Business in Poland and Polish reality, How are you doing in Poland?

Thanks a lot delpiandomine,

So we are basically need to prepare for opening in September... What do you do for living?

Officially, a primary school teacher, but I do a lot of stuff connected with marketing as part of my job. But in the beginning, we had a nursery and primary school opening, so I was in the thick of it, you might say.

Just an idea based on what you said above - I'm using a webhost called (grr, PF censors it - search Google for Cut All The Sh!t hosting) for my personal stuff - they do a fantastic job of doing the simple things very well. Might be an idea to have a UK version of the same idea?

Hi Delphiandomine,

Excellent, looks like you know that stuff very well, and it looks like you also love it and do it with a passion. How long do you live in Poland?

Update about the wife - she come back from galeria an hour ago, the little one was playing with kids on the playground (all Galleries in Poland have that sort of stuff now), little one supposed to go sleep but she didn't.. So not much time to follow up stuff, argh, anyway I hope she will find some time soon, as there is silence in regards to bus business, was one phone call tomorrow but they wanted a bus in white colour not blue :), today nothing at all.

Yes I can see that, very good marketing indeed, very aggressive and controversial but must work well. I have an experience on that market for over 15 years I must say... I can tell you that once these hosting companies have enough money to play with they cut down everything - they got call centres in India, they don't deal with requests and problems, they don't invest, they become unreliable, take arvixe for instance, few years ago that was number one, nowadays it's the worst one. My plan is to get descent equipment as I know this is important and migrate servers every year, that way customers always would be satisfied and I don't have a high failure rate, other stuff to mention - I don't want to go big, there would be quality over quantity so almost opposite what others do, I cannot be bothered with any cheap packages either as they will not pay for the bills, my plan is to have it as dedicated servers option only, you basically rent the server and IP address for it, I run it for you and that is it. I'm checking dedicated option plan on hosting you are using, 399 dollars for 2x Xeon Hex Core E5-2650v2 2.0 GHz, 16gb Ram, 1tb SATA, specs are not impressive and I cannot see any RAID option (security), my plan will have Quad core processors, 16GB of RAM or more if someone requires, 4x 1TB SSD SATA in RAID 5, RAID 6 or RAID 10 configuration, I would be more expensive as well. Probably would be looking at £600 pm and contract for 24 months minimum. ANyway this don't need to be attractive, it need to be stable and done correctly, I'm also looking to have up to 8x customers which I can manage, I don't want to go nuts, it must be enough money to pay for all overheads etc, and keep it running, I won't be even doing any advertising for that

Buses in local transport are usually old. That's because new ones are very expensive, the large ones (with +40 seats) cost like 1 mln PLN and more. In Poland new buses are being bought mainly either by cities or by the companies operating long ("intercity" or abroad) distance routes. If they were changing buses every few years, the costs would have to be so high that it would be likely cheaper to put these kids into several taxis... But if the bus is old it doesn't have to mean it needs to smoke like a steam locomotive, obviously it shouldn't If is well maintained. You can call police if you see this crap again, unless they are busy with something else, they should check it out.

BTW I think Polski Bus was set up by some guy from the UK so it's not impossible :)))

Thanks Grzegorz_ You have given me some prospective.

Hi There,

The main problem with buses and local firms is that they don't want to spend 100k+ for a second hand bus which is up to 10years old, you will still need to pay for some maintenance on it, I had to take it as it had some places with visible rust!!! Fortunately I spent around 6k to fix that up and it's nice now and I know what I have. Usually these people have limited budget which is 20-40k for a bus, they also buy 40+ seaters as they are cheaper (for like to like, if you compare same brand, year etc) but fuel consumption on the big ones is completely pointless. Customers have troubles understanding that this is a huge difference between a bus and another bus. They are not exactly cheap. My plan was to run that for up to 5 years and if that would work well I would maybe in 3-5years buy brand new one in some lease plan and keep this, old one as a spare or for local, short runs only. Anyhow now I have different perspective, no phone calls today, will see how it will be tomorrow. Polish market is difficult.

Luke , I do wonder how you might do if you strip out the seats and run freight between Poland and the Uk, I for one would have a return load from the uk for you.

Hi Dolnoslask,

This idea could be good but certainly not for this case:
- our driver is my father in law, he charge us per every trip he make so, he is 64 so I cannot imagine him running constantly, someone else will cost us much more money, people as drivers wants at least 3.5-4.5k per month

- bus itself is very economic but it has 3.9l engine and 100BHP, this is nothing, it's not powerful enough for such a long trips hence why I'm planning to run it in Poland, maybe with occasional trips to Czech Republic or Slovakia, going to UK would also cost me more in terms of insurance and risk

- this bus has two pair of doors and they are quite narrow, OK passengers can get in/out without any problems but unfortunately there is no way I know about it to convert doors to make it for a full load for other stuff like furniture, it has windows as well so any equipment, furniture etc can damage the Windows...

- current situation with migrants going and ripping everything out of the trucks, putting other people in life danger and financial responsibilities if you happen to take some of them to the other side even if you don't know they are there...

- truck would be much cheaper and newer than bus itself, it will also have powerful enough engine but also will require different type of license, we have a license for passenger transport not for goods...

Unfortunately there is too many cons, it is just not feasible but thank you so much for suggestion.

Get your point luke, are you anywhere near the German border?, there is a good trade in taking German tourists around Silesia, so that they can see their old houses and towns that they lost, they are usually old and have plenty of cash, you would get kickbacks from restaurant owners B&B's for bringing in trade.

Hi Dolnoslask,

I like that idea but I don't speak any German, do they speak German, I think this may work actually, we are around 300km from the border, it's Chrzanow which is between Krakow and Katowitze

300km is a long way before you start earning, many people in Silesia speak German, it would be possible to pick up German speaker on minimum wage to act as a tour guide.

Take a look at lscl.eu/ they don't offer tour bus trips yet so might be an opportunity.

Thanks for that, I will need to see what the cost would be also need to check the market, sometimes there is less people who may want a small bus rather than this one, also there is a factor of 300km each way so for us it's 600km on top of anything, I'm sure that if I take this and time to account I would be more expensive than the locals...

Luke I think for you, the bus isnt commercially viable. I dont have the figures in front of me, i dont know whether you have tried all avenues to drum up business such as travel agents, sports clubs etc but it seems to me that not enough will be set aside to eventually replace the bus in the future whether that be outright or lease. At the very lease you need to do a cost analysis and cashflow forecast for the next couple of years to see where you are. Everyone can make mistakes, its important we learn from them and dont repeat them.

Hi Polishinvestor,

This is correct, I have approached pretty much everyone who is around, sent emails to all schools, churches, funeral places, travel agents, etc, visited all of them within 15km radius, done Google Adwords, Facebook adverts, wedding online portals: slubeo and czymdoslubu, have also done olx, gumtree, zolty jez and przelom so tbh all is left is to wait. As I said before I will give it a time till May/June, I have to anyway as you cannot sell vehicle within 6months of purchase otherwise you pay tax on top of it:) so I'm stuck with it and while I'm stuck I'm trying to make most of it.

That 6 months applies to individuals. If you have the vehicle entered as a business asset and deduct running costs and depreciation as expenses, when sold you may have to pay tax regardless of whether you have kept it 6 months or not. I would speak to your accountant to be clear on the matter.

Hi Polishinvestor,

Thanks for that, I didn't know... Hmmm that is very interesting. Will be opening a new post soon as I need advice on my UK registered car

Some guy who has a Billion Dollars of assets..

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brian_Souter#Highland_Global_Transport

Ha, that would obviously explain the success in that sort of business, I can tell you now that if I will borrow let say 1bn and buy X amount of buses, all will be sitting and doing nothing, could setup a museum of modern bus transport!!! In that sort of business it doesn't matter how much money you have. In that case de facto more you invest more you waste... I have 100% respect to anyone who made a success in Poland. Was actually talking to wife today about that bus and yes it will be up for sale late May, at least we will try not to lose much on it. Another day when no one called.

Sorry to hear you are selling the bus, but if it don't work it don't work.

I have had many projects where i ended up flat on my face on the concrete floor (No safety matress), I just kept plugging at it until I found something that worked, even then the market would move on and I would have to change and adapt, I was lucky, (yes it takes a spot of luck mixed with hard work) I got it right more often than wrong, but when i got it wrong boy it was damn expensive, I learned to keep trying and i would't give up.

Get cracking on the next venture, good luck.

Thank you Dolnoslask,

Of course this is not the last venture for me, In fact it's a first Polish venture so far, many others to come, my target now is to get out as much money as I can from it, buying this bus there was so many things I had to fix, there was problems with rust, electric stuff, TVs didn't worked, some lights didn't worked, I had to purchase two new batteries, all tyres, etc etc I spent quite a lot bringing it to the A condition, for me safety, mechanics and look of it it's a priority, I don't like trying to save money on important things, I also understand that there are other people who need to make money so I made sure these people were busy... Anyhow it's a time for changing few things... A question for you, what do you do and how long you are here for? I'm keep telling myself that I'm still a new blood here...

I hope everyone is well,

Was quite busy with current stuff, looks like another bunch of problems to be dealt with soon, my biggest client will be moving to someone else, well good luck for him, I'm curious if someone else would be able to work crazy hours as I did, anyhow good luck to him, I hope he will not have to deal with dissapoitments etc. That would means that in max 2-3 months I will have some additional time which can be spent on some venture, this time for me. With bus company (my wife's business) had some calls recently, it's not fantastic but it should make some profit so I hope that will actually start moving, Spring, Summer and Autumn should be good for this kind of work, otherwise it will have to be sold. We will see. Nursery idea (also for wife), it's a fantastic idea looks like this would be a pricey investment as Chrzanow is willing to pay you some money per child you have so basically you need to get a building- buy or rent, buy furniture, employ staff etc, I reckon this could be easily in a region of 300-500K PLN, wife also said she wants something for 6-10kids, this is not going to work for 6-10kids, you need at least 20x if you want to cover expenses and see some little profits after all. I'm recently having some worries about Brexit too, I think this is very likely to happen and I have no clue on how this can affect us, biggest worry is double tax, as if you are out of UK you need to pay tax on both places. So I must say recently I had to deal with some troubles, how funny - bad things are always happening when you are not expecting them. Anyhow I'm trying to see the bright side of it. I will have more time to play with, I have no friends here, just purchased a bike (quite good price for a new bike)- very cheap -1700 and will do the job perfectly for me, it's a Crosstrail bike and these are good for me. Will also try to play golf regularly, probably go on holidays, last time we've been somewhere not for business was back on our honeymoon-2011!!! Then I will be trying to do some business in Poland, I'm thinking of doing a site for collectors of luxury goods, wine, watches, retro cars. Not sure how big is the market in Poland for these things but this would be more as a hobby and way to link with people of similar interest. Also I would need to redo our budget. How much you are spending per year on all expenses in Poland - insurance, bills, food, going out, hobby etc. For three of us (no mortgage as house is paid off, we have two cars, where one is going to be registered tomorrow, no debts, no credit cards etc) we spend about 70K per year, this will cover everything including holidays (once per year), occasional, small trips etc etc, is that a lot? This doesn't include all my expenses back in UK, have one employee back there, occasional trips to UK, etc etc. I'm really curious if we spent ok or far too much.

Cheers to Everyone !!!

Luke, I'll throw you some figures tomorrow about a nursery. It's true what you say - small numbers simply don't make much sense economically. But you don't need much investment to begin with - because the money comes in monthly from the council, you don't have to worry about funding it for a long time. The critical thing is that you don't have to equip it to what you would consider normal in the UK - kindergartens here tend to be quite sparsely equipped, especially if it's a public nursery.

You're definitely not going to be in the 300-500k range. At the very, very top - you're looking at 20,000PLN per classroom, and that's on the high side. My suggestion - go visit some nurseries (pretend that it's for your daughter...) and see how they're equipped. Teachers - not a problem, you pay them by the 10th of the following month. Essentially, the biggest cost will be equipping the classrooms - but it shouldn't be so high.

There's a company that deals with the furniture that might be willing to negotiate on payment terms - mojebambino.pl/en/ - they deal with a lot of schools and nurseries. They'll come to you if you want to discuss things, so it's worth setting up a meeting with them to go over prices/etc.

Thanks for that, this would be useful, do you mean 20K per month or as just one off? This seems to be small figure... What would be best for us? Renting?

Have you seen my annual budget for "life", is that small, average or high? My worry is that we don't manage money properly here, specially when I read time to time that some people earn in region of 2k per month, if we both will work and earn 2K per month, we wouldn't make it, unless there is a problem in spending, we buy quality food, fruits etc but I wouldn't call it extraordinary, this seems to be regular stuff, car, life insurances, we have our accountant who is an agents as well and I was comparing prices to Internet ones and he seems to be even cheaper so I'm sure we are looked after on that. We don't go out much nowadays, we used to go out all the time back in UK, There is not much really... But all adds up. My worry is that one day I would have to make this nasty decision and leave my family and go back to UK or different country to get new contracts etc, people need credibility, you need to see people face to face, otherwise some people are stoping being loyal and they are searching for new options... Really scared what future holds...

Bus update - it started to work, it doesn't bring fantastic figures but if that stay the way it is every month it will be worth keeping it on... We will see, probably I was in a hurry and wanted to call it a day but actually something is moving forward so let see how long that will last...