Need some advice/feedback

[Silent Soldier]

So here's the situation,

I'm currently a full time college student and reservist in the military, I'm getting a monthly housing stipend from my GI bill but it isn't enough to cover all of my bills and since I'm going to school full time and have the military obligation no employers will hire me. I've been trying unsuccessfully since my return from Iraq in 2008 to land a job. So working from home somehow would be fantastic but until recently I couldn't for the life of me figure out anything that I could do from home in my spare time to make ends meet.

Then last night an idea came to me, inspired by my newly found love of vaping and my love of DIY. It occurred to me that some people may want to make their own custom juices but for whatever reason may not be able to get/store all of the stuff to do it in their homes, or perhaps don't like the idea of handling the nic juice. So why don't I get all the different flavors and all the other stuff and let them choose exactly how they want their juice made and me do the mixing for them. TMK I've only seen one vendor doing anything like that (though I could be wrong) and not nearly with the range of options I have in mind, but I don't know if this would be something that anyone would be interested in. Considering that I would have to take out a small student loan to start this up there would be no point in it if there's no real demand. That being said I don't really care about getting rich or anything like that, I'm just looking for some way to make ends meet, and finding something I can do from home is about my only option at this point. So why not try to do that by doing something I love to do and am very passionate about. That's the idea anyways, so any advice or feedback on this would be appreciated.

 

[WomanOfHeart]

It's an ambitious endeavor and far be it for me to discourage you, but you have to think about who your competition will be, how you'll draw in customers, how much it will cost to get started and what your state laws are pertaining to a home operated business. There are an awful lot of juice vendors out there. I know you said that you aren't concerned about getting rich, but what will it take to make this business feasible and profitable enough for you to make ends meet doing it? It could take months for you to make any money, if it can stay afloat.

Like I said, I'm not trying to discourage you. If you have the drive, ambition and patience to make it work, then go for it! But just consider what you'll need to put into it.

 

[mwa102464]

There are juice vendors that will pretty much mix whatever flavors you want together how you want it. I would say you might as well just open a juice business if your going to go this route though. There is a lot involved if you want to be good at this, AND LOTS TO LEARN AS WELL, its not just a "hey I'm going to open a juice business type of thing." In order to be a successful juice vendor or successful in any business you better have a really good business plan set up as well as investigate this a whole lot or you could lose your ... doing this today the way I see it.

I would first off try to learn as much as you can about the business before you start one. There is also a ton of competition out there and going to be more everyday, you also could get hammered if any kind of regulation happens and you don't have the funds to do what's needed concerning the Regulation. I wish ya luck though and hope you can get as much under your belt as quickly as you can in order to get to be where you need to be for people to place orders from you. You also had better plan on getting some serious insurance too, anything at all happens wrong your going to be the first one people come after. Not looking to be a downer on you here but There is some serious stuff to think about before doing this, I just want to point some of these things out to you before you go and spend money on supplies and hit the Go button !

 

[lasttango]

I think you're on the right track...

When I was in Grad school, I used eBay to sell baseball cards and music...
Supplemented my income about $400/month...

...but I knew A LOT about what CD's, LP's and sports cards to buy cheap and resell.

 

[Silent Soldier]

@WoH Thanks, at this point it won't take much to make ends meet. And this would be just as much for fun as it would to make ends meet. And being that this would be a solo operation I would rather it not get so big that I can't do it on my own.

@mwa Ya I don't figure it will be easy but on the bright side, if it doesn't work out, I'd at least be stuck with stuff I can use myself lol. I don't want it to be a premade juice biz, since tastes are subjective I want the customer to be able to create their own recipes and leave the actual mixing up to me. The most difficult thing I foresee really would be getting a website set up exactly the way I want it to work. And the most costly part of the initial start-up would be all of the flavors, since I'd basically want every flavor from every manufacturer (minus the ones that are known to be unsafe for vaping) plus vape wizard & all that stuff along with the various types of sweeteners (sucralose, EM, stevia, etc etc). The main hurdle is the website, I know exactly how I would want it to work, I'm just not quite sure yet how I would do it lol. But again, this is all just idea's atm, lots of researching to do still. Honestly hadn't thought about the insurance thing, that kinda throws a monkey wrench into my plans but it's a good point.

@tango thanks man, I'd be totally happy with $400/m. I had thought about doing the "buy low, sell high" thing but with today's economy being what it is I could easily get stuck with stuff I don't need/can't use. At least with this route if things didn't work out I'd be stuck with stuff I can actually use myself .