Hi Friends

So it appears that I am moving back to the UK early next year. I will be based in Halesworth (25ml from Nowrich)

I am looking for self-employment opportunities and ideas that don’t require a tremendous amount of start-up capital.

I currently own and run a paint and decorating company in South Africa (employing 27 staff) that I have recently sold. I am hoping to get out of that particular industry, and wanting to keep things relatively simple.
I was thinking along the lines of buying a “transit type” van, and offering various van based services, removals, flat pack furniture assembly, basic home maintenance ect

Any thoughts/experience with this type of self-employment?

I’d suggest filling your transit van with paintbrushes and rollers and paint and whatnot and drive it to peoples houses to decorate them.

This will differentiate you from the thousands of unskilled “man with a van” operators and will greatly increase your revenue earning potential for very little additional outlay.

If you have skills, get paid for them.

Why mix it up and compete with unskilled guys?

I started doing flat-pack furniture assembly (having no previous experience except DIY) a few years ago. I have now progressed into designing and building bespoke furniture (mostly wardrobes, shelving and storage units).

It’s doing OK and I get lots of repeat business and referrals, which is nice.

These days I find tradespeople are primarily judged on “do they turn up when they say they will?”. As a result it is getting harder and harder to complete jobs that require a bunch of different skills to be co-ordinated: Plumber, Sparks, Plasterer, Window Fitter, etc. If you have a range of skills you will be at a considerable advantage.

Also, I know my level. I know I do much better work than a lot of people (and my standards are higher than my customers’, so I don’t tend to get criticised) but I don’t compete with the really top end craftsmen. However I know a couple of those firms who are happy to recommend me when a job isn’t really for them.

I haven’t started employing anybody else yet, but I wouldn’t rule it out.

Garage door motors – just replace the motors and track. I needed one yesterday, phoned 2, 1 would only do the whole single door at 2.2k, the other replced motor and track, 450 gbp. Said hes run off his feet so only does local work.

Dont fit the cheap omes tho they are rubbish. Dont even need a van they fit on a roof rack.

I was tempted, hes doing 2 a day and only works 30 mins drive time.

Gardening. Demand is high, if you’re reliable you can charge proper money. Ok, you’ll need a few grand for tools, but you can start with cheaper ones and quickly upgrade.

Min charge £20 even for ten minute jobs, work an efficient round with minimal driving. I’m quitting a lot of my bigger further away contracts and going more local.

I was thinking along the lines of buying a “transit type” van, and offering various van based services, removals, flat pack furniture assembly, basic home maintenance ect

The market for man and van work is probably pretty crowded. Doubtless plenty of the work in the getting paid £20 to chuck someone’s sofa in a hedge end of the market though.

Lots of these mobile / van services are starting to get app / online booking based (Anyvan / Shiply etc) i.e. a website acting as a broker for the work. Thats starting to be the case a bit for the rent-a-husband handyman/flatpack assembly market as well, I’d imagine, as having people coming into your home means theres an appetite for that sort of user feedback / trust system. Have a look at some of those sites and see if you can gauge the amount and value of the work thats floating about. Even if you don’t operate through a broker like that it sort of sets the market rate.

It can sometimes pay to be specialist rather than generalist and find a niche. Met a guy recently who was craning a 19th century etching press out of a 5th floor window. “I bet you don’t get many jobs like this” I said “We only do jobs like this – we move and reassemble old etching presses, we’re the only people who do it. We work throughout europe”

I used to work in a similar slightly less niche market doing what was basically multi-drop van work but only moving pieces of contemporary art. Some minor capital requirements (temperature / humidity controlled storage, one of our vans had air-ride) but other than that it was just knowing the market and knowing how to handle the work

The ‘man with van’ market is saturated with Eastern Europeans/Poles where I live (North Kent)
I needed a couple of Sofas moving from our in-laws to our house last year and two Polish guys came from North London to do it.

As others have said, a niche like garage door motors might be better.
There are plenty of people who seem to make a good living (well I see there vans everywhere) doing stuff like double glazing repairs, gardening, etc.

Area more important than the job imo. Spend a day or two driving around a wealthy area, looking for signs, vans etc to see who’s doing what. Resealing block driveways and ad hoc tree pruning by ‘experts’ seem to be popular at the moment judging by the knocks I get at the door.

Bloke I worked with once said that if everything in his life went tits up then he’d become a wheelie bin cleaner.
Round our way each house has 3 wheelie bins, a food caddy and a couple of crates for paper card. Charge is £3 per bin, £1.25 for the smaller crates.
Easy marketing- sling a label out on bin day, or door knock in the afternoons/next day.

If I had minimum obligations Id be looking at handyman/Ikea furniture building role like https://www.taskrabbit.co.uk/

Amazon multidrop driver?
The Niche being that you could be the only one in the whole world that doesn’t drive like a berk.

A guy down the road from me handed his card over when he saw me shifting furniture about. Property maintenance.

Thought nithing of it until i noticed his sign in his garden and his freshly painted exterior.

If you’re going that route don’t paint over the roses against your wall and lay astroturf down so it overlaps…

Garage door installations & repairs is a good shout.

Also maybe repairing those electric awnings that attach to the back of houses- as I couldn’t find anyone willing to come and look at the one on our house.

Or if you go down the man n van route, turn up smelling so strongly of weed and clearly stoned out your brain.
Like the ones which turned up to have their van sign written. They promptly then had a massive argument with each other about what the business was going to be called…
Not a crew I would trust with much to be honest.

Thanks for all the feedback.

It has given me some things to think about!