All or nothing...

It's been awhile since I've wrote in this thing. With good reason though. Some of you might be wondering if my business has completely flopped yet. Nope, it hasn't. We're still running relatively strong.

It's still an uphill battle. If it weren't for the team I've slowly been putting together, my sanity would be gone. Their willingness to help and work has been amazing.  Unfortunately, everyone wants to be on the team.  Not everyone can play a part the way they want to though. I've got to delegate carefully.

With every second of frustration, I've found a lifetime of diplomacy. With weakness, I've pushed new limits. I'm an innovative genius but not without flaws. My organization lacks, my time managements is mehh.  I've got a good head my shoulders, I see profitability and 95% of the time I hit it dead on.  I was never an acadamic scholar in school. But it was never for lack of brains.

Moving forward, I am wanting to take a lot of different steps. It's all or nothing. On a personal basis, I can see myself going two different directions within the next year or 2. I would either consider selling my baby and letting someone else take advantage of the beast.  Or, I would need s to get a partner that I trust and we would have to get better financing to expand our business. Both prove to be challenging.

So while my team continues to help me maintain the growth of this business, my mind has been racking over projections for the next year based on what we are profiting now and based on what we could be profiting if we chose to evolve the business in different areas.

The margin thus far is intense. Despite the doubters, we have been nothing but successful.

But to take advantage of the potential we really have in front of us, it's a tedious process of studying tactics, and marketing strategy.  I need a flexible business plan that can adapt easily.

Summer is around the corner and if I'm going to use any time to take advantage of stepping stones, this of the year is the best one I can look for.

My hours are going to be changing and it's going to require my presence more than ever.  While my team continues to grow it's also going to take a lot of discipline from us to maintain.

So we'll see. That's the update for now!

Policy Work

I've spent a lot of time these past few weeks trying to figure out how to be diplomatic with my rules and my system. I'm going to have to make some changes. The main one is being diplomatic. I can't really make exceptions for certain people who aren't working for me - just for the simple fact of who they are. It's not a matter of whether I trust THEIR behavior. It's a matter of what kind of messag I am sending to everyone else.

Because as soon as you make one exception, everyone else wants to become part of it.

I just don't know how to set up a fair system.

So over the course of the next week, I will be figuring out some sort of fair system to run the show. Things like smoking out back are going to have to change. I can't have the back door turn into a smoking lounge for everyone. If it's 2 or 3 people, it's one thing. But how do you legitimately set the standard? I need to get my webcams in so I can set up better surveillance. Those should be in this week.

I need to put my foot down a lot more as far as expectations are concerned.

Gaps and Bridges

Business has still been pretty steady.

We ended up not having an official "Grand Open", (yet).

Why?

Lots of reasons.

First of all, I still don't have enough consoles or monitors to host an efficient tournaments in that regard of my store. Magic is still too much focus.

Secondly, if I did, I doubt my wiring could handle more than three 360's at one time. A circuit blows everytime I have all the lights on, my computer and a turn a vacuum on. I'm just not equipped to do anything about it.

Finally, my building just isn't big enough. As it is, my weekends are pretty packed wall to wall already. I don't think having a Grand Open would have been healthy for my PR.

So now I'm working on fixing up the downstairs to expand. Problem is low ceilings, so you can't do too much. Also, you can hear people walking around upstairs ridiculously bad. Part of me wants to see if my landlords would be willing to work out a deal where I get the building connected to mine and use them both.

I've also started a system that allows trustworthy volunteers to run the store when I am not present. They get compensated and when I can afford to hire, these people will be the first people in line to get paid. It's been a huge lift off my shoulders having volunteers who are willing to contribute their time to making the store successful.

I've recently bumped into one big obstacle: Crowd control. My crowd is finally getting more diverse. In the beginning, it was mainly my friends and kids from high school. So that was an easy gap for me to bridge. Everyone was able to connect.

Now that more people are becoming aware of my store, my store attracts a lot more of a diverse crowd, for better or worse. This includes ALL kinds of people. Young kids, old men, college girls, you name it. Throwing all these different personalities is like throwing a bunch of chemicals into a bottle and shaking it. You don't know what's gonna happen, but more times than not, it's going to explode. Now, I have people who's voices naturally rise, and kids who try to run around on their Heelys in my store. It's not a good mix. I need to spread it out more but I need to have a better system for condensing it too. The downstairs is a project all its own.

Simply... too many variables to account for.

Financially, we're doing well enough to pay the bills. But without having an official distributor, we're just "Getting By". We have the ability to do so much more. Having a distributor would capitalize my gross profit margin. But that's substantially easier said than done.

Up to date...

Things at the store are still going overwhelmingly well. Tonight we had around 22 people in the store at once all playing games. Mostly Magic, but a few were playing other board games such as Ascension and Munchkin. The console side of things has only been mildly pushed due to limited amount of supplies. But the weekend of March 9th is when I'm going to host my official grand open and March 10th will be all about console gaming. So I really hope we can get it to take off the right way.

A few things that I'm having to deal with -

Kids using appropriate language. I need to put my foot down harder about kids using extremely vulgar language. It's a family oriented place.

People smoking outside. I have put a lot of emphasis on people walking away from the store. Still, some of them look young. I don't want to be the jerk who tells them that stuff is bad for you. I'm the last person who should be telling kids what to do and what not to do. But Jesus, don't do it okay? What people don't seem to understand it's more than just the principle of the matter, it's the impression that people get when they drive by my store and see people smoking outside my shop. Bad news. Still, even though I have a back alley, I don't want people hanging out back there because I feel like it will get abused.

Theft. I think I have spotted a couple times where kids were trying to steal, or getting ready to. So I need to invest in some security cameras.

Those are the big things.

Starting this Thursday the local high school's Anime Club is going to start hosting their evenings here as opposed to the local library. I'm going to set a projector up downstairs and turn it into a little movie theater. I'm curious as to how that's going to effect my electric bill.

By the way, my first electric bill was $755. Heavy hitter. Granted, that included $215 of it being 1 of 3 deposits. I think we can survive for another month though.

We get plenty of traffic to keep it going. Magic is a huge hitter. The biggest hitter. I'm just now starting to get in the right rhythm.

My biggest concern overall is to make sure that this isn't just a fad and that we can push this going. Great thing for me is that there is no other place for people to go and hang out. There's no malls, no other stores, etc. Before my store, kids were going to each other's houses, and trollin' through Wal-Mart. Now, I'm providing them a place where they can come play games, or just watch, or just hang out for awhile and we don't tolerate wrongful activity in the store. Fact of the matter is, kids will do what they do, and there's not a lot I can do about it to stop them. But if I can at least give them an option to make better choices then that's definitely a step in the right direction.

Moving forward, I'm trying to figure out how to best accomodate this many people. Is this something where I need to start looking for a bigger location with better insulation or do I need to wait and see if this plan flies like it should? Decisions, decisions. I also need to start trying to network heavier with local businesses and see if there's any cool deals I can work out as far as advertising, giveaways and stuff like that is concerned. So hey, if you're a business and you want to partner, let me know!

Week One! Infinite amount to go!

Hard work is not without reward. Between the diligence of my volunteer team, and the many hours I have been putting into the growth of the shop, I'm really satisfied with the results. Granted, I would be way in over my head if I actually had to PAY the people helping me. But everyone has been working extremely wholeheartedly and has accepted nothing but my gratitude as payment. Occasionally, if I can, I'll spring for lunch. Local groups that have offered a lot of help and advice include Psi of I, Look At My Junk and Crawford County Computers. Thanks guys! Several other people have donated other items of great value and expected very little if anything in return. The list goes on.

This week has been a huge success though, not just from the people helping build shelves or donating chairs/tables/stools, or what have you. But just the traffic that has been coming into the store and showing their appreciation and hanging out with all of us. It's very gratifying to see a community of such diverse people coming to my store and finding common interest. I've also made a lot of new friends in the process, and gotten the pleasure of networking and meeting several new people. Even old acquaintances have slowly started to come out and show their faces, so that's really refreshing too.

Now as we move forward and trying our best to stay accurate to the original vision, many obstacles approach soon. The electric bill should be in anytime now and I do not look forward to seeing the overbearing numbers that will inevitably draw my excitement to a halt and instill twenty times more stress than I am truly ready to deal with. We also need to isolate several of the outlets. One thing we noticed was that the circuitry can't seem to handle a lot at once. And of course, once we get the cyber part of the cafe running, we can't have surges happening on a regular basis. Overall though, none of these obstacles can compare to the biggest one. And that is just me being me! I've got the eye for business, I've got the knack for it, and I know what I'm selling. But working 9 to 2 at my other job and then going straight to my store with no days off in throughout the week is bearing down on me. Despite the willingness for others to volunteer their time to give me a break, I'm just not ready to put faith in anyone else to run the shop for an entire day or two. It's not that I don't trust certain people because there are a couple people I'd trust with my life. I just haven't figured out all the kinks of running the business yet, so it's hard for me to justify letting anyone else run a business that's still in beta.

We'll have to get past that soon though. March is a busy month. I'll be gone Mar 2-3 for a State Pool tournament, and then Mar 6th for an acoustic set I'll be playing in Indiana. Then possibly again on Mar 10th, and possibly do something to celebrate my birthday on Mar 18th.

So March will be a long road, indeed.

Currently though, I'm outlining plans to launch my "Grand Open Weekend". We will see how that goes!

Good news, and Obstacles

First let me begin with the good news.

I filed my taxes today. Yes, I filed with H&R Block consciously aware that they kill you on fees. Why did I do that? A.) I've always filed there with the exception of when I tried to do it myself and ended up having to pay the IRS a crap ton because of misfiling some things. B.) It was right down the street like a block away. Seemed pretty practical. The good news about this is that I got way more than I thought I would - especially for being a single guy, and making less than $20k the previous year. I'll leave the amount undisclosed because legitimately, it's not THAT much. Especially compared to people who have kids and families. But I'm definitely going to have enough to put a dent in the growth of my business.

More good news. Thanks to Joe Myers, owner of Crawford County Computers, we got a lot of our networking taken care of for the console gaming side of the store. Just have to get more consoles now! Thanks Joe for offering awesome services. Joe has been a great deal of help in other avenues as well as far as wisdom and lending a helping hand.

Overall, business has been pretty steady. Nothing overwhelming, but a little better than I initially expected. Overhead with having to pay utility deposits are still a little bit ridiculous though!

The Obstacles:

My tax return isn't going to arrive for at least 7-14 business days. Which means 2 weeks of only 2 monitors and 2 360s for the console gaming. That's just not going to cut it.

My health! Good jeebus, do you know how hard it is to be 133 pounds, and work 16 hour days with only 2 meals? It's hard.

The utilities. I'm still waiting on my first electric bill. But I know it's going to be really high. The deposit alone is going to be an additional $215 for the first 3 months for deposits. Not seeing exactly what the bill is yet stresses me out!


Internet. I can already tell I'm going to need to increase my bandwidth immediately.

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Can't complain too much though. Success comes with time and patience, both of which I have been lacking lately. But I'm making the best of what I have. And I'm really happy with the support the local community has been giving, like I said before. I'm leaning towards having our actual "Grand Open" at the beginning of March when I'll have more TV's and consoles installed. I'm going to do a huge grand opening weekend. It'll be a blast!

Still swingin', still rollin'

Man, time has been flying by. This is exhausting! Don't worry, I haven't forgotten about everyone out there in Blog World. I'm still alive.

Opening a business is just very overwhelming when it gets down to the nitty gritty of things. It's a learning experience. So far, we're doing pretty exceptional! Inventory is flying off the shelf much faster than I expected. Can't complain too much but it definitely makes ordering a lot more complicated.

Still, there's so much to do! I don't think I prepared as much as I should have. But at the same time, what was I suppose to do? Sit there, twiddling my thumbs burning time that I could be making my rent money for the store? I had to open asap. The store is presentable.

Now it's a matter of time management. Having Gil around helping man the store is a huge help. Still, between my now part time job at Verizon, my side projects with web design, and trying to get the store running right, along with last but not least - my personal life - it's just difficult to get a handle on things. But alas, I knew what I was getting myself into, didn't I?

The response has been as I expected for the most part. The positive response has been more so than I thought it would be. The skeptical crowd has responded pretty accurately to what I expected. A lot of people, especially older people, just don't understand what the store is about. A lot of people just don't understand why people would pay to play console games. I have to get into depth about how there's an entire market dedicated to it. It's a process. I think for a lot of people, this town never having had a legit shop like this, it's a culture shock when you explain that you're using a business model that's been used a frequently in the past.

The younger crowd has been extremely supportive and excited that Robinson, IL is actually getting something like this. Most of my friends are just excited for me. And then most of my friends who share my common interest are just pretty happy that there's going to be a place they can all gather, play competitively and not disturb their wives.

Next up on my agenda:

Getting a lot of in-store contests ready.
Getting snack food in-stock.
Getting my open/close routine documented
Start outlining our after school program
Start getting a consistent schedule for themed nights.
Getting all my cards properly organized
Order more inventory


Oh and finally, hopefully, someone can watch the shop while I go do my tax return. I'm hoping my tax return is one of those that actually returns money. As opposed the ones I feel like I constantly screw up on and end up having to pay into the government. It happens a lot, you'd be surprised. I can be an idiot! Ugh.

Anyway. That's it for updates for now. Thanks to everyone who has shown their support to the store! You all know who you are.