What Would You Do If...

What would you do if someone lent you $25,000 dollars today to start your own business. That was the question posed to me by Pertuity Direct, who are a Social Lending Company. Unfortunately I probably live in the wrong country but just supposing someone lent you all that money, what sort of business would you start?

At the moment I own a very small but successful Home Care and Home Nursing Agency. I started it just over a year ago, with no start up capital at all, and have managed (at times just about) to keep my head above water, and furthermore also managed to keep the head of my colleague Paul above water for most of that time. But there are so many improvements to be made, a bit of start up capital would make a huge difference.

Firstly, I would use part of the money to pay to have the business incorporated, it makes sense for all sorts of reasons - tax reasons, legal reasons, insurance reasons, and it would enable me to give contracts to the people who work for me, thereby providing them with security for sick pay and pension rights.

The next thing I would do is buy some basic equipment, such as bath boards, a couple of wheelchairs, some Zimmer frames, over the lavatory frames for people who have difficulty with getting into and out of a sitting position. At the moment we rent these pieces of equipment, whereas if we owned them ourselves we could rent them out to our clients, and make a bit of money that way as well, plus we would not have to wait for the delivery company to come and fit the equipment. We would also buy some digital blood pressure machines and blood sugar monitors.

Since communication is a must at all times, I would invest some money in a series of cell phones on the same business contract, obviously with itemized bills. This would enable the business to repay the people who work for us for their work related calls, it would make all calls between those phones free of charge and would mean we would never run out of credit on our phones.

My car is on its last legs, so I would pay a good mechanic to repair the clutch and give it a total check up so that it will hopefully last for another couple of years. Obviously we need to be able to get to patients at all times of the day and night, and it would be great to have transport that is 100% reliable.

Finally, I would give myself a day off. I have not had a day off for more than a year now, and it would be really nice to stay in bed past 9.00 in the morning and then wake, knowing I have a whole day to relax.

I can see my new business now, not a new busines but a business renewed with fresh energy and new hope. Bring it on Pertuity please!