51–60 of 251 posts
Could it have been that the author's business/community structure could have affected its outcome? I found having a more horizontal do-ocracy, membership-driven community model. I'm convinced that was essential to helping persist a few orgs that I've participated in cofounding. This CCC document [1] really drove that philosophy home for a few of us up here in Vancouver, BC. Highly recommend the read! That being said…
The arty passionate person five years later has an entirely new perspective on every single aspect of their venture.
When someone asks me about starting a business, I say, “exactly why?”, “what is is you really want from this, do you know?”. You’d be surprised st how few people are really clear on what they actually want the outcomes to be in a tangible way.
My advice is to create any business that makes money and do your passion as a hobby.
There’s another thing.... people starting their first business generally don’t understand the importance of cash flow. They don’t want to know, they’ve got no reference point in their head to understand it. Nothing you can say will bring them to understand the importance of cash flow. In a years time there will be those who grasped it (might still be in business) anc those who didn’t (out of business).
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While I can't speak to Starbucks, a similar coffee chain in Australia is actually a property play. They don't just own their cafe, but also several of the adjacent stores as well, which they lease out to other retailers. Much of the value in the business actually comes from appreciation in property values.
Starbucks equivalent in Australia? The only company I can think of to fill that space would be Gloria Jeans, but they don’t have the same pull as Starbucks.
It's worth pointing out Starbucks has several competitors in the cafe-chain space in Australia. There are cities in Australia where Starbucks tried opening & then closed down because they were unable to beat the local incumbent cafe chains.
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Can you explain that last bit please about having children? Is it that some people are motivated to have kids to block out the opportunity to fail in their own projects?
It's not about personal projects. It's just the fear that you will regret not having children when you reach the age when it's no longer possible. It's a shitty kind of motivation btw.
A recent experience from a hackerspace showed me how incredibly thankless people can be. After working really insanely hard to build an inclusive space with loads of features, every little hobby revolutionary in the community just shits all over the work and proclaims the people actually getting stuff done should just stop and leave it to them. Even if I had the time, money and expertise I would never do something li…
>These days you can't even ban assholes without everyone making like you're the one with a problem. That's been true since always. Speaking as someone that was in that position within a few online communities back in ~98 or so. Strange game. The only winning move is not to play.
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I never had any issue with the way Starbucks coffee tastes - it's just coffee. I definitely don't pick my coffee shops based on the coffee taste - it's only a matter of distance/price, nothing else.
Well, then you're not part of the segment that's targeted by specialist coffee shops.
> It would be more accurate to ask: “How the F can anyone make any money when Starbucks is on every other street corner and has the advantages of scale they have.
Specialists stores have specialist profits - they wont be hitting the mass market, because the mass market taste profile is different.
If you try to grow, then you may as well give up to starbucks which has the money to taste test and advertise enough to ride the wave of human attention.
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Starbucks equivalent in Australia? The only company I can think of to fill that space would be Gloria Jeans, but they don’t have the same pull as Starbucks.
I'm reluctant to say which company, as I'm not sure how public that information is. It's worth pointing out Starbucks has several competitors in the cafe-chain space in Australia. There are cities in Australia where Starbucks tried opening & then closed down because they were unable to beat the local incumbent cafe chains.
I’ve always thought that a remote tech job/lifestyle business is perfect for opening an art gallery / niche bookstore. You don’t need to worry about paying the bills, you have a private office / desk, and realistically you won’t get more than a few visitors per hour, so you can focus on work.
I don't understand the logic behind this. Wouldn't not being independently wealthy rather imply attempting to be for-profit?
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I have a friend who runs a brewery. They distribute a ridiculous amount of their product into stores around the world and have won many awards, yet they make very little margin from all that. He told me they make an overwhelming amount of money off of the tasting room attached to their physical brewery because the beer itself is effectively water in terms of cost so they make profit by not having to pay any middle me…
> It would be more accurate to ask: “How the F can anyone make any money when Starbucks is on every other street corner and has the advantages of scale they have.” Source and roast your own beans, don't overroast the beans, charge a premium over Starbucks for not producing crap coffee from overroasted beans. Starbucks does some impressive work with the candy flavors it adds to distract from their coffee, but...