Starting a scooter rental business

Jeeta said:
Like Guerilla clearly said why take on so much risk? It's pretty fucking scary the amount of people around here who lack the basic concept of risk management.
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I think doing some research before hand to determine demand would mitigate a lot of risk. Having only 3 or 5 scooters on hand to rent out if more than 1 group of people wants to rent scooters is just leaving cash on the table. What if a group of 6 guys comes along and wants to rent scooters for the day and you only have 5 to rent? You're not going to rent any then.

Having 10 of 15 scooters rented out for the day is far better than having none of 5 rented.
 


Jeeta said:
Someone else who fails to understand risk management. It's not about the size of the risk, it has everything to do with your ability understand and control that risk.

You do not control Google or your traffic source, you can influence it at best. Therefore you are in a high risk business, is that seriously that hard to understand? Your business is fill of bottle necks, risks you can't control, and by the looks of things risks you've yet to fully understand. I'd much rather put $10,000 into a scooter business with someone who fully understands the risks involved, than invest $100 with someone who hasn't the clue what the fuck they are doing.
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Open up your mind and think outside what your terms of risk management are. This is also going to be a huge time commitment for the OP.

Your statement about controlling Google is invalid. There are many ways to get traffic outside of SEO.
 
You can try your homeowners agent but you might be best served to find a small local independant property and casualty agent. These guys usually specialize in business insurance. One thing to remember these quotes are usually negotiable, however being a new business you will have a hard enough time finding a company that will even take on the risk. you should deff look into those pedal scooters of they can be classed a bicycle it may make all the difference. You will be looking at 3 policies bus auto, commercial liability, and work comp (even if it's just you and your excludeded. Keep them together. Also I hope you have good credit, this can be a deal breaker as well. Good luck
 
I'm assuming you'll be purchasing Chinese scooters. I bought one. They're fun. However, it only went for 1100 miles before I had problems getting it started.

There are typically a few things you should swap out of the Chinese scoots right off the bat to prevent future problems. Check out the Scoot Dawg forums. With that being said, they will run just as reliably as more expensive scooters if you swap out the shit first.

And as others have said, that's way too cheap. There's a place where I live that rents out mountain bikes. It's 40 bucks for 4 hours, and 60 bucks for the day. And you're renting scoots, dawg.
 
These are the scooters to rent, brah, they'll give you far less trouble:

micro_scooter_bullet_1.jpg
 
Well I live at the beach and have thought about this. Would definitely require a DL and CC to rent out the scooter though. Also, have a lawyer draw up terms of what is and isn't allowed so you can protect your ass. Nobody will read it but the fact that they signed and dated it is good. Even better if an employee you hire is a notary.

Another note, don't "hire employees." Sub contract them and pay them hourly so you can just 1099 them and you won't have to worry about benefits, workers comp, or taxes (for the most part). Almost always the easiest way to start a lean business.


Also, at least get 10. There will be plenty of families or friends who want to rent out 4-6 at a time. They are easy as fuck to fix IMO but then again, I can rebuild a motocross bike from top to bottom. I can change a clutch in like 3 minutes lol.

PM me if you live in the carolinas.
 
I don't know where you are locating your business.

Where I live I'm pretty sure you need a moped license. How many tourists have those?
 
bitsdawg said:
I don't know where you are locating your business.

Where I live I'm pretty sure you need a moped license. How many tourists have those?
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I know in my state that for 50cc scooters you do not need a permit or M license. However, for 150CC scooters and up, you need a motorcycle license.

So, OP would need to keep it at 50cc, which is a good idea anyway. You don't want these people going over 45.
 
Pb.com said:
Well I live at the beach and have thought about this. Would definitely require a DL and CC to rent out the scooter though. Also, have a lawyer draw up terms of what is and isn't allowed so you can protect your ass. Nobody will read it but the fact that they signed and dated it is good. Even better if an employee you hire is a notary.

Another note, don't "hire employees." Sub contract them and pay them hourly so you can just 1099 them and you won't have to worry about benefits, workers comp, or taxes (for the most part). Almost always the easiest way to start a lean business.


Also, at least get 10. There will be plenty of families or friends who want to rent out 4-6 at a time. They are easy as fuck to fix IMO but then again, I can rebuild a motocross bike from top to bottom. I can change a clutch in like 3 minutes lol.

PM me if you live in the carolinas.
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There's all kinds of other fun laws that go into hiring contract workers. What you're talking about is basically saying okay I'm hiring you as a contractor, but I'm going to treat you like an hourly employee. The IRS will be all over your ass if you're not careful. In some instances they'll even go back and reclassify people as non-1099 workers.
 
pewep said:
I think there are many more profitable and easier to manage ventures. If I had spare money at the moment (should have some within 3 months) I'd start a full scale bulk mailing venture. $12,000 will get you about 30 million inboxes a day for a month. You'd make roughly 4-5X your investment.
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i will give you $12k if you can double it in a month
 
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