Established Two Businesses, IT & Pokémon, Pivot to horticulture?

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for guidance from people who have successfully started and grown lawn care, gardening, or outdoor service businesses.

I already operate two businesses, one focused on IT and AI consultation for local small and scaling businesses, and another in the trading card and collectibles space. Even with those ventures, one of the things that brings me the most peace in life is working with plants and the outdoors. Gardening has always been one of my most relaxing and rewarding hobbies. I genuinely love cloning, grafting, rooting plants, learning how different species grow, and seeing something thrive because of patience and care.

I would love to build a manageable outdoor, exterior, lawn care, or gardening service that I can grow responsibly over time. I am also very interested in training to become a Master Gardener so I can better serve my community with real knowledge and long term value, not just basic maintenance.

For those of you who have built businesses in this space, what would you recommend for someone starting out? What services are the smartest to begin with? What equipment is essential versus unnecessary at first? How did you price your work, find your first customers, and keep the business manageable as you grew?

I am especially interested in building something sustainable, community focused, and well run from the beginning. Any advice, lessons learned, mistakes to avoid, or encouragement would mean a lot.

Thank you in advance.

Tldr: have so much inherited and basic equipment as hobbiest, I should mention my entire childhood consisted of 6 am wake ups on weekends and during summer to do yard work and or mulch acres on acres for my dad/grandparents. Definitely instilled the work ethic in me... as well as freckles from sun poisoned shoulders time over haha!

Respectfully sent,

Joshua D. Ostrowski

Tomi LLC DBA Tomi Vincent Trading Co.