When you decide to monetize your skills in the construction trades by starting your own business, you must do some basic due diligence.
First-
Be brutally honest with yourself. You will need at least 10,000 hours of business management before you are considered a journey level manager. This is why funding is so difficultly acquired. Don't let this scare you. Just understand, to be successful you will need to learn how to hold on to money and create cash flow called- operating capital. This is apprentice level business management for year 1.
Second-
Accept that years 1 thru 5 are your business management apprentice years. While you are working your trade to feed your family and build your bank, you will be apprenticing in project and Business management at least 20 to 30 hours per week if you want to journey out in 5 years. Yes, some of your trade work will apply to your understanding of the PM/BM process. Your approach to your trade work will change as your mind begins to count the dollars and hours expended on each task. This paradigm shift generally happens towards the end of the first year when you account for your profits and loses. By the second year, you've stepped back from the matrix and begin seeing the dollars flow both ways. Getting to the paradigm shift is apprentice level 2.
Third-
Do not buy a new truck, software, top-of-the-line tools, or anything else in your first year. Apprentice PM/BM level 3- stay in your lane until you reach journey level. All new self-performing business owners and small employer (buddy partners) take on projects that are marginally within their skill set because its easily available. For example, a foundation carpenter has seen and understands framing. It's carpentry after all. It might be true but there are losses in efficiency, error correction, revised tooling, lost opportunity, and dissatisfied customers that assassinate your reputation and refuse to pay you. All of which takes money from your cash flow.
Staying in your lane also applies to markets like, residential, commercial, institutional, and governmental construction. If you are a skilled foundation carpenter and a journey level business manager in the residential market taking on a governmental construction project will cost you money. Consider it a specialty requiring a year or two of its own apprenticeship. It might be worth the losses to invest in a growing market or it could be an unfriendly money-pit.
Wrap up-
There are people who will help you without spending a days wages. Borrowing before your journey level means high interest rates. Pretty much credit card levels. If you are an exceptional construction company, your annual profits might hit 15%. Borrowed money is easily 20% interest. Every lender becomes a leaching partner.
So how can you begin your Project/Business manager apprenticeship? Do some research. Explore what Builders Flux has to offer in its free start-up package and subscription membership packages. Do not spend more than an hours labor total per month on all your support products. Keep it simple like planting a seed and slowly nurturing it through it's growth cycle. In Business, nourishment comes from cash flow period. Apprentice level 1.