I’m in a funny place at the moment, funny as in the boot being on the other foot as far as small business / entrepreneurs are concerned.
As in, people are coming to me, and some of them have the big ideas and the “just waiting for this guy to give me the green light, then I’ll be coming to you with loads of work” and of course “how much discount will I get for 100 off, 1,000 off, and 10,000 off?” before they have even placed an actual order for one off…
Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m as gung ho as the next guy, and more power to ya bro, and all that jazz, but……
…..but, you got to fucking realise there is a whole world of difference between a serious player and a dreamer, and the dreamers are invariably asking questions about volume discounts before actually placing a fucking order for one item.
Meanwhile there are guys like “Joe”, who will turn up every week with 150/200 bucks worth of work in small repetitive not very exotic or glamorous but quite pleasing and quite good quality jobs.
“Joe” is my bread and butter, 100 bucks a week trousered is over 5k per annum, and that makes a fucking difference… 4 x “Joe’s” is a basic living wage.
4 x dreamers and a buck will buy you a coffee.
The current squeeze (who is turning out to be real sweet) isn’t experienced enough in life to get it yet, she still sees the dreamer’s enquiries and gets all excited at the potential money, hey, could be 3,000 bucks a week, yeah could be, but, that and an actual real physical buck in your hand from “Joe” will buy you a coffee, so I respond to the dreamer’s email like a lottery ticket, you never know, it may pay off, and if you don’t play you don’t get to pay, but 5 minutes of my time and that is it…. I got more important fish to fry.
More important fish like Joe, I’m sitting here chilling typing this and drinking coffee, but later I’m going to do a couple of hours worth of work for Joe, at 100 bucks an hour, and that work is physically sat here waiting to be done. Not pie in the sky.
I’m better employed using my time and equipment to do “homers” like the bespoke acrylic fish tank lid above and building a thing that is better than anything I can buy for 400 bucks, saving me spending out 400 bucks on an inferior item, sure, it’s not “income”, but it is a lack of “expenditure” which comes out much the same way, removing a negative from the other side of the balance sheet has a positive effect on this side of the balance sheet.
But, back to the dreamers…..
I have talked here before, long ago, about prototyping, EP1 and EP2, and PP1 and PP2 prototypes, and indeed how you need to maintain that mindset to separate AWALT from NAWALT and being able to type things like I did up there, that the current squeeze, is turning out to be real sweet, as in current, as in it’s still all gravy, what a ride, what a ride…
“Joe” is giving me work that he knows for a fucking fact he can sell at a small / reasonable profit, the dreamers are talking about giving me work that they hope they can sell at a profit.
Let me give you an example, a real world physical example, because I don’t want to diss dreamers, or hope, or aspirations, or yearnings, or anything else… fuck it, all those things are good, as long as they are seasoned with a heavy dose of reality.
So she goes out and spends her money on some hardwood ply, and some doll’s house plans, and we put those together with the laser and out the other end pops this twelfth scale doll’s house, and one other.
And there they have both sat for six weeks, despite being listed on amazon and ebay and her own new website, no sale thus far.
Now I’d hesitate to classify this as the “dreamer” I was talking about above, as this is a final design finished product, and money was thrown at actually buying materials and actually paying for laser time, but it is a lovely example of how the marketplace and competition and potential sales on the one hand, balance out on the other hand with over a 100 bucks worth of hardwood plywood and some laser time resulting in two lovely doll’s houses sitting on a single bed at home and taking up a lot of space, and doing nothing quite so well as serving as an ongoing warning about the differences between speculation and sales.
The dreamers are one step removed from this, they make have spent time and money on prototyping something, but they have stopped short of actually walking out on to the dance floor and asking the drop dead gorgeous babe with the big tits for a dance.
The current squeeze did take that walk, and (to be strictly fair, so far, as these items are still listed and for sale, and *could* sell tomorrow… who knows…) did not get the dance, and the two doll’s houses represent a physical reminder that wishes ain’t horses.
The dreamers, well, just cos I can see that a plane won’t fly, it doesn’t mean I myself have the skills to make it fly or fly it, so the dreamers, I can see what they are doing wrong.
There are gaps in the business plan, gaps that are filled with magic fairy dust.
“Joe” could sell both these doll’s houses in a week, because Joe has bricks and mortar business premises, and that ability to touch and feel and see in real life… well, I doubt Joe would sell *anything* either if all he had was a website and listings on amazon and fleabay.
Sure, amazon and fleabay give you a billion potential customers, and a billion potential competitors, meanwhile Joe has a footfall past the outside of his bricks and mortar premises measured in the hundreds per day, and maybe a couple of dozen enter, but, he has NO competition when you walk into his shop. When you walk into Joe’s shop, you either buy from Joe, or you walk away empty handed.
And the bottom line is in addition to these who enter his shop, Joe is touting for work, and he gets it, partly because he *has* a bricks and mortar shop, be it ever so humble, and mainly because he has been actually trading for some years, track record innit…. and he comes to me and spends a 100 bucks a week at *my* business, in the manufacture and finish of some of the products for *his* business.
The magic fairy dust filled gaps in the plan for my current squeeze are that she ain’t selling these doll’s houses, they represent stock that is taking up money and represents money spent on materials and laser time, rinse and repeat isn’t going to fix that…. meanwhile, Joe *could* sell them… meanwhile Joe’s wife has suggested that Joe *would* sell / exhibit them, yeah, sure, this is Joe’s wife speaking and not Joe, but you can see the obvious gap… the magic fairy dust is, in this case, this shit (doll’s houses) doesn’t sell worth shit when you are just one of a billion people online trying to sell them, but they would sell if you were bricks and mortar with mere hundreds walking past per day.
“I could sell a thousand of these per year, IF……” and the IF is the magic fairy dust, and I call it magic fairy dust simply because it is not seen as the impediment to the plan actually working, but as the reason the plan could work, tomorrow, or next week, or next month, if I just hang on long enough or get a good enough fleabay feedback or enough adwords or page impressions or such other magic fairy dust bullshit.
I have one such dreamer now, got to be said, I like the product they want to make, I think that in the right circumstances it would indeed sell, problem is, the facts are they are crowdfunding, and as I type they have achieved 2% of their goal for stage 1 production… with two weeks to go before the crowdfunding deadline.
I’ll give you a real world example, I had a mate who used to have a small industrial unit, we used to make good beer money, not *quite* a living, but a lot more than pocket money, buying old jukeboxes and refurbing them for sale to people who wanted one at home, it was steady if sporadic and financially worthwhile, then the landlord sold the block of units for a supermarket to be built, and that sideline / business died overnight, we could not get anywhere similar for a similar price in a similar location… game over man.
The “business” just was not viable paying 5x the rent for a similar sized modern “proper” industrial unit.
My *business* is only viable because I bought and own the kit outright, and there is little to no magic fairy dust involved. It was a straight out cash gamble, put your fucking money where your mouth is.
Slightly different to the current squeeze and Joe, who are selling PRODUCTS, in that I am selling a SERVICE, but very different to the dreamers, in that I can provide that service to you right fucking now, no delays or additional expenditures of maybe or what if or magic fairy dust… a bit like Joe’s shop when there aren’t actually any customers inside, it isn’t earning him anything, so it is only potential, but, IF someone walks in, there are no further delays or barriers to turning the dream into reality.