Office Space Expenses

$0

$7,000

Employee & Freelancer Expenses

$151

$352

Website Costs

$223

$7,215

Business Formation Fees

$5,600

$20,400

Equipment & Supply Expenses

$66

$700

Software Expenses

$162

$3,094

Advertising & Marketing Costs

$0

$1,700

Training & Education Expenses

$0

$850

Specific Industry Expenses

$0

$500

Total Startup Costs

$6,202

$41,811

Benchmade Knife Company, Inc.

benchmade.com

91,726

COLD STEEL

coldsteel.com

293,804

Atlanta Cutlery

atlantacutlery.com

362,802

Japanese Knife Imports

japaneseknifeimports.com

368,476

Folded Steel

foldedsteel.com

405,245

Knife Aid

knifeaid.com

406,948

SHARP Knife Shop

sharpknifeshop.com

463,694

Sharpening Supplies

sharpeningsupplies.com

487,585

Chris Reeve Knives

chrisreeve.com

556,220

Arizona Custom Knives

arizonacustomknives.com

583,124

ESEE Knives

eseeknives.com

675,832

Flexibility

You can put as much time into the business as you'd like. If you like the work and have some initial experience, you can start small and manage all aspects of the business on your own.

Ability to start your business from home

It's not necessary to have a physical storefront or office space to get your business started. You can do everything from the comfort of your own home, at least in the beginning!

Rewarding work

Starting a knife sharpening service can be really rewarding work. After all, you are solving an immediate issue for your customer and you're working on something you truly care about.

Scalable

With businesses and processes changing daily, there will always be demand for new features, products and services for your business. Additionally, there are several different business models and pricing tiers you can implement that will allow you to reach all types of customers.

Meaningful business connections

You never know who you will meet as a knife sharpening service. This could be the start of an incredible business opportunity!

High customer retention rates

Once a customer invests in your product, they've invested their time and energy to utilize your product/service which is highly valuable to them. Typically, your product or service becomes indispensable to your customer.

Motivation of employees

If you plan to have a sales/content team on board, finding creative ways to motivate them can be a challenge. It's important that you're able to offer great incentives and a good work environment for your employees.

Low margins

The gross margins for your knife sharpening service are typically around 40%, which can make it more challenging to incur new expenses and maintain profitability.

Niche Market

A niche business is not necessarily a bad thing, in fact, it can be the key to your success. However, it can be more challenging and time consuming to find the perfect niche market and target audience.

High overhead expenses

With starting a knife sharpening service, there are overhead expenses that come with selling a physical product. You will want to make sure you strategically budget for these overhead costs. We discuss this more in the startup costs section below.

Work can be repetitive

You may find creating the same product over and over repetitive and tiresome. One way of avoiding this is to diversify product lines and revenue streams - this will keep things interesting!

Churn

In this business, customers can cancel their membership or subscription for your services - which can make revenue forecasting challenging and unpredictable. It's important to focus on your churn rates and trends so that you can prevent this as much as possible.