Currently I have no employees, I have my 210 hoe, 6 ton, and a CTL and for the past 2 years it's went great. Been busy, many times too busy but no stress of employees and making very good money. I did a demo job a few months ago for a fairly decent size home builder, I think they build around 40-50 a year, they are not happy with their current excavator and have asked me if I want to submit tender to take over. I know a finishing carpenter who has worked for them for over 10 years now and has nothing but good things to say and financially the builder is very stable. Payment terms are decent. I don't know who i'm bidding against, but having already done work for them I think I have a pretty good advantage if i'm comparable price wise.
For me to even consider, I know i'd have to be willing next spring to buy another hoe and have at least 2 full-time employees. I wouldn't want the risk of having one customer be more then about 25-30% of my work. But i'm wondering is it really worth the hassle? I really like the idea of having even 1 guy so not everything has to be done by me, but also know employees can be headaches. My brother does concrete and has around 15 guys or so and at the end of the day this summer i'm probably making the same amount of money as him.
The thing I like about the bigger builder is less BS. With so many of the one time builders I deal with now i'm always chasing money and virtually none have any idea what they are doing, and it's getting old quick.
There's been a few of the bigger guys closing doors the last few years, from what i've heard it's sick of not making any money because it's hard to find good guys and rates dropping so much. I have no desire to ever get that big, but wonder if it's better just to maybe find 1 good guy and stay small.