So You Want to Start a New Business in Retirement?

Can't say I have a job but I make a little money on Ebay selling Hub's tools he no longer needs and household items. I used to sell stuff on Ebay when I was working too. It is easy to do but can cause clutter unless you plan on where to stage the things you need to list and the things you have listed. It can get a bit confusing if you have a lot of items listed at the same time if you are not organized. If you should pursue this, you can get free shipping boxes, envelopes of various sizes through USPS on line. The Post Office itself doesn't have all the sizes available. So you need to order them on line. They will send you everything for free and will not charge you any shipping charges. So it is fairly inexpensive to set up a 'business' with Ebay. You will need to buy a scale to weigh your packages. USPS has those too or you can buy them where ever you can find a scale. I have a Weight Watchers kitchen scale that is accurate for smaller packages. I learned how to do Ebay years ago from my buddy I used to work with. He always said he wished he could find one thing he could sell over and over again that was cheap to mail using a regular envelope and a regular stamp. He never did find that small item as far as I know! If you take a look at Ebay you will find tons of niches of ideas to sell things. If you don't have household items to sell, a lot of people go to Thrift stores and find interesting items to resell on Ebay. Another place to sell vintage and craft items is Etsy. I have listed things on there too. It is very easy to do.

Be sure you have the 4 Ps: Passion (you love what you're doing), a Plan (discussed above); Persistence (stick with it; not only when you're establishing yourself, but be sure to devote time each day to your business), and People (you'll have to have an audience for your business - people who want/need what you're selling). I've been my own boss since 2004, and love it.

Jan Cullinane, retirement author/speaker/consultant

We are posting Elaine's original suggestion here, which actually requested some additional info we didn't cover yet. We encourage our Members to help out with the rest and will include in the followup article:
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I will have to work part-time into my 70s. Do other retirees who read your articles have to work part-time? What kinds of jobs are available, that aren't grunt work for minimum wage? Do you have ideas on finding work? What about professionals who may want to continue in their field, or, translate abilities and skills for another field of work? Statistics on working retirees? Any success stories or stories about what didn't work out? Effects on Social Security, pensions, etc.?

When I retired, I established my own business with my primary woodworking hobby. The outlook honestly was not good, but I knew I would at least enjoy it. I dedicated 5 years to trying to make the business successful and had some critical success, but never made a profit. The time invested was tremendous -- 10 or more hours a day. As is needed with any business, the time required for inventory management, bookkeeping, sales and a little marketing finally overwhelmed my practical work and that's when I decided to "retire" again and formally closed the business.

I have no regrets -- I developed skills and obtained needed tools that otherwise I would not have. Likely the lack of marketing had the biggest impact on my lack of success, but I decided early to sacrifice marketing time for "work" time. (By the way, I funneled all formal aspects of the business through a CPA -- the security of doing it right was worth the several hundreds of dollars a year.)

Rich,

Sorry the Woodworking business didn't work out for you. Owning your own business is not easy for sure!

I have no idea what kind of wood objects you made but have you ever considered writing a step by step instruction book on how to make for example a table, bench, shelf? You could put together little manuals and sell them as PDF's on Etsy.com. With that format you never have to ship anything. The customer just downloads the PDF after they pay for it.

Also, with your expertise you might consider teaching an adult education program. I have seen in my local Adult Ed brochure that they encourage people with talents of all sorts to teach all kinds of subject matter and it can be taught off site from the school. In our area there is a Nursery that is teaching things about planting trees, shrubs and flowers. Kind of a landscape course. Another person teaches stained glass and it is out of her studio. I could imagine a lot of people would be interested in a woodworking course and they could take home a small project made in your shop. In our town they have Adult Ed courses in the spring and fall. Maybe you could contact some technical schools that teach woodworking and you could get a part time job teaching!

Not trying to get you out of retirement! Just some thoughts if you wanted to share your expertise with others!

If you are interested in an online business check out Site Build It. They have a total system and all the tools to get you started. Very reasonable price.

Louise, thank you for your thoughts, but you have it right -- I really don't want to un-retire again. I have way more than enough on my plate to keep me busy and happy. Retirement has been a fascinating lifestyle for my wife and myself -- full of challenges and lots of activities. That also contributed to my decision to close my business.

My purpose in responding about after retirement business was to point out that no matter how enjoyable or how much work you put into it, as the article indicates, success is a crap shoot. I wanted to do something I had never done -- open my own business and to fully utilize and develop my hobby skills as a professional. That part worked. Making money was a hopeful but not essential consideration. (Though in those early years, there was a lot of emphasis on the "hope" part.)

Since I had legally established a formal business, I felt using a CPA was a reasonable safety net and felt that was also worth pointing out.

Rich

Reading articles in, say Money Magazine (not here, of course!) always press my "Warm" button. I'm not passionate enough about the topic to have my 'hot' button affected, but i am concerned. The vast majority of small businesses in America fail. The statistics are very high (i'm not sure of the number but i think 80% or higher). So why do articles inform us of the few who have made it? Encouraging a dream is one thing, misleading others is something else.

After retiring from the corporate world I dabbled into many things, guitar, making cheese, roasting coffee, brewing beer, among some interests. A friend also roasted their own coffee, and we started giving out samples to friends. After getting positive responses, we decided to start a small company selling roasted coffee beans. Since he was still working full time, his wife jumped in as a partner, so they owned 50% and I did too. We invested a modest amount into the business, less than $2000 each and incorporated with the state. I had a building behind my house that we used as our roasting shop. We had to jump through hoops to get a health permit from the county but succeeded.

We started selling at farmer's markets, and various local shows. We gained a faithful following of customers who would reorder. We reinvested our profits into various equipment, including a larger 12 pound roaster, and even a used mini-van. We never added another dime beyond our initial investment. We grew to the point that we were wholesaling coffee to a grocery chain, and many businesses, like markets, B&Bs, and coffee shops.

All this took place in a three year period. We were actually profitable at this point, but we were not pulling a salary yet, just building equity. A lot of hours were spent doing bookwork, roasting and bagging, delivering, etc. but it was something that I enjoyed doing, even though I was doing a lot of the work. One thing I did learn was that when you have a business like this, you can not take time off to travel. In this period, I got married and priorities changed. I ended up selling my half of the business to my partners, as we wanted to travel and become snowbirds. After a year, my partners decided to sell the business. Another guy ended up buying it and is doing very well today with it. He has expanded it into a coffee shop and larger coffee roasting business.

I have great memories of building this business from scratch and made a little money in the end. I am now back to roasting my own coffee as a hobby!

When I think of a small business for myself, I think of doing work that is in line with my "what I want to do when I retire" list, and that costs little or no money to initiate. I'm probably thinking more of being an independent contractor providing a service rather than providing a product - although products from writing are desirable. My list includes writing (and the other literary arts and skills), working with animals (even people with horses like to travel and need someone who knows livestock to feed or housesit, plus I can walk a dog and feed a cat), being around people from other countries (from renting a room to a grad student to tutoring at the university), and being in the academic field (consulting for accreditation, writing grants, substitute teaching/librarianship, and doing research in a variety of disciplines).

I like the coffee bean roasting idea, even though it's not for me, because it started small and was fun, continued at a reasonable level, and then became an enterprise that was profitable enough to be a successful buyout. Bill continues to roast his own coffee as a hobby, which indicates to me he didn't sour at his small biz experience.

Maybe what I want isn't really to start my own business, but to find niches for current skills that lead to earnings for what I want to include in my life in retirement for physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual fulfillment. I've invested in myself all my life, so maybe I'm the product to market. I'll still get a tax number, I'll still develop a business plan, I'll still market myself, and I'll still pay taxes. Does this sound realistic? I think so. Maybe as I'm selling fruits and vegetables at the local farmer's market, I'll be keeping all the cage free eggs out of just one basket.

I haven't retired yet, so I don't know how realistic the above is. Yet, I figure the more I have to offer, the greater the opportunities for success.