PM - my age is showing! By "young" I meant in his 40s.
Everything you say about his business is true, except that you assume he's done none of it. He has been in biz some 20 years and isn't the kid next door with a borrowed lawn mower. In short, he's been running a real business for a long time. Why assume he's operating out of his house? The guy has several trucks and trailers for his equipment and operates out of a commercial building. He used to have 2 guys working for him but the labor market got very tight and they got poached.
And the guy's rates are not for the faint of heart! By the way, he's fully insured - his mower once threw a stone through a picture window and it was fully covered by his insurance company.
Obamacare may, as Ryan pointed out, may make it possible for some people to go the independent contractor route and my "young" landscape guy might get workers that way.
