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Alright I will keep that in mind, I am going to sign up for some free trials as my shop comes online and see what I like best in the coming months.

Attitude, eagerness/ability to learn and work ethic seems to be the only thing that matters anymore. I feel like you can train and grow anyone with these qualities. Trying to teach or train those qualities seems to be difficult if they are not there naturally.

I have been trying to decide between Shop Boss and Tekmetric. Anyone have insight on either?

Interesting insights on advertising! Does anyone have experience with Kukui and they effectiveness?

This is true. A major hospital is 2.4 miles away, Google is 3.4 miles away, Microsoft is 6.5 miles away and many other $100K plus employees are in the general 5 mile radius. Research shows many of these employees live in the same area, new home/townhome construction targeting these employees is all within a 5 mile radius as well. I think that the major traffic flow past this and another location I am considering may be the path between home and work for many of these employees. Not sure if I can prove it but it makes sense. Thanks for the insight and a great way to think about it.

Would you mind touching on what your rent to revenue percentage was while you ran the business? I agree that location is great advertising, just how much do you spend to make sense? The buyer that folded, do you know the circumstances? Thanks for your insight.

Was all the panic and stress worth it at this point? Right now proposed rent plus NNN and taxes etc. would be $30K so yes big sales are needed for sure. I would assume I need at least 6 months of rent plus capital to even think about this but maybe I need a year? Hiring does have me in a bit of a panic as I plan on paying flat rate(90% of the shops in our area flat rate shops, or a performance based hourly rate) and I know most techs will not stand around and not get paid while things ramp up, so that needs to be figured out....or I just start with a smaller staff and hire as I go like you did. I completely agree with what you are saying, I would love to get 7% rent and obviously me posting this shows I know that my rent is going to be on the high side. Risky for sure. Just was wondering if anyone in my situation had any insight like "DONT DO IT!" or "you could but you need to do xyz..." Are there success stories for someone paying higher rent in a better location? In my forecasting I have been running through my numbers as hitting all my benchmarks for tech efficiency, labor and parts margins as well as a break even forecast and a bad(pandemic) forecast. Trying to see where all three of those land, how long in the red I can operate for before we have to close the doors etc. Would you say that you underestimated your expenses(if so, what did you underestimate) or was it your revenue that you underestimated or I guess overestimated? What software tool is that if I may ask? Great data. That location is one of two proposed but basically both are the same type of location, hard signaled intersection with high traffic count. The other location has 40K households in a 3 mile radius, $129K average household income $98K median and 58% of the population with Bachelor degrees or higher. And this is my risk, is the location/demographic enough to support paying double the rent that I should? My business model is based on providing my clients with a high performance luxury experience that they did not know they were missing when having their car repaired, serviced, customized or modified for better performance because there are only maybe 3 or 4 other places like that in our general metro area do anything like this. Appreciate the insight on the location and demographics. Thanks again to everyone's insight and words of caution, I appreciate it all!

This is great information. I completely understand that this is about trust and getting people in the door will be the biggest challenge, great location or not. Survival is key, that is a good #1 to focus on in the beginning. If you don't mind me asking, how many months of expense did you have in the bank and how many did you end up needing? I have been quite pessimistic with my projections for my first year and I will take a second look with even more pessimism and see where I come out at. I know if I cut my techs produced hours hours in half to 6 hours per tech, it looks like we would break even. Proposed first 3 months would be rent free but maybe I can negotiate more. In your prime location, did you see double digit growth when you first opened or was it slow and steady? My main concern with this start up is: #1 Getting cars in and as many as I can as fast as I can. Obviously I will need to spend a lot of my time marketing to get our name out in the community. I do plan on spending time in community events to have the business be part of the community(I also live in this community as well) #2 Making sure my expenses like rent are in line with the industry and if they are not how to do that or make them work. Did you have other surprise expenses besides the ones you mentioned? I have exhausted my ideas of things I may need to pay for but I am still searching for more hidden ones as I plan. Thank you for your reply and insight, I really appreciate your honesty and your openness about your business.

I will add about the location that there is a Starbucks and a Mcdonalds within a block of the proposed location. They both have drive thru's and are busy all day everyday. I know they did their homework about these locations. The auto repair shops that are in the 3 mile radius are two gas station service stations and 2 older general auto repair shops. The general area is expanding and expanding fast with new town homes, high end luxury homes and luxury apartments, so the area is becoming more expensive and growing fast. Any insight or help would be appreciated! Thanks

New guy here, looking into opening a new repair shop. Been in the industry for 15 years as a tech/manager. I am looking into a new building/ piece of land to have a shop built on at hard signaled corner with 50K per day traffic count in an affluent neighborhood, over 40K households in a 3 mile radius with average income of $125K per year. Not any high end modern repair shops a 5 mile radius other than a few standard dealerships. Location is really great, or so it seems. I am pricing out rent/mortgage to be between $36 and $50/sq ft for this shop. Proposed to be 7500 to 10,000 sq ft. The shop/brand we be marketed as an alternative to the luxury dealership, higher end with modern amenities compared to the normal 30 year old never updated repair shop and cater to the performance car community as well. Plan is to have 4-6 techs with 1-2 writers. I have run numbers through a P&L statement and if the techs produce 8-10 hours per day the numbers work to pay the bills and make a 15-20% net profit. My question is, is my rent too much? Depending on my labor rate and hours billed, my rent expense is between 15% and 20% of gross revenue. I know I have read and heard that auto repair should be closer to 5-10% but I know that location can affect this greatly along with many other factors. I know that the number work in my spreadsheet but I want some real world opinions if possible. Maybe someone is in a location or situation like mine and it is working great or maybe it isn't. Let me have it!