Daithi Hourigan had a number in mind, and that number was four thousand. It covered equipment, a van he already had and the first materials, and he had checked it twice.
It did not cover registration, insurance, the accountant, tax on his first invoices, or one month of going unpaid. The real figure was nearer nine, and he discovered it in instalments across five months.
Nobody conceals these costs. They just do not appear on the lists people check, because those lists are about equipment, and equipment feels like starting a business. The rest turns up later, one letter at a time.
The equipment is usually the cheap half
Because equipment is visible and researchable. A machine can be priced in an afternoon and the planning feels finished. Registration, insurance, an accountant, tax on the first money in and the marketing nobody budgets are each small enough to seem trivial, and together they are often larger than the item you spent the afternoon on.
Daithi had not been careless. He had a trade, genuine demand for it and a van. What he had was a number assembled from the parts of the business he could already picture, which is how nearly everyone assembles one. Getting the all-in figure before anything was spent took about fifteen minutes.
The fifteen minutes that gave him an honest number
His skills, available hours, the capital he could genuinely put in without borrowing, and his location – because half the costs that surprised him are set by where you are rather than what you do.
What came back · in about fifteen minutes
specific to his skills and his capital rather than a list of businesses. Two of the five cost roughly a third of what he had assumed, which changed the order entirely.
registration, insurance, the accountant, tax on early invoices, and the marketing line everybody omits. This is the section that turns four thousand into nine.
how long the money has to last before the business pays him. Most need one to three years, and that number decides survival where the startup cost only decides the start.
search volume, who is already serving those customers, and conversations with a few of them. None of it costs anything, and it is the step people skip because buying something feels faster.
He went ahead with a version of the same trade at roughly half the cost, because the honest figure made the cheaper route obvious rather than disappointing. The five months of surprises came anyway, except he had already counted them.
The honest-number ladder, rung by rung
Rung 1 · Price the idea, not the equipment – the equipment is one line. The business is the whole list, and the parts you cannot picture yet are the parts that arrive as letters in month three.
Rung 2 · Add the lines nobody puts on a list – registration, insurance, professional fees, tax on early income, marketing. Individually unremarkable, collectively the difference between a plan and a surprise.
Rung 3 · Work out the runway, not just the start – how many months before it pays you, and whether the money covers that. A business that can be started and not sustained is a more expensive mistake than one never started.
Rung 4 · Test before you commit anything – demand can be checked for nothing. People skip this because spending feels like progress and asking feels like delay, which is exactly backwards.
For Daithi the decisive rung was the third. The startup figure was survivable either way. The stretch afterwards was what he had not counted, and that is what ends most of these.
Why the honest number is the useful one
Because a figure that is too low does not prevent the costs, it merely shifts them to a point where you are already committed. Learning in month three is the same money at a far worse moment, with stock bought and a client waiting.
There is a harder version worth stating. Sometimes the honest number exceeds what the person has, and the useful outcome is a smaller start or a later one. That sounds discouraging and is the opposite: the discouraging version is finding out at the point where stopping costs more than carrying on.
- Pricing the whole business rather than the equipment
- Adding registration, insurance, fees, tax and marketing
- A runway figure covering the months before it pays you
- Testing demand before spending anything
- Choosing a cheaper version when the number says so
- A figure built from the parts you can already picture
- Treating marketing as optional because it has no invoice yet
- Counting the startup cost and stopping there
- Buying equipment because it feels like starting
- Finding out in month three, with stock already bought
The order is the entire discipline: full list, dull lines, runway, then the test. Most do the equipment and call it a budget.
What it costs next to the alternatives
Daithi could have stuck with four thousand, which costs nothing to believe and had already cost five months of unplanned bills. Here is how the usual approaches compare with running the number first.
| Approach | Cost | What it does about the real number |
|---|---|---|
| Price the equipment and add a margin | Free | Covers the visible half of the costs |
| Read a startup cost article | Free | A range for an average business, which is not yours |
| An accountant | $150–300/hr | The right call for tax and structure, once there is a plan to discuss |
| Business Idea Finder | $19 | Five ideas costed all-in, with a runway figure |
“Is the honest number not just a reason never to start?” It is a reason to start differently, or later, or smaller, and those are three outcomes rather than a refusal. The figures a tool produces are estimates built on what you tell it, they will not match your invoices exactly, and registration, licensing, insurance and tax differ by country, state and trade – some activities are regulated and cannot be started at all without a licence. Confirm your own obligations with the relevant authority and an accountant. This is general educational guidance rather than financial, legal or tax advice, and nothing here predicts whether any business will succeed.
Two more who ran the figure first
“My list had the machine, the materials and a website, and I thought that was thorough. The insurance and the accountant together came to more than the machine did.”
Senan M. · trade business, Spokane WA
“The number I wanted was not the number, and I spent a fortnight being annoyed about that. Starting the smaller version meant I was trading in April instead of still saving in October.”
Ailbhe T. · started at half the cost, Erie PA
If the idea is decided and a lender wants a written plan, the Business Plan Builder is the one for that. Results vary; this is general guidance rather than financial or legal advice.
Fifteen minutes, and the figure in your head is replaced by one you can plan against: five ideas with their own costs, the lines nobody writes down, the months the money must cover before the business pays you, and a way to test demand before anything is spent. The surprises still arrive. They are simply already on the list.
*Individual results may vary.
