BennyEast.Com/Blog The official blog of Kenny West

Micro Business Idea (Cat Cookies and Peacock Pens)

OK so I've been listening to all these yale entrepreneurship podcast as I've written about before... well... it's making me REALLY want to start some kind of business.  When I'm listening to these podcasts my brain starts churning and thinking of cool ideas that could possibly not only generate profit and be successful but also maybe help other people or society in some way!

So here's the idea that I had the other day... I figured I would just share it out see if anyone was interested or thought it was a cool idea and maybe make it happen!

OK here's the deal:

So there's this space up the street from work that used to be a borders bookstore.  It's a pretty big space and so it's hard to find a new person to lease out this big space I'm guessing because it's been empty for a LONG time now... so the space is just starting to become a super eyesore and looking pretty gross in an otherwise thriving business area on the street.  I'm thinking well... let's see... I mean if I were the owner of the building what would my options be?

1: Lease it out to someone that needs a SUPER huge space like that... kinda difficult to find someone like that.

2: Tear it down... build something new... that needs permits and approvals and all kinds of red tape... and probably lots of duct tape... not likely.

3: Again, tear down and build a few smaller shops... OR... convert it to smaller shops... hmmmm... close... but that's still costly and takes permits and time and such... Let's see... HOW about...

4: Here's my idea: Open the space up inside and make it into some sort of micro business venue... a what?

 

Let me explain... so you've all been to flea markets or trade shows or any sort of conference where a bunch of different vendors setup booths.  Like my friends who run the summer camp I go up to in june every year go to camp fairs and setup a little booth with lots of other camps and then parents walk around and get information about all the different camps.  Or when there's like a street fair there are all these little booths and some sell gyro's and some sell world music and some sell smoothies and some sell earrings and necklaces and such.  Those usually last for 1 day... or maybe 2... rarely 3.

But why only last 1 or 2 or 3 days?  Why not do something more permanent that's there all the time?

Following yet?  No?  Ok... well... What I want to do is help people who want to start a business but they don't have enough of anything to pay rent on a full store.  Or maybe they don't have time to be open 9-5 or they don't have enough of anything to be anything.  But they have a good idea or talent or whatever.

Well... there are online options for this.  Someone can start a business on ebay, or etsy, or a small dotcom and sell their little nifty fun things that they made.  And that's totally cool.  But I was thinking sometimes I really do think it's fun just to go and browse and shop and walk around and see what's what!  I know everyone is all about the online stuffs these days... and I am too!  But I think a real life version of ebay/etsy and such would be cool too!

Starting to get it?

Right well, yea so here's what I want to do... rent out a big space... then partition it, just like with little temporary partitions like in an office space... and then the size of the partitions can be maybe 3 different sizes... so maybe a small medium and large size space.

Maybe the small space can be like 100 bucks a month, and the larger space goes for 300... and  it would be all inside of the WHOLE entire shop called Micro Business World... WELCOME to Micro Biz World!  We're in the business to bring you people with ideas who want to get into business!

SO let's say we have maybe 30 different mini business's in this whole entire place.  The collective micro rents will pay for the big giant rent.  I guess it's like an apartment building with tenents... it's also kind of like a mini mall.

But here's my other part of this idea... so this sort of kind of already probably exists somewhere... but what I think would be cool is if someone has an idea for a little tiny business but they don't have any seed capital maybe we can also help make them a micro loan to get started and then they promise to pay back the money from their profits.

Again, i'm just playing around with an idea I had.  I have lots of ideas.  But I think this could be pretty cool and fun.  I mean maybe as well there can be themes or events or each of the business's can help each other or they can maybe compliment each other.

So let's say your micro biz is one thing that relies on another thing.  Hmmm... what's an example?

Oh!  I've got one!  Let's say one business is in business to make cool personalized stationary.  Or custom little cool write in diary books or something.  Well maybe then the person next to your space can be something related... like a business that makes cool funny weird pens and pencils and stuff.  So then after you buy your custom stationary they can refer them to the next booth and maybe offer specials and things if you buy a funky pen or pencil that looks like a peacock!

 

BUY MY PEACOCK PENS!

And head over to the next booth for cool stationary!

And then after buying the cat paw print stationary...

you can head to the next booth to buy your little kitty some delioucsly scrumptious home made...

CAT COOKIES!!!

Cat cookies and peacock pens!  OH MY!

I mean there's sooooooo many options with this!  The other things that's cool is that by having super micro small stores where they are paying rent to someone who is paying the rent means that the actual rent contract that is renewed every 5 years or something could be done by the BIG overall store.  But then the rent durations for the individual booths could be only 1 week... or 1 month.  This way... the little guy or gal with a big idea can actually have more of a chance of making it real without having to hop over a thousand hurdles to get their idea to be a reality!

Also maybe some shops run from 6-10 pm and others run from 8am to 12pm.  This leaves more flexibility for people to work a real job, or go be a student, or be a mom or dad at home... and then if they can just steal away from their responsibilities they can run their little micro business.  And since they don't have to worry about taking care of other things that would take away from their business that we will take care of they can focus more on getting off the ground.

So for example... we'll take care of cleaning, and paying electric, and water, and bathrooms, and all that stuff.

And I think really what this would be is maybe you start with us with a small 100 dollar a month booth... if your biz flops then you can close up the booth and someone else moves in... or maybe we can even try and help figure out why is flopped?  But let's say your business is booming... well you can then move to a bigger space... and once you've outgrown the big space for us... you can move into a real legit shop in a mall or a stripmall, or anywhere else!

So basically what I want to do is lower the barriers to entry of taking a business from idea to actual reality.

Barriers to entry is this thing in business where if you have a business idea and want to make it real it's what it would take to make it a real thing.  So for example... if I want to start selling balloon animals... that's a pretty small barriers to entry.  I buy balloons and a air tank and learn to make animals... and bam.

But let's say I want to start manufacturing rocket ships.  That's a little bit more involved and takes a little bit more start up capital and knowledge.

But if I can lower the barriers of entry of building a start up business I think that would make it easier for people to try out a business idea who might otherwise just kind of let the idea drift off into oblivion!  After all, it could be the idea that changes the world!

I think if I were to do a booth I might do a computer teaching booth, or maybe a clean up computer virus's while you wait.  So you can drop off your computer and then go browse the fine selection of peacock pens a few booths over.

Now I kind of want to sell peacock pens.  BUY MY PEACOCK PENS!

So, anyone interested?  In the idea, not the pens... although... if people want peacock pens I might be wiling to start making those... although, I think I like the cat cookies more.