It wasnt my business, but I worked heavily along my sister in her aquarium/fish stores. The easiest part is actually the day to day operation. The behind logistics are what kill you. Supply, taxes, payroll, leases, competition, etc. The biggest take away I saw, and the thing that saved my sister during her divorce? LLC your shit. If you keep your name on the business, your liable for fucking everything, including stupid shit like frivolous lawsuits.

I bought up some land and put it through final subdivision approval out of my own pocket. When I secured bank approval for the infrastructure loan I quit my ass busting high stress high tech job and built the project out. No partners, no employees, I only contracted professionals. It was a hugely successful passive business that just kept puking big money taxed as long term gains. It still has a few good pukes left but it's nearly built out now. I essentially retired at 45, no work other than going to closings to pick up big fat checks and some project management for my own LLCs. Of course if the project had failed, I would have been wiped out.

That kind of working for yourself? Best career decision I ever made.

When that fails what do you do?

No one will be unaffected by that stuff failing. Try as you might, the world is too connected to technology to just go without it. It's delusional to romanticize that it is possible to survive in a non-tech skill job when that job relies on a host of services and utilities that are run by technology. You cannot escape it. The world will literally burn around you.

When I was 16, I wanted a real job as a step up from my paper route. I couldn't get hired anywhere, so I grabbed a shovel and went door to door asking people if they wanted their driveway shoveled. They asked "how much" and I'd say "Oh, I don't know, $10-$20, whatever you think is fair based on the job I do. They'd agree, and I did a great job getting all of the snow scraped off, right down to the cement. They'd be impressed and end up paying somewhere between $20-$40. In my first night I made $100. A minimum wage job at the time would have paid about $40 for an 8 hour full time shift, so I made 2.5 times the hourly wage of someone working 8 hours in their work day, amd I only had to work 4 hours to do so.

I told my best friend about it the next day. He was also having no luck getting a job, so I asked him if he wanted to partner with me and we would split the money equally. He agreed. Working together was way better. We finished jobs faster than I could by myself, so we got to more jobs per hour. After 2 hours we were tired and wanted to quit for the night. We each left with $80. A full time minimum wage job would have only paid $40 for an 8 hour shift.

That night, I became hooked on working for myself. More money, less time working, work or not whenever I want to. Anytime I did have a job working for someone, I would always think back to being 16 years old, making 8 times the minimum wage and how good that felt. I'd always long for that feeling again and used it to find another attempt at being self employed.

Construction. Residential up to class A Commercial/Industrial. I have no employees now, and stick to high end finish.