Online Research

Well, last week I went ahead and did what I meant to do a month earlier when I had went to the stores( namely to see if any purses had pockets for water bottles).
namely to go on a highly active fashion forum and ask. I had a feeling that if my product idea existed(modest as it is), several folks would know about it...
I was not disappointed, I got seven responses. Mostly leads towards high end diaper bags.
1. the bad news is I didn't get the sense that buying a bag with a large bottle pocket was of any importance whatsoever except myself, so it might be a weak or non-existent market except..2. to one lady in particular who hated diaper looking diaper bags. possible market ironically hadn't thought about. I am still going ahead with samples therefore and play out the next step to hook with supplier/manufacturer. but the reason for this post is just to mention the value of places like forums and messages boards to check out consumer interest.

- Shelley

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Small Scale Charity

In tracing how business happens, I been looking for answers on how exploitation happens. The offered answers never quite run true, or just too self-serving to be credible.

I link in the news roundup to Michael Maren, whose book I'll be reviewing later, but there is an interview where he lays it out.

Go back to Peter Drucker aplying management skills to the nonprofit organizations, and back in the 1980's for the first time charities were tested by an objective standard: what percent of your cash receipts go to overhead, what percent goes to "program" (meaning direct aid to the afflicted).

The Salvation Army embarrassed all other charities at the time by having about 12% overhead and of course 88% to the needy. Most were say 50/50 or far worse.

I link today in the news roundup to one charity that claims only 4% overhead. This is how that works:

Say the "charity" campaigns for cash and hauls in $40 million dollars in donations. This money goes to plush offices, fantastic compensation, world class amenities, and self-promotion. With so much money they then become an NGO, qualified to distribute USA grain through their charity.

This grain is the taxpayers subsidized grains, for shipment overseas. Say the charity is given $96 million worth of grain to distribute to the poor at no cost by the US government.

Now, the charity is allowed to claim they took in $100 million total, and their overhead is only 4%, when in fact they blew every donated dollar on themselves, their multiple mistresses, all the waste fraud and abuse you can imagine.

Things go downhill from there. The companies that get govt subsidies to grow grain, direct the shipments of the famine relief grain to ships they own, and bill USA three times the going ocean freight rates.

Then the goods are unloaded into "disaster zones." So much comes in that local farmers cannot compete. Soon most of what comes in is being stolen, and the people stealing and reselling need pistols to protect their loot. Then competitors get pistols too, then rifles, then RPGs. The violence spirals out of control. This is in essence the story of Somalia the last 20 years.

Somalia and Africa never had a problem feeding itself until we showed up and intervened. the fastest and best solution is to withdraw completely, immediately.

No one will starve, because no one was starving before.

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California Exports

In the news article today on California Exports, the fellow makes the argument that airfreighted goods have far more value than the goods shipped out of the ports. (California's #1 export by sea is scrap metal, plastic, paper, glass... all very low value). Nonethless, all the government dollars are spent on the seaports, not the airports.

So this fellow argues we need more govt money directed to airfreight ports.

Or, we could get teh government out of the regulation and provision of ports, and we would get more better cheaper faster.

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Mould or Molds

Along with todays article, I'd like to mention some points on molds... One of the most successful small biz importers I ever met got started with a sample of matches that he dummied up from a block of wood, with striker material, drew some pretty designs, and then wrapped it in cellophane...


There are some amazing breakthroughs in "prototyping" out there, making styrofoam maodles of parts, for the purpose of getting orders.

I think people get caught up believing they need perfection, when "OK" will do. Let say there are 100,000 customers awaiting a perfect sample, that would cost you $50,000, which you simply cannot raise without orders first. What if only 5000 of those 100,000 would order against a poor quality sample, and you need only 1000 orders to cover a suppliers minimum? Obviously here, you could wait for perfection, or you could get going with less than perfection.

Never let lack of prototype or samples, etc, hold you back... keep talking to the custoemrs for another way if need be...

John

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