My dad lost his job as a construction worker during the recession, in his 50s. At that age we knew it was going to be an uphill battle to continue to rely on his physical health for work much longer. So he hit the books while my mother continued to work part time, which allowed them to live off their savings longer at least.
Upon passing class and getting his license, I helped them bootstrap all the way through to his first customer. A simple website + a few hundred a month spent on google ads does wonders. My mother now spends her time answering customer emails/estimates/calls/paperwork and it’s has become a self sustaining machine, and I have stopped running their ad campaign (Running off the good reputation/reviews).
Now their biggest problem is finding enough skilled/trustworthy labor to complete their bids in a reasonable amount of time. As well as capex (still bootstrapped, which means expensive equipment rentals that eat heavily into margins)
I’m not tying to trivialize this, it was/is an insane amount of work with much to do before one can consider that “he made it”. Just pointing out that there is hope.
More details:
- Bay Area
-Parents speak English as a second language and only went to high school
Does being a contractor in SF require passing a class / license?
CSLB-C8 (Concrete contractor)
Furthermore, there are plenty of unlicensed contractors that we have to compete with, and a license requirement isn’t stopping them.
>While 29 percent of the nation's population was in poverty for at least two months between the start of 2004 and the end of 2006, only 3 percent were poor during the entire period.
Based on the actual data, your chances of getting out of poverty are quite GOOD.