I recently heard someone say they can't wait to buy a building or lease space to have a "professional" set up. I thought I would put my 1.5 cents in here...
When I started breeding ball pythons as a business, I already had an office warehouse where I operated my other businesses out of. I had some extra space and that was one of the reasons I decided to venture into ball pythons. Then, when I moved back home to Florida, it was the same story. I needed an office to run my other businesses and now had over a thousand ball pythons and definitely had to have an office for that as well.
About eight months after moving home, I decided to use a logistics company for my other businesses and I was left with an office solely for the snakes. The rent was $1800 a month and with expenses and gas to and from work, etc., I was looking at about $2400 a month. That equates to almost $30,000 a year just from the office expense side of ball pythons. I don't know about you, but there are a lot of other things I would rather spend $30,000 on than having a nice "professional" office for my snakes, who don't give a damn what the facility looks like.
So, I decided to sell off some of the collection and move everything into my 3 car garage. The floors are cement, the lighting sucks, I have a window HVAC unit and I have to park my vehicles outside. But, you know what? I get to spend $30,000 more a year on acquiring new genes and furthering the potential of my business. I can't make videos showing off my nice facility like Ben Renick can, but my company's products can now get a whole lot better, if I wish them to. Or, I can take a nice vacation to Hawaii or Australia, or anywhere in the world and still put $25K in the bank or into snakes or anything else!
So, don't let the videos of people's facilities sway you into making financial decisions that aren't going to increase your bottom line. Focus on the snakes, focus on your customers and build your business. Keep your overhead as low as possible! Then, one day if you're in a really good place, you can look into a nice set up. In the mean time, use your extra bedroom, use your garage, fix up that shed...and save a boat load of cash! I haven't sold any fewer snakes because I work out of my garage now.