Reinventing oneself....never too late

After nearly 35 years in the retail car business, I am moving on. My boss decided that my assistant was ready to take on my job, and showed me the door. Saving almost a hundred thousand a year had nothing to do with the decision, right? Anyway, at the ripe old age of 58, the wife and I are switching gears. We probably had enough for retirement but I am not ready to hang it up.

So we are buying a doggie daycare/boarding business. Banks and SBA already committed, and we close on March 15th. Now it will be our decisions that make or break us. We live in a service economy, and this sector for pet care is growing.

Give you more details once deal is signed, sealed, and delivered.

Well, wish yah luck pal and sorry about what happened there with your old job, can’t have been easy.

However if this does work out for you, perhaps it will have been a good thing, weird how these things work out, like a breakup you think you’ll never recover from and you do meet a special someone else.

gdgyva said:

After nearly 35 years in the retail car business, I am moving on. My boss decided that my assistant was ready to take on my job, and showed me the door. Saving almost a hundred thousand a year had nothing to do with the decision, right? Anyway, at the ripe old age of 58, the wife and I are switching gears. We probably had enough for retirement but I am not ready to hang it up.

So we are buying a doggie daycare/boarding business. Banks and SBA already committed, and we close on March 15th. Now it will be our decisions that make or break us. We live in a service economy, and this sector for pet care is growing.

Give you more details once deal is signed, sealed, and delivered.

Click to expand...

Good luck! You picked a great market and should do well! I highly encourage anyone who is ready to take on the challenge of business ownership.

I'm sure you have already heard all the warnings about it being harder than you expect and all that. Businesses do fail a lot because folks didn't know what they were getting into. If you are ready for the challenge, though, it can be the most rewarding thing you do.

The SBA that is backing you has a couple cool programs I encourage you to take advantage of. The biggest is SCORE. This is a group of CEOs and owners who have retired and dedicate their time to giving free advice to people like us. They also offer a mentorship program. It's impressive and the SBA and owner benefit from these programs.

My only personal experience that I feel the need to advise about is that you absolutely can spend too much advertising and other expenses. You have to watch the ROI on everything and be willing to cut the cord when you aren't seeing it, even if you feel good about it.

gdgyva said:

After nearly 35 years in the retail car business, I am moving on. My boss decided that my assistant was ready to take on my job, and showed me the door. Saving almost a hundred thousand a year had nothing to do with the decision, right? Anyway, at the ripe old age of 58, the wife and I are switching gears. We probably had enough for retirement but I am not ready to hang it up.

So we are buying a doggie daycare/boarding business. Banks and SBA already committed, and we close on March 15th. Now it will be our decisions that make or break us. We live in a service economy, and this sector for pet care is growing.

Give you more details once deal is signed, sealed, and delivered.

Click to expand...

I wish you success in joining the ranks of the self-employed. We have friends who run a "Happy Hounds Hotel" business in the area and they seem to be doing well.

Happy Hounds Hotels - 112 Photos - Pet Boarding - 8425 Fm 2001, Kyle, TX - Phone Number - Yelp

gdgyva said:

After nearly 35 years in the retail car business, I am moving on. My boss decided that my assistant was ready to take on my job, and showed me the door. Saving almost a hundred thousand a year had nothing to do with the decision, right? Anyway, at the ripe old age of 58, the wife and I are switching gears. We probably had enough for retirement but I am not ready to hang it up.

So we are buying a doggie daycare/boarding business. Banks and SBA already committed, and we close on March 15th. Now it will be our decisions that make or break us. We live in a service economy, and this sector for pet care is growing.

Give you more details once deal is signed, sealed, and delivered.

Click to expand...

72 billion dollars? Get you a slice of that pie!

Pet Industry Market Size & Ownership Statistics

gdgyva said:

After nearly 35 years in the retail car business, I am moving on. My boss decided that my assistant was ready to take on my job, and showed me the door. Saving almost a hundred thousand a year had nothing to do with the decision, right? Anyway, at the ripe old age of 58, the wife and I are switching gears. We probably had enough for retirement but I am not ready to hang it up.

So we are buying a doggie daycare/boarding business. Banks and SBA already committed, and we close on March 15th. Now it will be our decisions that make or break us. We live in a service economy, and this sector for pet care is growing.

Give you more details once deal is signed, sealed, and delivered.

Click to expand...

I recommend you add grooming and a team of established groomers.....just as women will spend hundreds of dollars on their hair, they will do the same for fur babies and will come back again and again

Good luck! As others have said, getting let go may have been the best career event in a decade for you.
It's a big leap to start a business, kudos for the courage to see it through.

I know we spend a fortune on our dogs, and even with grandparents that watch them, we *still* board them on occasion.

I'm kinda reinventing myself as well. I find it fun, tweaking your opinions on stuff as you go.

Update....

Everything is done and we are closing next week except the life insurance portion that the SBA requires. I had a splenectomy a couple of years ago, and am considered high risk now....so this 150k life insurance policy could end this. We don’t know yet. My wife is over the age on where she can get the full term of the loan....so we are sweating bullets.

Been feeling like a circus performer for a month now. Jump thru this hoop, then that hoop, then that hoop.

Close on our house here in Cleveland today....if we can’t close on the business, we could be screwed.