The biggest risk in your first 90 days isn't failure - it's overwhelm and inaction. There's a lot you could do, so beginners freeze, or they spend three months building a logo and a website and never speak to a client. This plan keeps you moving on the two things that actually matter: getting trades and getting clients, in parallel, fast.
Days 1-30: Set up and find your first trade
Pick a lane
Don't try to do everything for everyone. Choose:
- A niche - e.g. bathroom and kitchen refits, or small commercial fit-outs, or property maintenance. One you can describe in a sentence.
- An area - a radius you can realistically serve with trades. Local and focused beats broad and thin.
A sharp "[town] bathroom and kitchen renovations" beats "building work, anywhere" every time - for marketing, for trade relationships, and for your own focus.
Sort the boring essentials (don't over-engineer)
- Register your company (or operate as a sole proprietor or sole trader to begin - you can incorporate later).
- Get liability insurance; add professional indemnity if you're advising. Non-negotiable. See Contracts, Insurance & Staying Legal.
- Open a business bank account.
- Set up a simple way to take payments and a basic quote template.
Do this in a week, not a month. Perfect branding can wait; insurance and a bank account can't.
Find your first subcontractor
Start before you have a single client, because a job with no trade to deliver it is a crisis. Use referrals, builders' merchants and trade groups to line up at least one reliable trade in your core discipline - ideally two. Vet them properly using the checklist in How to Find & Vet Subcontractors. Have the conversation now: "I'm building a pipeline of work in [area] - what's your day rate and availability?"
Days 31-60: Land your first job
Turn on two lead channels
Not six. Two. Almost always your network + local online groups (see How to Find Clients). Tell everyone specifically what you do. Be the helpful professional in local groups. Set up a Google Business Profile so you start existing in search.
Quote everything, fast
When leads come, respond in minutes, book the survey (yours or your trade's), and send a clean, confident quote within 24 hours. Use the layered method in Pricing & Margins so you never quote blind. Expect to quote several jobs before one says yes - that's normal, not failure.
Price for a sensible margin, not for fear
The temptation is to underprice your first job to win it. Resist. A fair price (20-30% margin on small works) means your first job actually teaches you something and pays you. A desperate price sets a reference you'll regret and attracts the worst clients.
Days 61-90: Deliver, get paid, get proof
Run the job by the system
Take a deposit that covers materials and first labour - never fund the job yourself (cash flow). Manage the trade remotely with daily check-ins and milestone photos (managing remotely). Keep the client updated and calm. Hold a retention until snagging's done.
Convert the job into momentum
A finished job is raw material for the next three. At handover:
- Ask for a Google review while they're happy. This is the highest-leverage ten seconds you'll spend.
- Ask for referrals, directly, ideally with a small incentive.
- Photograph the finished work for your portfolio and social proof.
One delivered job, milked properly for reviews and referrals, is what turns month four into something that compounds instead of starting from zero again.
What "success" looks like at day 90
You will not be making $20k/month. Anyone who promised you that lied. A realistic, genuinely good 90-day outcome is:
- 1-3 jobs delivered.
- A couple of vetted, reliable trades on your bench.
- Your first real reviews and referrals.
- A clear, repeatable process you've now run end to end with your own money on the line.
That's not modest - that's a real business with proof of concept, built in a quarter, that most people never get to because they planned instead of acting. From here, growth is repetition plus the levers in How Much Money Can You Make.
Done beats perfect. Your first job, run imperfectly, teaches you more than another month of reading - including this guide.
Frequently asked questions
How much money do I need to start?+
Very little - this is one of the model's biggest advantages. You need enough for basic setup (company registration, insurance, a few software subscriptions) and a small marketing budget, often a few hundred to a couple of thousand. You do not need capital to fund jobs themselves, because client deposits fund the work. See the cash flow guide.
Can I start this part-time while employed?+
Yes, and many people should. The first jobs can be run around a job if you can take calls and reply quickly during the day. Once your monthly margin reliably exceeds your salary, you make the jump. Starting part-time removes the desperation that leads to underpricing.
What should I do first?+
Pick a niche and area, sort the legal basics (company and insurance), and start finding both your first subcontractor and your first leads in parallel. Don't wait until everything is perfect - your first job teaches you more than another month of planning.
Mohamed El HadriCo-Founder
I'm a co-founder of several construction companies. I built a construction business from a 30-van operation into a lean model with 1,400+ subcontractors in the database - winning the work as the main contractor, subbing it out, and running it as a system from a laptop across multiple countries. I write this site from what actually works.
@mointhemarket · 30k followers on Instagram →Run the model with people who already do
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