I sold my business last year cause I wanted a change, so I might could help a little.

I started a business building and tuning image and race cars and importing exotic car parts. I have always loved cars, speed, racing - you name it. In high school my house was the "rebuild" house and I had all the toys noone else had - engine lift, welder, bender, lathe, etc. I got the rep as the local car guy and fastest at the track. So with having the tools accumulate through the years, and all the contacts I had made - its hard to determine what start-up costs were.

In 1998 I bought a website and signed a lease to rent a place for a year at 650/mo. Went to the races, beat some people, and within 3 months had more business than I could deal with alone. I guess that is what really helped launch it, there was no shortage of initial business - I found a good niche at a good time.

Hired a couple of guys for the shop, a translator and someone to help me with the books - the WORST part about owning your own business is having to deal with paperwork and banking crap when all ya wanna do is be out there welding something, doing what you love that got you here in the first place- and went this route for a couple of years, until I offloaded all the "management" of the office to new employees. Changed location for a larger facility, invested more in the website and so on.

Finally, after 3+ years of 6am to 6pm boring ass days of learning about how to run a business, I can finally be in the shop and in the field and on the track again. Worked my dream job for about 3 more years, and then realized I was losing the love for my true passion - cars. It had turned into needing X number of clients a month to make X dollars and not at all what I had envisioned. Too much schmoozing and bench racing, not enough fabrication or hands-on.

So before I lost it completely, I sold my share to my partner, and relocated 1000 miles away to get a new start. Bought land instead of a house, and built my place how I wanted it. With my cost of living and overhead so decreased in many ways, and my creativity and desire flooded once again, I now get to work exactly how I want and my quality of life is 100X better now. No more stress, no more quotas or deadlines. Couple of steady customers, lots of track time and tuning, and my own hours. I'm not gonna get Bill Gates rich or anything, but I dont necessarily want or need that. I could quit today and retire if I chose, under 40, and maintain my current lifestyle. That is the real feeling of accomplishment.

Anyways, to stop the rambling, a couple of pieces of advice on starting your own business I would give are:

1. Be careful embarking upon a career that involves a hobby - when the two get intertwined, it causes much stress and you may lose the love for a true passion.
2. Find a trustworthy partner or associate interested in the same goals early, preferably one who has expertise in things you don't, and vice versa.
3. Be prepared to work hard, long hours doing things that you may not like when you start if you want to see end results.
4. NEVER invest/upgrade equipment,location,advertising until you absolutely have to. Many start-ups die because of overshooting what the needs are and overinvesting - too many computers,employees, too many sq/ft, superbowl ads etc etc

Timing can be everything - now there are so many "race shops" everywhere that it would be tough to start one up without considerable reputation or experience.

Sorry I couldn't answer your questions in the format you specified, but very few businesses could - there are many variables.