Cart vs. Trailer.
Good question. When I get asked this, I always try to find out assets and resources. That's going to be the single most important thing when making the decision.
If a person has less than 10k to their name and limited resources to help build the trailer...ie they don't have experience in construction, plumbing or electrical AND they don't have a community that can help them, then I'm going to push for the cart. Here's why...
If you start with a cart, within a summer, its very reasonable to save up 10k if you are doing weekend events..ie moonlighting your day job. With that extra money, you can start building your trailer out come fall and hire people to do so.
If you have more than 10k or you have close to 10k and resources to help you build it, ie your a plumber, your dads a electrician, your husbands a carpenter...then I'm going to suggest considering a trailer. Trailers take about 10-15k to build out depending on your resources and know how...
Sometimes people want to save until they have $20-30k for a trailer. That's not a bad idea. Its what I did for my first one, but it took me 2 years to do that. Better idea looking back, would have been to hit the 5ks and farmers markets with a cart for a summer. I would have gained more experience, had the business established longer (better for business credit) and been able to transfer the equipment over to the trailer.
Hopefully, some of you can learn from my mistakes...
Keep Truckin!
Green Joe
