Entrepreneurship

I'm about to dive into a new endeavor headfirst. I have very little knowledge of what I'm doing and, despite much research on the Internet, by phone, and through library books, I feel as if I'm totally blindfolded. All I know is that I have to make this work - somehow.

My boyfriend owns a landscape company. He's been running it since the mid-90's. He's gone back and forth between landscaping and lawn care, running crews, doing it alone, just mowing lawns, and back again. He's a very hard worker, but he's burnt out.

A few years ago, he took a job with an offshore oil drilling company. He thought it would be the same amount of hard physical work, but would net him much more of an income. His plan was to phase out of business and transition his clients to a new provider. He sold off some accounts to another guy and he continued to work his remaining accounts when he was off during his 1-week rotations. Without warning, the drilling company went under, and so he came back home and started building the business again.

He began making headway, rebuilding much of what was lost, making great strides in growth. Considering he has a marketing degree, you'd think it would come easily. There was a slight boom when he first got back and, over the last few years, he says he's seen very little positives. When he really started racing cars, his hobbies cost him a hell of a lot more than he was making. Admittedly, his mother helped him with a lot of bills.

So, he did what any guy would do; found another job like he did before. Easy, right?

Back to the oil industry he went (stupid gulf coast boom market). The rules were a little different this time, as he's a 37 year old trying to start at the bottom and work his way up, doing the same job as all the 21 year old colleagues. Since it's the winter, his lawn business is super-slow (plus, we've had, like, NO rain), so during his 2-week rotation, he works a bit too. Primarily, his job consists of raking leaves and pine needles right now. (i'm such a good girlfriend - since i'm off right now too, i went to work with him a few days and helped do all that bullshit!) Okay, it wasn't really just to spend time with him and help him out. I wanted to see what a typical day was like. Shadowing him during his workday, seeing how he operates, helps me figure out exactly what he deals with. I get to really understand how he's been spending his work time over the last 12 years I've known him.

Then I got an idea: Why not partner with him and keep all his hard work from dissolving just because he's offshore? Maybe with a new vision, a new perspective, and a new brain, things could change for the better. All the things he claims are keeping him from making enough money, maybe it just needs a different view to help fix it. There are a ton of illegals with broke-down trucks as competition, sure, but we need to find the edge and run with it.

I know why I, myself, would pay an extra $5 or $10 a month to have someone like Troy do my yard as opposed to Paco and his ICE-magnet crew. That's not meant to be racist; that's just the reality of the industry down here. Your current yard service may not show up next week because they've been deported. That's not really an issue with a law-abiding, detail-oriented, customer-friendly guy.

I've gotten a couple of business owners to agree to help me. I've been looking at the SBA site, as well as resources for women-owned businesses, and so on. I think he's at a point where he's willing to let the whole thing fall apart but, at the same time, he's threatening to quit his current drilling job if they won't change his scheduled rotation to one that will allow him to hit all the major races (pretty bold for a guy who's been there only 1.5 months).

Anyway, I'm still toying around with this idea. I'm scared that I won't be able to do anything to help. I'm scared that I'm going to starve myself of sleep, probably spend a bit more money than I can afford, find myself emotionally invested in this company, and then have it continue to fail despite my best efforts.

Or, worse, Troy will decide he won't let me work on this at all, after all.

But, see, it's a very selfish thing for me to do. I have an ulterior motive. If I can help rebuild this company, maybe he could find a different job to supplement his income if he wanted, and one where he wouldn't have to be offshore for 2 weeks at a time and basically spend half his life on an isolated floating piece of hell. That would mean that he would be here with me. And, while I couldn't quit my job (even though I may get fired! LOL!), I could still devote a lot of time to the landscape endeavor and we could work as a team.

It just kills me to see him lose heart. He's burnt out and, as a result, he hasn't been motivated to do much. I know how much it sucks to be in a job you hate but he's never said he hates it; just that it doesn't provide the income he needs anymore to do what he wants. My father owned his own businesses for the majority of my life. It was hard work and worried him half to death most times, but it afforded us the opportunities for so many things we never would have had otherwise. It drives me crazy to think about all the hard work he put into this company for it to just fall apart.

I love Troy with all of my heart. I want to spend the rest of my life with him. Not only do I want him around, but I want him happy, successful, and fulfilled. I will support him in anything he chooses to do, but I'm hoping I can renew his interest in his own company. I have all these stupid daydreams about us working, side by side, to turn his business back into something that's profitable, thriving, and something to be enthusiastic about.

I was a member of Junior Achievement in middle school. I don't remember much of it at all, only that everyone told me it was good to be involved in it, although I don't recall getting an iota of information out of it. So here's my attempt at entrepreneurship. Wish me luck.