Can Veeky Forums evaluate my business model?

Ontario, Canada

Do yards in Ontario have underground pipes and/or cabling in them that might set off metal detectors?
If so, check in to see if you can get a diagram of where they're laid out

Not a bad idea but your rates need to rise quite a lot, you won't be making a profit off $25 flat.

Depends if you plan to do this fulltime. Do (total living expenses+total business expenses)*20% / number of hours that you plan on working=very rough number of what you'll have to charge MINIMUM. Also try to make a spreadsheet with a ratio of median hours worked per surface covered so you'll be able to pice accordingly if you go for flatrates.

Interesting idea OP, but:

>what's the average size of a backyard in your area?
>are people really going to find enough metal in the backyard to justify the cost? I think you'd need to find a shitload of metal before I'd pay you even $25
>how much time would it take you? If it's too long it won't be profitable. If it's too short, I'd feel ripped off.

I think you'd need to spend at least 20 minutes in my yard before telling me there's nothing before I'd feel like I got my money's worth.

I wouldn't pay you $25 to dick around in my yard to find scrap cans. Of course, I don't know anything about Canada so maybe your yards are gigantic and treasure often turns up. What makes you think this would work?

I think it more to find treasure than just metal. A friend used his detector at my mums yard, they found chest, had fuck all in it but was pretty cool.

Could be interesting if this were the case. Are you selling a dream, OP?

Further to this, really play off the idea that do people really know what is in their yard? Look at some of the finds people have made, the staffordshire hoard and such, maybe make a infograph / flyer to give to people with some interesting facts.

This is retarded. In people's gardens there is usually a near 0% chance of making a find of ANY historical interest - even coins from the 50s/60s tend to be rare. The only exception is if you are in a garden close to the historical centre of an old city - for example, if you were able to have a go in a garden in central London. EVEN then, continuous occupation makes it extremely unlikely because the earth will have been disturbed so many times - meaning that anything of value will stratigraphically lie beyond the reach of even the best detectors.

If you're in America, this problem will be compounded by a lack of occupation until very recent times in most places.

You're better off offering a service to people who have lost their keys or jewellery in their yards, rather than to people who think you might strike gold.

t. 18 years metal detecting experience in Britain.

I disagree. If OP is truly selling a 'dream', as this user suggested, then it could prove to be profitable.

If you could compile a (fictitious or otherwise) list of customers/people who have found treasure in their yard, then people could be persuaded into giving it a go. Real people would be better, but they hardly exist, and their discovery may have taken place YEARS ago.

Obviously this all depends heavily on your sales skill, but if you could pull this off... $.

People are more willing to spend money when they can be persuaded into thinking of it as an investment. I went to China some time ago on a tour (which are known for bringing you places that offers them significant sales commissions).

Anyway, a more memorable part of the tour involved the tour guide telling us about a previous tour member who had struck it rich buying a certain art piece. She painted a story involving this person going into a pottery studio, picking out a random piece that he thought looked nice, and obviously it was one that was painted by the Chinese version of an Old Master figure, netting him hundreds of thousands in profit (gross simplification of story).

When we got there, most of the tour members were snapping up pieces. I won't lie, I was also affected by the story and was trying to find a good piece, anything significantly different. These pieces were sold at a slight premium (something like a couple hundred bucks, nothing people couldn't afford), but their true value was obviously a lot lower. I snapped out of it only because my father warned that I was getting too affected by the story, but everyone else were buying pieces left and right.

A dream, friend, is something a lot of people will pay a lot of money for. Even if they know that the chances of even breaking even is next to nil, they will buy it to just ENTERTAIN the mere thought of getting rich. Ergo for lottery tickts.

I have more... observations,if anyone's interested.

Just imagine how good of a sitcom pitch this is

>two main characters, naive and idealistic kid who wants to find awesome treasures and his greedy fat friend who just wants to rip people off
>they constantly completely dig up people's backyards only to find a rusted metal can
>plot arcs when they find weapons, gold, oil

On-topic, I know people will buy pretty much everything, but you have to consider how much customer dissatisfaction there would be. If someone paid you money for this, and you found nothing, or worse, if you found "something" and it turned out to be junk after you made a hole in their lawn, it'd make people pretty unhappy.

Also, the fact that you don't want to take a cut of the findings smells to me like you're pretty sure you won't find anything. Others might notice this too.

here. So what you're saying is the OP should just scam people? Hardly a recipe for long term business success, unless your intention is to live as a vagrant con-artist.

Metal detecting is not an investment. Even in Britain, which has some of the best/fairest detecting legislation in the world, where you are allowed legally to keep and sell anything that falls outside of the definition of 'treasure' - and that includes all coins as single finds. If OP has ever detected before - especially if he has done it in Canada - he will know that the amount of time that needs to be sunk in for even the most minor reward is colossal.

Even in Britain, where you are literally tripping over history, this is true. You can spend 12, 13, 14 hours in a field next to a Medieval church and there is no guarantee you will find even a single, battered hammered coin.

People think of detecting as a get rich quick route - because you hear about the finds of a life time - the Staffordshire Hoard, the Hoxne Hoard, the St. Albans hoard. What you don't hear about is the 99.9999% of detectorists who 99.99999% of the time find very little indeed. Even on the very rare occasion when you say, find a gold stater or a medieval gold angel, the £4/5k (and that's assuming a find in very good condition, and that is at least uncommon) you will make out of those rare finds hardly covers the cost of the detector, petrol to reach site, and more importantly the months and months of time spent finding bullets, coke cans, rusted toy cars.

Nobody would bite - OP already would seem to me like a conman on my doorstep. The average punter wouldn't be interested enough, and anybody with minimal knowledge of the history of Canada will know there is almost 0 chance of finding anything worthwhile in their back gardens.

Your business would dry up very quickly given the failure rate. OP would make more out of the little time he'd be up and running charging by the hour, not by space searched.

You've made some very good points, most of which I agree with. However, as you are an insider, you would agree with me that trying to make money by trying to earn a cut of whatever is found is business suicide..As you may be able to tell from what I've said, I agree that next to nobody has made a find of any significance.

However, I wouldn't label it something as harsh as a 'scam'. Lottery winners know that the chance of striking it rich is next to 0, but many still buy it. Such a business arguably creates no value, but sustains itself. Furthermore, who's to say that OP will NEVER make someone rich? As long as there is a chance, however slight, I'd say that people are willing to pay for it. If they are willing to pay for a chance (however small) to entertain the thought of striking it rich, then it isn't a scam. (As much as lottery pools are).

Of course, you may choose to see it as such. But I'd argue that as long as people are willing to participate, and that as long as you keep to whatever agreement that was in place when something notable is found, then it is fair business practice.

I say let OP do his work. He mentioned that he already was in possession of a metal detector, so why not try to make some money off it? I was merely giving him suggestions on how to persuade more customers. I used the phrase "persuaded into thinking of it as an investment" to mean that OP could generate more success if he highlights the cases of success, just as the Chinese tour guide did.

I did say to compile a list (fictitious or otherwise), but OP does not have to misrepresent anything if he doesn't want to. I also mentioned in the same breath that 'real people would be better', but obviously cases of someone digging up a chest of gold coins a century ago wouldn't be quite as effective.

>Your business would dry up very quickly given the failure rate

Maybe, maybe not. I do think this business idea is a unique one. As long as OP is a good salesman, it could work.