We get this question more than you’d think — usually from someone who has been tearing off shingles for somebody else for five or six years and knows he could run a tighter job than his boss does. The short answer: the roof work is the part you already know. The business is the part that puts new crews under.
Before you order business cards, put real numbers on paper. Liability insurance and workers’ comp are not optional and they are not cheap in Kentucky. You need a truck that can carry a crew and a day’s tear-off, a plan for dump fees, and enough cash to float sixty to ninety days of payroll before the checks start clearing. Most first-year roofing companies don’t fail on workmanship — they fail on cash.
When someone on one of our own crews asks about going out on their own, we point them to a startup workbook built for roofing companies. It walks through licensing, insurance, equipment and the first-ninety-days cash math one page at a time, and it was put together by someone who runs roofing crews here in central Kentucky — not by a content farm.
And if you’re not looking to start a company — you just have a roof that leaks — that part we handle ourselves. Call us.
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