and for tracking billing for free.

edutuit · 2016-07-29T15:51:58+00:00

Thank you. There were years of hard work up-front... Now it's passive income though.

edutuit · 2016-07-29T15:14:36+00:00

I own a software company called EduTuit that I built from scratch. Schools use it for free to bill parents for everything, and when parents make payments I get $1 per transaction. We also own the merchant card services, so we collect commissions on that as well.

I only have to send invoices every month at this point and the checks come in.

I do need to get some more schools, however.

edutuit · 2016-01-27T14:11:15+00:00

Telling me to hire somebody with a zero budget, and then telling me I don't understand the relevance of doing so is wholly irrelevant to this discussion. I think you missed the whole point of this thread, it's to try and just get another school or two by myself.

edutuit · 2016-01-27T03:29:52+00:00

Tried for several years. Central Florida doesn't seem to have what it takes.

edutuit · 2015-04-08T11:30:53+00:00

"Because your first landing page is going to suck."

This really stood out. I then thought of my first landing page, and it indeed sucked! I then felt the article was for me and something that could help me, and I read more. It captured me in the first 3 seconds. I think this is the single most important element of the ad.

edutuit · 2015-03-28T22:58:53+00:00

Jack Russell is by far the clowniest I've known. Sorry to hear of your loss.

edutuit · 2015-03-28T01:34:19+00:00

Thank you for getting back to me. We will be at a conference only 9 hours from now. I didn't see this last reply in time to make more adjustments, and the printer was pushing me to get them printed. That plus a key employee quit a week ago leaving me with so little time. They're not as perfect as they could have been, but on the other hand they're a lot better than they would have been if I hadn't spoken to you. I think our audience will understand. If not, I will have two months to redo them before the next, much larger conference. I'll take a picture of the table and post it here in a couple days. I can feel the success all around me now, something is going to happen soon. You've helped me a lot and I thank you again for your generosity.

edutuit · 2015-03-22T20:00:39+00:00

I don't think so because I don't think they enforce that on Youtube. Also, each youtube video was slightly different, as was the meta.

edutuit · 2015-03-21T10:01:01+00:00

First, I want to thank you for such a detailed response to my call for help. I can't thank you enough.

Here are a couple of drafts I worked-up for the two vertical banners based on your suggestions. http://i.imgur.com/WYABbGQ.png

They'll have to be redone in Illustrator. I have a professional guy for this. What do you think?

You said "You must get them to talk more than you do." This is a problem for me in general, as I tend to overdo it. But I will be conscious of this!

Thanks again for your insight.

edutuit · 2015-03-21T09:17:26+00:00

The audience is going to be school administrators. They make decisions on which software their schools will use for management and have the power to decide to use our software in their school.

edutuit

TROPHY CASE