Thinking Of Getting In To The Business

I've been wanting to get into trucking for a while but never really have. I currently have my own business and do pretty good and am wanting to branch out into new things. It seems the most common way someone would get into the business would be to go through training w/a larger company work for them for a while and then eventually switch over to o/o. While that is something I'm not opposed to, I'm curious as to how common or uncommon is it for someone to start out on their own buy their own truck/trailer, get their authority, etc

I'm fortunate enough that w/my current business I have a lot of freedom and financially I do pretty good too. My current business is in the nicotine/tobacco industry, so paperwork, permitting, licensing, insane insurance is nothing new to me. I recently signed up for DAT, just to get an idea as to what loads pay and weights, etc. After doing the math on the majority of them I'm thinking there is no way an o/o or even the larger companies can make a profit on some of these posted rates. So are the load boards even used very often or is it one of those things where pretty much all the good loads are gone w/in mins and the stuff left over are for people working for pennies? I'm assuming having good contacts with companies that need to ship goods regularly is the best way to go??

Under current conditions what is the typical dollar per mile that one should be expecting? I know there really is no exact answer for that but assuming it's a typical 30-40k dry van load, what would one typically expect to make per mile? Sorry for all the newbie questions I'm brainstorming.

 

That's kind of what I picked up on in my research recently. I guess the only positive to that is breaking even or just a slight profit and surviving would put me in a better situation if/when things turn around.

 

That's part of what I'm thinking and like I said I have another business that gets me by just fine this would be another business venture. It seems the market on used trucks like a lot of big ticket items is turning so that is part of why I'm looking into it all now.

 

That really depends on how business B turns out in the long run. I'm at a good point in my life, mid 40s, house paid off, car paid off, retirement saved up. And I can pay for truck/trailer with cash. Like anything in business it's a risk/reward thing. The idea is start off with one truck for a couple years and hopefully get someone to drive for me and increase from there. That's pretty much how my current business started, was just me at first now I have people do everything I use to do for me.