I try to keep this blog separate to the business but there comes a line that you cross and it is just do or don’t – there is no try. So if you have no interest in my business or a plea for help, please pass this post by.
As some of you know I have been very intermittent over the past year. This is because I have been running a games store – yes, a real life gaming store! It has been awesome. It has been hard. When I started this I was going to take over the world – and Tasmania. I so far have achieved neither but there has been fun and the doors are still open.
The store makes enough money to keep the games on the shelf, the lights, power and internet running as well as the rent paid and one lonely staff member whom I pay for 3-5 hours a week. It makes nothing past that. I have not yet managed to pay myself a single cent from the business in the 12 months since it became a thing.
But there is one issue that exists from the beginning and it is an invoice that is only three quarters paid. It came about from someone who volunteered services and then gave me an invoice. Not an insignificant one – a big one. It is for an arm of the business that just did not happen and it is an arm of the business that under-performs by about 95% each month from what it was projected to. I want to pay that invoice and then kill that side of the business as it stands and redo it myself. The way I should have from day 1.
So, I am asking everyone that knows me – or has enjoyed one of my posts, or has downloaded some of the free stuff here on the site, to give me a buff. The invoice is around $700 USD remaining and if some of you could just click on the tip jar link to the right and donate a dollar or 5 or ten or whatever, that would do a great deal to helping me move forward with the business.
At the moment the business is one day away from being a year old, and we are sustainable – I just want it to grow. Please help me clear up the old so I can create the new.
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If they originally volunteered (and therefore there is no contract), why are you paying the invoice? You can just say no, I think.
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Fair question.
In answer and with all honesty they said I might have to charge you a bit and at the time I thought that it would be a nominal fee so agreed. They then charged me $1000 USD. Then when they finished what I had actually asked them to do and charged a further $1000.
Initially I had asked them to look at a thing to see if they could get a free version working for me rather than spend $25 – 40 on a paid version.
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Plus, they are still friends and they did what they thought was right and so I do not want to take money from them where they felt it was warranted to charge.
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Ah. Double tough situation in that case. As the captain of your ship you have learned two valuable lessons then. 1) Always find out the cost in advance, and 2) Avoid doing business with friends.
I would like to send some help along, but I’m really struggling myself and can’t afford to at this point. Just the same I send my best wishes and hope it works out well for you. Living the dream is a wonderful place to be, but as it turns out, it’s a lot of hard work. Heh.
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If you are not making money after a year surely that is the point to look at some major change or jump out before going under. That amount of time away from family without contributing to supporting your family would be more than most people would do. I admire perseverance but after a point it is not determination to succeed it simply becomes blind stubbornness to prove something. Unless you know business will improve drastically and by drastic I mean double if you are currently making nothing then you will only hurt yourself and your family to continue.
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It is not that the business is not profitable long term. There is a solid business plan in place and it is performing as expected except as noted in this blog. I always knew that it may be over a year before I started making money out of the business. It is more important to me to provide local employment opportunities, which the business does, and pay those employees than me. My wife keeps our mortgage payments level and food in our stomachs. The problem here is that this expense was well outside of the business plan. Completely unexpected and also, 4% of the actual total starting price expense – that may not sound a lot but it was 4% over budget and all the money that has gone into this has come from me.
The news is that if this bill is paid, and the fine folk out there have donated a lion’s share of the final figure, I will be able to erase all the wrong turns and move away from what was and put in place something that will work and will start to make money. As the business can currently support itself, restock itself, pay the power and rent as well as some staff payments any extra money will mean that I can start to draw a wage. So that is the issue and the status of where I am at. It appears I was not clear enough about this in the post. We are fighting a small fire with buckets of water, not an inferno with wet towels 🙂