Hello, I am new to the site as of yesterday and new to tattoos as of two months ago. With that said, I never realized or looked at tattoos shops as a good business. I’ve always been an entrepreneur and I am always looking at new business ideas. I currently own a granite countertop company which I have ran for about 12 years. During this time I’ve also tried my luck at a boat dealership/pro shop and a restaurant. I closed the boat shop when I saw the equity fun money start to dwindle and got out before I lost any money. Then a year ago I opened a small sports bar/hot wing joint. The time required, small margins and dealing with late nights and drunks became overwhelming and also closed before losing money. While I ran the restaurant I met a tattoo shop owner who became a regular. I ended up getting my first couple tattoos from him. I spent some time at his shop while getting tattooed and just to hang out. It’s a new shop and I can see the potential this place has, but as a business man could see alot of things that are keeping this place from becoming successful. I even offered my services free of charge to get all his books straight and legal requirements in order. I also told him that I was interested in investing to help the shop grow and earn more business. However he did not show much interest and I guess he is just content with the bare minimum.

So here is my question. Would it be a bad idea for a person who had little to no experience running a tattoo shop to open one up? I have plenty of business experience and no how to handle all that is needed to get a place open, handle legal requirements, maintaining books etc.. What intrigues me about this business is the low overhead:

Low rent
No payroll
No workman’s comp
Low utilities
No Special permits or licenses.

I found a shop that just closed and the owner wants to sell off everything in it and basically offer it a turnkey place. The rent is low and I figure my monthly expenses including everything would be at about $1200/mo. The shop is located on a busy street and the area does not seem to be over saturated with other shops. I went back to my shop owner friend and pitched him the idea they I would cover all the expenses and liability to open it up. I would offer him a percentage of sales to use his name (so a second shop in other words) and he would help me find qualified artists. Again no interest. I am bit reluctant to go forward with it since I do not have any tattooing experience and have not spent enough time in a shop to see how day to day operations go. So bad idea to tackle this on my own???