How would you start?

[ryanht13]

I want to start a side-biz in the very large city I live in. I want to wholesale contractor grade construction eqt products and building materials. Think lumber, nails, tools, drywall, roofing, hammers, ladders, and all the accessories in between.

I have a great job, but with a lot of autonomy and free time during the day.

Back story... I approached a guy about purchasing his business in this industry in a small market (800 miles away). He just wasn't ready to sell and was overvaluing the biz. He did say he would gladly help me get started in another market by providing vendor info, types of customers to go after, etc. He started his business 15 years ago with $10,000. They now do almost $5M revenue (ebit is probably 500k-750k). 

I want to bootstrap it. Should I get a storage shed and buy an old truck? Lease a gravel parking lot or something?
Any advice on how to do this and keep startup investment low?

[SC93]

I know the owner through sprint car racing. He is from the area yet he was on a traveling team that traveled to dirt tracks across the nation. At that time he didn't have a pot to piss in..... hanging around millionaires all the time at the dirt tracks he knew he needed to do something to make some money so he started a pallet company buying and selling wood pallets. I'm not sure why but that business was closed. Then he had an opportunity to buy some over stock of wood flooring (I think). And that was when shoptheboss.com was created. That wasn't very long ago, I'd say 2008-2010, something like that. I don't know how much money he has made but I can tell you he has made a few million in that short amount of time. They did a story on him but I don't know who it was that did it. You can probably find it if you search Google. So in short, there is a ton of money in that business.

[SC93]

Well hell, if I would have looked at his website the story is on there.

https://www.shoptheboss.com/our-team/