A short how-to video by Mike Andes showing how to start a lawn care/mowing business with roughly $1,000 of equipment. Andes demonstrates a recommended residential Honda push mower (GCV170) as a budget-friendly primary mower (~$420), then presents the Stihl Kombi multi-tool system (KM56RC) plus interchangeable attachments (blower, weed trimmer, hedge trimmer) with individual prices (attachments listed as $179, $130, $130). He emphasizes this residential setup is lighter/cheaper than commercial gear, suitable for a solo beginner who needs to mow, trim, and blow rather than for a large crew.
Questions this video answers
Honda GCV170 residential push mower
$420
Stihl Kombi system KM56RC
About $180–$200
$179, $130, and $130 (for blower, one trimmer attachment, and another trimmer/hedge attachment respectively)
Chapters
This is the actual mower that I used when I was 11, 12, 13 years old to get started with.
Hey, everyone, it's Mike Andes here. Landscapebusinesscourse.com today I'm at Carl's Mower here in Ferndale. This is not sponsored or anything like that. Steel and Honda didn't tell me to make. This is just being able to give you guys an idea of how to start your lawn care company with only $1,000 to spend on equipment. Okay, so I'm going to walk you through the setup, what everything costs and really give you some recommendations. If you're, again, if you're just starting with $1,000, you just want to get some, some lawns under your belt and get started. So first of all, the mower, the most important thing, and in my mind, when it comes to equipment, you can even cheaper, you can get started for even cheaper than $1,000 just with a rake and a blower. And that's really all you need, maybe a bin. But if you're going to actually get a mowing setup. Now this is the mower I'd recommend you get. This is a residential quality mower. It's not commercial. It's definitely not going to be lasting you 20 years and mowing hundreds of lawns every day. This deck is not the highest of quality. It's not commercial. Again, there's plastic here on the, on the wheels and this, this system here for adjusting over time. It's going to not work very well if you're doing hundreds of lawns. It's all plastic, etc. But again, this is a great mower to get started with. It's not commercial, but this is the actual mower that I used when I was 11, 12, 13 years old to get started with. A few different things I like about it a lot is up here we got our drive control and it's really, really simple to adjust where it's here on the bar. So if your hands up here, really, really great because it's also very light. So this is why I liked it when I was young. Like when I was 11 years old and I was like yay tall, I could barely see over the dash, as it were. This is a great mower because very light, you can pick it up. Very simple. You can actually pick it up by yourself simply by going like this and picking up. So what's great about that, you might not have a trailer, you might not have a ramp rack, you might not have any of that stuff, but you can literally pick this up and put it in the back of a truck, a small Ford Ranger or anything like that. So again, this is the GCV170 Honda. Again you're gonna see more plastic than metal because this is not a commercial graded mower. You got your bag in the back. Large size, works great, has the molting ability here on the side. So you can either mulch your clippings or just move this handle over. And now you're bagging your clippings. So again, another nice feature that's been added in the past few years from Honda. So this mower here is gonna run you $420 I about a third of what it would cost if you went and got like a commercial graded mower. So definitely a lot cheaper. Definitely gonna be a little bit less of quality build just cause it is only a residential mower. Now let's move over to other pieces of equipment you're going to need. Ideally, when you're getting started with mowing, you need to do three things. Mow, trim and blow. So we got our mower, now we talk about trim. So this is the steel Kombi system, this is the KM56RC. And this is gonna run you about $200, $180 hundred for this bad boy right here. Then what you're gonna be able to do is attach these different attachments. So right here I got three different attachments, I got a blower, I got a weed whacker and I got a hedge trimmer. So each of These are about $150 each in terms of the cost. Let's get the exacts on these. This is gonna be 179, this is gonna be $130. This is gonna be $130 as well. So when we add all this up together, we got 420, we got about $120 a piece for the attachments and a couple hundred dollars for the actual trimmer head itself. What this allows you to do is actually just go ahead and put these attachments directly on to the head. Again, this is not going to be something you're wanting to do when you have 10 employees because there's going to be a lot of downtime, there's going to be, you know, this wing nut can get broken, etc. But when you're first getting started, this is a great option for a blower. Honestly, this is one of the most powerful blowers you'll actually get. And what's cool is I only have to pay $130 extra after getting the trimmer head. So great option to be able to get started. You'll do your mower, your blower, your trimmer, and your hedge trimmer. So again, you know, I think trim bushes, trim shrubs all around, ground covers and different hedges in someone's lawn. Again, a whole variety of different equipment. You can mow someone's lawn, edge it, blow everything off, do cleanups with the blower, as well as trim bushes when it comes time for fall or spring cleanups. So hopefully that was helpful. Again, $1,000 is all you need to get started mowing lawns. Not nothing complicated, nothing super expensive, not anything fancy, but definitely you can get started today making money. Thanks so much everyone. Mike Andy's here. Landscapebusinesscourse.com we'll see you next.
