Violent Acres Comments: Small Business Drama The Something Store
Violent Acres starts a small business
As it turns out, starting a business is not as easy as I first imagined. It’s doable, of course, but it very quickly became clear to me that I’d have to dedicate an extremely large portion of my life to it if I seriously wanted to be successful. This meant that I would have to eliminate some of my other, less important daily obligations.
Lo, and behold, she finds out IT’S HARD. Well duh. And 90% of small business fail in five years Vi.
I have to weigh in here because in forty years of dealing with small businesses I’ve seen a ton of failures.
They fall into three categories:
- Undercapitalized – borrowing from anybody they can, banks, family, even maxing out credit cards just to open the doors, cashing out the IRA’s, forgetting that they will have NO FRIGGIN’ PROFIT for a couple years. So they live off cash flow and eventually it catches up and a critical vendor puts them out of business.
- Not working hard enough – they hire a bunch of minimum wagers because the owner only wants to work 10-4 Monday thru Friday (Wednesday afternoon off.) The employees don’t take of business like the owner does.
- Lack of advertising/too much advertising – either the owner thinks the world is going to beat a door to her mousetrap and doesn’t need to advertise. OR, the owner buys advertising from anybody that walks in the front door, no thought, no plan, no execution.
Good luck, Vi, you’ll never make it.
I hadn’t thought of the whole over advertising thing. Good point!
Lisa’s Chaos’s last blog post..Skunk cabbage and Owl
@Lisa’s Chaos: Why thank ya, thank ya very much.
ah yea of little faith. a business can always succeed if you don’t have to rely on the income because then it is done from a different perspective. either way i don’t care, so long as she keeps writing.
@Ashley: No faith has nothing to do with it. Why would you start a business if you didn’t want to make money? That’s called volunteering. 🙂
can’t say i agree. I’m sure most people start a business to make money, but I don’t think all do. i started my business because i got bored of being a soccer mom. the fact that I make money is a bonus. I’m in recruitment am really good at it, so besides helping people find jobs, I have a sense of purpose too, and that to me is way more important than the cash factor. i do volunteer too tho :).
Great post ! I want to know when you update your blog, where can i subscribe to your blog? 🙂 🙂 🙂