Friday, October 01, 2004

Entrepreneurial envy

Del boy Taff has asked for an answer to the following predicament: "I've been trying to think of some good Cost Savings Initiatives, but they just don't seem to be sufficient to buy me the expensive cigars I need. To try to fund my extravagant lifestyle, I've started to come up with some Cost Inverting Initiatives. My first scam is to cobble together some photos I've found on the Internet and print them all on one page. I've worked out two things: 1) The people who will want to buy these are my 'mates'. 2) I can make a whopping 42% profit on each one. How can you go wrong? I hear you cry. Well, the problem is that I told my 'mates' exactly how much they were being ripped off and now they aren't so keen to fund my Cuban habit. How can I placate these poor fools and make them forget what I told them? If your advice works - there's an expensive gift in it for you (paid for by my 'mates' - of course.)"

Now, Del, ask yourself if these people are your real friends. If so they will realise you are not running some kind of charity for beer drinking poster owners, and you need to cover expensive expenses incurred on the photography mission such as shoe wear, petrol and drinking beer. Answer honestly, are you forcing these people to buy your high quality merchandise? No. Are they free to come up with the idea, take their own pictures, put them in poster format and bulk buy? Yes. I suggest you let the market decide. Hope that helps, Del.