Fun fact: If you use the same accounts for personal and business it can be used as part of the evidence for what is called (legal lingo) "piercing the corporate veil". Normally, having a corporation protects your personal assets from lawsuits because the corporation is not you and you are not the corporation. If it can be demonstrated that there is, in fact, no such separation, a lawsuit can be used to come after your personal assets. Keeping separate accounts is just one aspect of maintaining the legal distinction between you and the business. Note: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Just a bit of common-sense thinking about how separate accounts can help you and your business. Get with a real lawyer if you have questions. :-)
I was paying $1200 a year for business liability insurance for my mobile bicycle service shop. Then, I called BiBerk (Berkshire Hathaway), and got the same coverage for a quarter of the price. Highly recommend them.
Hey, thanks for this series. I have been contemplating starting a mobile bike business. Where I live there is a cornucopia of different types of cycling and our local shops seem to focus more on road cycling so I want to focus more on BMX(racing/dirt/street) and MB. This has been very helpful.
The ability to differentiate your business is an important thing! Sounds like you've nailed it down. You'll do great, feel free to pose additional questions too. Best of luck in your future endeavor!
Seconding the recommendation of Scott Chapin at Marsh MMA! Great guy, super knowledgeable and super responsive. The first time I reached out to him, he called me within 15 minutes.
You deserve to have a boost on views, your content is gold! Keep it up. You think you can share the software you use for the mobile business? For booking, work orders, inventory, etc.
Thanks! For essentially everything, I've been a big fan of Square. They allow appointments, fully integrated inventory, checkout from anywhere, and a pretty competitive rate. For booking though, I've always gone back to "old school" manual scheduling because my territory was so big and I wanted to group all the similarly located customers. If you have a smaller area, allowing the customers to book themselves can work out.
as a bike hobbyist we need a Napa for bike parts! find it a Paine in the ass to find parts! like how Napa has a paper catalog. finding parts and sizing parts is pane as there is no data base that I know of. with cars you have that! the bike world need to the a lesson from the automotive world. 1 do away with wire spoke wheels. 2 settle on a few size standers. 3 make parts more bolt on and go the adjustments do not need to be fiddley. can set car brakes faster than on a bike.! any suggestions for finding parts and sorting out what is what would be a help!
You're right about the database, there is not a centralized hub of parts information for bikes. Mostly you have to dig through each manufacturer's documents to get info about compatibility, or pull a part number off the part itself. Talking about having standard sizes for things is a good way set off a bike mechanic rant lol. If you want to get really in the weeds, look up how all tire manufacturers won't commit to ISO. For now, we all just adapt to the world we are given!
@@NeutralSupportNews thanks for the reply! love a good rant so if you want to go for it, I am all ears! any way I have a automotive/ power equipment background and want to branch out in to the bike world. was finding it difficult as lack of standardization and how parts suppliers do not carry every thing you can get for bikes. in the auto world you have summit racing thy have EVRY THING you could want for building a car. that have a parts data base and a parts selection guides as well as tips and hints ! so I take it ISO is like the SAE of the bike world regarding standers? now for adapting to the world we are given how is one to navigate the confusing lack of standards mess we have? well thanks for the reply \/
Thanks for the tips on distributors! Takes the sting out of getting rejected by QBP for not having a full fan much easier to take. Just applied to BTI and HLC which seem to offer 95% of what QBP has. I have a couple smaller guys (United, Cyclone, DEBike) but they're out of stock on so much all the time.
Can you make a video on your experience as a mobile bike shop and how much money you were making and how you progressed? I need to go slow because the gap from having a job to a business owner means not much income while in that transition
Have you joined the Independent Mobile Bicycle Professionals page on FB? I only ask because I don't think (1) answer to your questions would be helpful and there's a whole big group of people in all different circumstances on that forum. I did well, but there are so many variables to consider about your time, commitment, area demographics, bike shops around you, etc. That's really the best part about this type of business - you can build it exactly how you want/need and at the pace you need. I haven't met anyone for whom this was a "get rich quick" opportunity, but plenty of mobile operators are comfortable financially (again, a definition with so many variables). It took me about a year to be profitable.
@@NeutralSupportNews that is a very quick time. I saw this opportunity because I worked 4 months with Velofix and I was making good money everyday. I will join them. What are you thoughts on getting an electric van?
youtube is super bad about showing replies to comments! But better late than never eh? I don't have a lot (read: any) experience owning an electric vehicle, though I do have family with various vehicles. The challenges I see are work radius - how much do you drive during the day? Cost - what are the costs to get an electric van that is able to also power anything you need (i.e. compressor, lift stand, aux lights, etc.), and time lost to charging. I was speaking to Uber drivers while traveling for work and nearly all of them were driving Teslas. I asked if it was worth it for them and they said at this point, they were actually losing work to charge time - that lost work was (in their opinion) offsetting the savings in gas. When gas was crazy expensive, they were ahead because they were losing so much to gas. Everything is a trade off!
Well as promised I did it I started my mobile Bike business. I'm in an old station wagon but business is steady. Thank you so much for the push I needed! 👑 Now I have an opportunity to bid on a contract and I don't even know where to begin. Can you offer any guidance?
Congratulations!!! 🥳 Bidding is an interesting process and depends on the job. Base your offerings on recommended services (sometimes easier to create packages) and use your hourly rate to determine pricing. How much do you need to make per trip for it to be worth it? Etc. If you have to bid super low to get it, it's probably not worth the time!
This is great content! Thanks for sharing. Did you seek out any DTC bike brands to become a dealer for? Did you use any services like beeline or velotooler?
Thank you! I mainly worked through the customers themselves for DTC but Beeline is good for fulfillment, almost like free money. Velotooler, as a middleman, does not negotiate good labor rates in my experience so I don't work with them in this area. Many of the accounts they service are also desperately seeking mechanics, so you may be able to talk to them directly. Velotooler (who will likely read this, they pay very close attention to everything said about them) would benefit from reevaluating how much they are getting paid vs how much they pay out.
