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Kahn -> Well... (5/23/2002 10:27:51 AM)
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I was a little reticent on publishing my comments, because of the way in which they might ruffle some fethers, but you did ask. I realize (having run two small businesses myself some time ago) that a business can be much more than a means to make money to those who have started and nurtured it throughout it's inception. It is a vision, a dream or concept of it's creator.
Unfortunately, some folks can't get away from the emotions tied to the business to see clearly, a pitfall that has lead a significant number of businesses to ruin. But you must always keep in mind that a business is nothing more than a market entity. No market, no business! A business is always a slave to the market, not the other way around. This concept is true not just for businesses, but in everyday life.
To illistrate, my family and I recently looked at a very large Victorian mansion on a 1.1 acres that was priced at $175,000 (that's a really great price for a home of that size). It appeared to need some repair from the outside, but still had solid oak and mahogany beams and woodwork in fine condition (you can't get 16" x 16" x 30' solid oak beams anymore, not since the 1930's). Tiffany stained glass, most in excellent condition. Heck, just the front doors, various examples of stained glass, and the large crystal chandeller alone are worth as much as the price of the house. We thought the house was perfect. It was only after looking over the inspector's report that we decided not to buy. Seems one of those Oak beams (one of the four that are the main structural support for the house) had termite damage, and asbestos was present in the basement. The point is that event though the house appealed to my emotions (and still does), my logic told me that just the structural restoration alone would run well over the $100,000 I had budgeted for all the restorations.
The money problems you allude to is precisely why your best bet is to go with the Internet sales business model. I willing to bet that for a fraction of the cost that you expend in producing hard media, packaging, and logistics, you could pay for space on a server that has a dedicated T3 connection! You gotta stop thinking inside the box that you've placed yourself in. You don't have to buy the server and T1 or T3 yourself and place it on your premises. I must get spamed at least 6 times a month with offers from server farms that are willing to lease you 100 Megs for only a single digit percentage of what you sell! That's part of the beauty of the Internet model, you don't have to even be in the same country as the server that runs your website (I presume you should know this already by your statement about this forum). And now is the perfect time to find one of these deals, the server farm business is hurting for cash right now due to the "dot com" crash.
If I didn't care about you and your company, I wouldn't have bothered to spend my time to respond to your question in the first place. I think you should say a thank you every night before retiring to Andrew for giving you such a good product to sell. If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have even heard of this site, nor spent the exorbitant total cost to enrich you, him, and UPS. We need more small publishers in the business to succeed so that the marketplace doesn't become dominated by a few, unimaginative companies that have carte blanche to release uninspired, buggy crap with no customer support. Believe it or not, I'm on your side.
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