I just realized I haven’t been writing as many anecdotes lately, which is definitely one of the highlights of being in the experiment– the random nature of it all. So here goes.
Becoming Stingy
Rachelle and I decided to beef up our display with a winter-ish theme. It all sounded great until after closing the kiosk at 11:30 p.m., we realized that nothing was open except Wal-Mart. (I know… “quality items for a display” and “the Springville, Utah Wal-Mart” aren’t exactly synonymous.)
Anyway, the funny thing is that we do have about $60 left in “the budget”, and we couldn’t really decide how much to use on the display. The value of a dollar has become just ridiculously expensive to me– to spend $20 for a display seemed like a fat waste of cash. Because really, when you scale it down like that, anything you spend is crucial.
As we walked through the store looking at things, we were like… “$2.77? You do realize that is 2.77% of our total budget?” With the mindset like that, we just couldn’t bring ourselves to buying anything. We were looking for blue & silver winter-looking snowman-ish things, and though we found quite a few… it seemed like selling out to actually spend money.
So when I was driving home, I kept thinking, “Man! I’ve got to know someone who has that kind of stuff that we could borrow, some excess Christmas looking deco in their house.” Then I walked into my apartment, which frankly, I haven’t seen much of for the last few weeks, and realized that all my decorations– jars, flowers, candlesticks, etc. are blue & silver.
Yep. So it’s The Hundred Dollar Business budget, all the way!
Failing My Entrepreneurship Class
So, my Entrepreneurship Lecture class at BYU this semester? I think I’m actually going to fail it. I went to all the classes & lectures, and the extra required events, but with working at the other startup plus everything else, and now this project, things like “deadlines for a one page paper” haven’t made it to the top of my task-list.
The sad thing is, I’ve blogged about all of the events and lectures I went to. I wish I could just turn in a blog post for credit. Maybe I’ll try enacting the “Negotiate Win-Win Situations” principle– I spaced the 5 p.m. “late” deadline tonight.
Somehow, it all seems fitting, though. “I failed my entrepreneurship class because I was starting a business.” 
Return of The Treo
…Do you own anything worth more than ten bucks? Just get insurance on it. It is the best investment of $5/month you can make!
After the Treo was stolen, I called Verizon to have the line suspended, so the hooligan(s) that nabbed it wouldn’t be able to run up the bill. I’m sad that the customer service rep didn’t tell me that if I had insurance, it would be replaced the next day– as I’ve spent the last 6 days miserable in a communication-less void.
But even after someone told me to check if I had insurance, I held off. I can’t figure it out–I think my reasoning was “I’m too busy to take care of a dumb thing like my phone being stolen.” And yet, it created big problems for me in trying to make all kinds of arrangements for the kiosk, my employee situation, vendors, etc.
Though, the best news ever is that I did finally call in the theft, and they are sending me a new one! It’s already being shipped, and is coming in later tomorrow afternoon! How cool is that!
Ye Basic Summary
Honestly– I’ve been getting burned out of being at the kiosk. For a gag, we made “I Heart My Kiosk” shirts on Cafepress.com… and the last few days, nothing could be further from the truth. Oh! And someone told Rachelle that they would invite her to some activity, but she’s in a relationship… with a kiosk. (Which made us laugh!)
I guess the challenge is that the mall is open 7 days/week, we’re grossly understaffed (which, I still haven’t figured out how to solve), and with the holiday hours being extended (from 7 or 8 a.m. to 10 or 11 p.m.)… it’s just looooong.
As well, I’m trying to juggle the following ideas:
1. Don’t work in your business, work on your business.
2. Don’t hire (or spend money) until you really need to.
3. My personal belief that I *can’t* hire anyone (or ask them to help out a lot) unless I feel confident that I can either pay them (best case scenario) or provide value for their time, and I’m not sure how to provide that yet.
4. Don’t “buy yourself a job”. (Erika Wilde, from StopDirt.com, shared this one with my class a few weeks ago. She was considering buying a franchise, but realized that the ROI for the time managing the business would be marginal).
Anyway, for me to not have time to step away to plan & act on attracting local customers or revamping our product & display, presents an opportunity cost I don’t like to have. I know that the kiosk’s capacity for revenue is really limited, and I want to maximize the time we have. Only 17 days left. Sigh.
So, there are some anecdotes and random thoughts. It really is an adventure. Right now it’s the middle of the marathon, so we need to keep trucking, and move past the setup/operations phase, and into the revenue/growth stage.
If it goes well, that should be the most exciting stage!
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