Question to Pappy and Bike builders

[cbrooks118]

Let me give some background personally. I am 25 college educated person currently working for the local ISD in the administration office. I bring home a decent buck, but the work is really boring. I mean George Castanza sleep under your desk boring. So to keep me awake I read this site among others to ease my addiction of riding until the weekend comes

I am interested in hearing your back story and how you came to be doing powder coating and mechanic work for a living?

[CDCHONDAS]

i'll fill in for the "other bike builders" category

grew up tinkering with engines, tractors, and cars and fabricating since i can remember, somehow a few of my dads friends got me to work on their quads fixing the randoms. Then i bought a brand new quad when i had the dough and started beating the hell out of it, by then all my friends had quads and were doing the same thing to them as I was. so I started fixing these things as i had an aptitude for it and wasn't afraid to see whats inside. graduated high school and figured in a few years I would open a shop, got into full time college and full time job, 3 months later the local bike shop is closing, and gee i have no one to bore my cylinders anymore, so i go buy his boring equipment and some other things i found interesting. Brought the items home and realized i had a pile of money in equipment in my garage that I better get using, so more friends of the family (and is a rural area so we all know what everyone is doing) started getting me to fix stuff in spare time. My spare time wasn't cutting it. so I gave my boss who all along knew this was coming about month notice i was leaving. went full time in january, a hard time of the year for sure to start. went some more time and I was graduated college. now I have customers from 4 surrounding states, advertise very little anymore and stay very busy. Still chasing the dollar, I somehow am still a 1 man shop, I assume in a year or 2 I will be adding an employee and pushing into some new markets. I have an associates in business degree. best advise when starting a business, if you think you need 15k to get started, get about 30k, and be very careful converting hobbies to work, doesn't work for everyone.

p.s. I don't give out my age, I am pretty young for what I have and can do.

To add some ramblings:
One of the hardest things for me to get over is that I am not a guy in my basement working on this stuff because its shear enjoyment for $20 an hour. Yes it would be nice if everyone could get out that easy but when I went full time I had a hard time learning that people expect to pay for professional results, if they want cheap they get cheap, to maintain a professional image, I have alot of expenses to open my doors. There are some people that come in and purchase items for me that do the $20 gig, and I apologize if you are that person but I get more returns, questions and babysitting than any other customers. I probably spend 2 hours a day getting nothing done being on the phone or talking with people that stop, that really cuts up my days. So I wish people that really think they are masters that have no clue would just pony up the coin and drop off their bike, come pay and take it home happy rather than pay joe blow a little bit of nothing for him to botch up the job and call me trying to figure out why his motor won't run then have them either junk it or bring the machine to me. Its amazing how much this happens and how many other full time shops produce negative results. One of my guys brought in a QR 185, he has about $1000 in it now from being at a few shops trying to make it work right, my bill accounted for about a third of that and it runs like a top, he is thrilled, but why couldn't anyone fix it before, if you can't make one of them things run you need a new job as they are about as basic as a 4 stroke gets in the atv scene.

I did a little checking recently on price shopping between me and a major online retailer, comparing a quart of oil, their price was about a twenty five cents over my cost, believe me at what I do I would go broke at that rate, however I move alot of oil. Some people don't see that in coming in, buying 2 quarts and a filter might cost another five bucks but you know when that sucker blows up where you gonna go, the guy that bought from me, he comes back, I rebuild his whatever and he goes man I am glad your here, close to me and reasonable price, the other guy calls at 5:05 pm wanting price on parts for his rebuild that his buddy is doing on his blown up bike, i spend 15 minutes getting his stuff priced out, don't here from him again until 2 months later the quad shows up with the engine in a box and a stack of parts he thought were good because he read it somewhere. and his buddy messed something up. Its really interesting to watch but sometimes frustrating to see people blow their money twice. I gotta stop now.
To my customers I gotta say thanks for giving me this job.

[wilkin250r]

Most often, it starts out as a passion.

Like the guy above, he started out doing it on his own. He wasn't chasing a dollar, he wasn't looking to make a business out of it. He did it because he loved it. He was learning it and doing it long before he got paid for it.

Pappy started much the same way. He had an outside job, but he started playing with PC on the side, as a hobby. He got into it because he was INTERESTED in it, not because he wanted to make an extra buck. As he learned more, he did more, and only after a long while did he turn it into a business and make a profit.

Take me for example. I learn about engines because I think they are fun. I read books on engine tuning, porting theories, new technologies, because I find it FUN and interesting. I do it because it's a passion, not because I want to open up a shop. I've contemplated starting a business, but I'm afraid it would take the fun out of it.

[cbrooks118]

I am just curios thats all. Entreprenuers are always the most fun people to hear about.

I dabble in restoration, as i have recently completly re-build a 1974 cbr500four. That was fun. I also have built a 2000 suzuki intruder from two wrecked bikes. That was pretty easy to find parts or becasue 1992-2000 the intruder never changed.

Aint nothing like the first ride once you get it put back togethor.

[07250ex]

Originally posted by wilkin250r
Take me for example. I learn about engines because I think they are fun. I read books on engine tuning, porting theories, new technologies, because I find it FUN and interesting. I do it because it's a passion, not because I want to open up a shop. I've contemplated starting a business, but I'm afraid it would take the fun out of it.

i feel the same way im only 14 but i love reading about engines lol

[Pappy]

cdc and wilkin summed it up pretty well.


I actually cant paint with liquid to save my life, but wanted parts pc'd and after getting a huge estimate with shipping being more then the work itself, I decided to buy a hobby kit from a member here on the site. it was only supposed to be for fun but started getting bigger then I wanted fast. then there was the whole " pappy is an azzhole and doesn't know what he is doing" that went along with my success. I was pretty mad at some of that because i was just starting out and learning and knew mistakes would be made. thankfully, being 110% honest with folks and turning a blind eye to anyone who wanted to take a stab at me started paying off. I guess i started learning that people on the net can be the biggest idiots on the planet and i wasn't going to change that by playing silly games, I had bigger plans and moronic behavior wasn't to be included.

Enter Izzy Burgard and Harlen, the owner of this site. Harlen wanted 2 frames coated, and I was limited to a very small oven, but Harlen knew Burgard and he had an oven to do frame size parts. We were introduced and I started doing frames and became good friends with Harlen and Izzy. I have to thank Izzy for allowing me the freedom and use of his equipment, without him I would have never went anywhere.

After about 2 years of running to Burgards 2 or 3 times a week, my family decided that making the business real and buying a new place to live with a bigger work space was needed. So we relocated out of state to my current place. It took almost another year to save enough to buy a bigger oven, all the while driving 2 hours each way to Burgards to continue growing. I went from a $400 kit to over $50k in equipment in less then 3 years or so. I had a plan, I stuck to it, and stayed interested in what I was doing.

Last year was insanity, grossing much more then I make at my job of 17 years which i am still employed. That business was due to be sold, but has been going through the selling process for over 18 months and I am pretty sure that deal fell through, but another one will either be wrapped up shortly or I will stay there for 3 more years. So, basically for the past 5 years i have been working 2 full time jobs, and for the past 10 months, pulling another job as a photographer at most of the national races. I work, I don't rest and I am a slave to what I enjoy however something has to give soon as I am about stretched as thin as one man can get. And to top that off, the wife decided to take a second job just to get away from the house:p She works full time from the home and has for the past 3 years so it is a break for her. If it were not for her and my two sons, I would have had to make a decision on what career path I had to take along time ago, but for now we will deal with everything as it comes at us.

This site played and still remains my #1 source of advertising strictly by word of mouth. I have so many riders that I help I can't keep track of all of them. Local work is but a phone call away as I have made friends with the largest PC shop in the region and they can't wait to feed me jobs they feel are to small for them. They have also been an invaluable training tool as there is nothing more important then experience and if I run into an issue they are there to back me up, and in return I help send them large jobs that I cant handle (drag car chassis, trailers etc)

that about wraps it up in a nutshell. As far as background, I was raised on our family farm, was no stranger to the belt if I did wrong and was taught to work hard for what you want. I spent my summers in my dads welding shop (He owned his own welding company for over 20 years) and when I was old enough I worked there full time before leaving for the service.

there is no special trick to it, be honest, do the best you can do and try and be smart about things without over thinking them. Harlen (Admin) has been a best friend to me through all my growing pains and is one of the smartest cats I know. If it were not for him and Izzy, I would be nothing more then a guy with a $400 hobby powder coating set up that liked to do his own parts:p They are what drive me to travel to cover the races and help people here when I can as they supported me when I had but a slight spark of an idea that they felt could grow into a raging fire, and it has! Don't get me wrong, I got and still get an overwhelming amount of support from 14 year old members to Pro riders in every facet of this sport and they are the ones who keep me going day in and day out. I mean it's 7:46 pm, and a Pro GNCC rider just called to drop off parts and pick more up ...whats not to like:p


I have to add this....

Harlen saw that i was close to him right before the 2001:confused: Penton GNCC and offered me a full set of beadlocks and tires for the race. We met, I trashed his tires and we have been friends ever since. When he called and told me he had bought atvriders.com I was pretty excited. In less then 2 years, he was able to quit his nice comfy office gig and now travels the country covering anything atv related. It is a pretty cool story when you think about it all.

And I was informed tonight that ATVriders.com has once again been nominated for the 3rd straight year for website of the year by the AMA!!!!

[CDCHONDAS]

yea pappy, gotta agree it wouldn't be worth it if it weren't for the satisfied customers, if no one ever showed gratitude i think I would have quit a long time ago, I just like to see these people smile.

[Ghost-Rider]

Originally posted by Pappy

And I was informed tonight that ATVriders.com has once again been nominated for the 3rd straight year for website of the year by the AMA!!!!



Ha, you almost sound surprised ;)

[wilkin250r]

Originally posted by CDCHONDAS
i'll There are some people that come in and purchase items for me that do the $20 gig, and I apologize if you are that person but I get more returns, questions and babysitting than any other customers. I probably spend 2 hours a day getting nothing done being on the phone or talking with people that stop, that really cuts up my days.

Oh, man. You should hear Mickey Dunlap go off on that same rant. It's the reason he doesn't have email, and only answers his phone when the full moon lands on the 3rd wednesday of the month.

[CDCHONDAS]

Thats somewhere I'm not stooping, not cool PR.