My story is basically that I took a brick and mortar store from an alley in an Iowa county seat town of around ten thousand to the Internet. I was thinking at the time it’d probably be lucrative to change to a pay-as-you-go venue where I could reach the world.
It wasn’t like I didn’t test the theory. I overlapped the venues from 1999 to 2002. I compared.
The brick and mortar landlord’s roof was leaking, his light fixtures were fizzling out, he was mad about how much the improvements in the alley cost him (since he owned the entire block), and he had raised the rent exactly one year after he personally promised never to do that.
I was right. I reached the world, they paid better prices than the locals, and the new landlord only charged me money when something happened.
I overlooked something though.
The guy who wasn’t fixing the leaky roof was satisfied with the same amount of money every month. If my business got really good, there was a point where I DIDN’T have to pay as I went. It wasn’t trending that way-business was not particularly good after MusicLand swiped eighty per cent of it, but there was still that incentive to meet “fixed overhead” and then flourish.
At the dotcoms that point never arrives, at least at the venues I’ve found to be viable. Except of course at my own.
I think that probably means something.