OT: Starting Businesses in Difficult Times

On Aug 27, 8:07 pm, "Ed Huntress" <huntre...@optonline.net> wrote:
"Gunner Asch" <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:ifjg761vhkb98nbhmmd34hvoll2ne1ee5g_at_4ax.com...



On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:24:57 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote in message
news:f6udnZzR66-a2-XRnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d_at_web-ster.com...
I had a guy tell me that his boss wouldn't let him go to the Embedded
Systems Conference when it was in San Francisco because SF was too much
of a
tourist town, and it was just vacation time.

That's hard-core.

And to think that there are actually some ENGINEERING COMPANIES in San
Francisco!  I wonder how they ever get any work done?  Amazing!

:-)

Getting sent to a seminar in an armpit of a city someplace was fine,
though.

I spent a month at a customer site in Rochelle, Illinois, once...
definitely
qualifies as an armpit.

---Joel

Try Seaboard Electronics in New Rochelle New York.......brrrrr...I
counted 23 stripped or currently being stripped cars/trucks on the SIDE
OF THE FREEWAY as I passed em from JFK to the factory.

Mid 1980s......and I couldnt carry CCW there....BRRRR

I went to lunch and a pickpocket got his hand smashed in the door to the
restaurant when he fumbled his trick. Dont know how that
happened...shrug

I never ever nevernever went back there.  Nononono!

New Rochelle's average household income is $199,061. The average home price
is over $752,000. It's one of the most desired towns in the US, with a crime
rate less than half of the average.

What you drove through to get there, in Queens and the Bronx, is the New
York equivalent of Taft, California. That's why you saw the stripped cars.

What probably threw you off your feed is the lack of garbage heaps and
broken-down pickups in the front yards. It doubtless looked like alien
territory.

--
Ed Huntress

This website has the average household income as a lot less.

Estimated median household income in 2008: $59,359 (it was $55,513 in
2000)
New Rochelle: $59,359

Read more: http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Rochelle-New-York.html#ixzz0xtzsd3Sz


http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Rochelle-New-York.html

On Aug 28, 11:45 am, "k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz"
k...@att.bizzzzzzzzzzzz> wrote:
On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 05:17:18 -0700 (PDT), "dcas...@krl.org" <dcas...@krl.org
wrote:





On Aug 27, 8:07 pm, "Ed Huntress" <huntre...@optonline.net> wrote:
"Gunner Asch" <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:ifjg761vhkb98nbhmmd34hvoll2ne1ee5g_at_4ax.com...

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:24:57 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote in message
news:f6udnZzR66-a2-XRnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d_at_web-ster.com...
I had a guy tell me that his boss wouldn't let him go to the Embedded
Systems Conference when it was in San Francisco because SF was too much
of a
tourist town, and it was just vacation time.

That's hard-core.

And to think that there are actually some ENGINEERING COMPANIES in San
Francisco!  I wonder how they ever get any work done?  Amazing!

:-)

Getting sent to a seminar in an armpit of a city someplace was fine,
though.

I spent a month at a customer site in Rochelle, Illinois, once...
definitely
qualifies as an armpit.

---Joel

Try Seaboard Electronics in New Rochelle New York.......brrrrr...I
counted 23 stripped or currently being stripped cars/trucks on the SIDE
OF THE FREEWAY as I passed em from JFK to the factory.

Mid 1980s......and I couldnt carry CCW there....BRRRR

I went to lunch and a pickpocket got his hand smashed in the door to the
restaurant when he fumbled his trick. Dont know how that
happened...shrug

I never ever nevernever went back there.  Nononono!

New Rochelle's average household income is $199,061. The average home price
is over $752,000. It's one of the most desired towns in the US, with a crime
rate less than half of the average.

What you drove through to get there, in Queens and the Bronx, is the New
York equivalent of Taft, California. That's why you saw the stripped cars.

What probably threw you off your feed is the lack of garbage heaps and
broken-down pickups in the front yards. It doubtless looked like alien
territory.

--
Ed Huntress

This website has the average household income as a lot less.

Estimated median household income in 2008: $59,359 (it was $55,513 in
2000)
New Rochelle:        $59,359

Read more:http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Rochelle-New-York.html#ixzz0xtzsd3Sz

http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Rochelle-New-York.html

Average <> Median

Average household income doesn't say much about a city (or country, for that
matter).- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

Average doesn't say much about intelligence either.

I have some specific thoughts on how to overcome this, but I was
thinking this morning that there has to be some lessons to be learned
from history -- specifically, what sorts of businesses were successful
at starting up or coming back from the ashes between 1930 and 1938, and
how'd they do it? I was wondering if anyone has seen any good books
that cover this sort of thing.

(Note, if you're a popular historian with a business school bent, or a
business author with a historical bent, that there's an opportunity
right here).
snip

On Sat, 28 Aug 2010 05:17:18 -0700 (PDT), "dcas...@krl.org" <dcas...@krl.org
wrote:





On Aug 27, 8:07 pm, "Ed Huntress" <huntre...@optonline.net> wrote:
"Gunner Asch" <gunnera...@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:ifjg761vhkb98nbhmmd34hvoll2ne1ee5g_at_4ax.com...

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 16:24:57 -0700, "Joel Koltner"
zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Tim Wescott" <t...@seemywebsite.com> wrote in message
news:f6udnZzR66-a2-XRnZ2dnUVZ_v6dnZ2d_at_web-ster.com...
I had a guy tell me that his boss wouldn't let him go to the Embedded
Systems Conference when it was in San Francisco because SF was too much
of a
tourist town, and it was just vacation time.

That's hard-core.

And to think that there are actually some ENGINEERING COMPANIES in San
Francisco!  I wonder how they ever get any work done?  Amazing!

:-)

Getting sent to a seminar in an armpit of a city someplace was fine,
though.

I spent a month at a customer site in Rochelle, Illinois, once...
definitely
qualifies as an armpit.

---Joel

Try Seaboard Electronics in New Rochelle New York.......brrrrr...I
counted 23 stripped or currently being stripped cars/trucks on the SIDE
OF THE FREEWAY as I passed em from JFK to the factory.

Mid 1980s......and I couldnt carry CCW there....BRRRR

I went to lunch and a pickpocket got his hand smashed in the door to the
restaurant when he fumbled his trick. Dont know how that
happened...shrug

I never ever nevernever went back there.  Nononono!

New Rochelle's average household income is $199,061. The average home price
is over $752,000. It's one of the most desired towns in the US, with a crime
rate less than half of the average.

What you drove through to get there, in Queens and the Bronx, is the New
York equivalent of Taft, California. That's why you saw the stripped cars.

What probably threw you off your feed is the lack of garbage heaps and
broken-down pickups in the front yards. It doubtless looked like alien
territory.

--
Ed Huntress

This website has the average household income as a lot less.

Estimated median household income in 2008: $59,359 (it was $55,513 in
2000)
New Rochelle:        $59,359

Read more:http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Rochelle-New-York.html#ixzz0xtzsd3Sz

http://www.city-data.com/city/New-Rochelle-New-York.html

Average <> Median

Average household income doesn't say much about a city (or country, for that
matter).- Hide quoted text -

- Show quoted text -

On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:10:23 -0700, Tim Wescott
tim_at_seemywebsite.com> wrote:
snip
I have some specific thoughts on how to overcome this, but I was
thinking this morning that there has to be some lessons to be learned
from history -- specifically, what sorts of businesses were successful
at starting up or coming back from the ashes between 1930 and 1938, and
how'd they do it? I was wondering if anyone has seen any good books
that cover this sort of thing.

(Note, if you're a popular historian with a business school bent, or a
business author with a historical bent, that there's an opportunity
right here).
snip
==============
One place to start _Small time Operator_ by Bernard B.
Kamoroff ISBN0-917510-18-6. available
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Time-Operator-Bernard-Kamoroff/dp/0917510186/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283017221&sr=1-1


Be warned that when I pointed out the following to my more
reactionary and/or neocon relatives they almost blew a
gasket.

(1) There is no known economic theory, ideology or business
model that is optimal in all circumstances and under all
conditions. What is optimal in one case may well be marginal
in other cases, and counterproductive/suicidial in yet other
cases.

(2) With the increasingly rapid changes in technology and
social conditions, it is difficult to impossible to draw any
useful conclusions from past successes other than the most
general, i.e. don't try to borrow yourself rich.

(3) There has been a profound shift in economic structure
and organization from an almost autarkic industrial economy
to a post industrial service based global economy, and this
process is not only ongoing but accelerating in that many of
the intelectual/professional activities such as legal,
medical, accounting engineering and programming are now
being outsourced.

(4) One of the problems with high line seminars is that you
must tell the customer/client what they want to hear, which
in too many cases is a corporation looking for a quick cheap
"fix" and not the employee(s) setting in the room taking
notes.

Good luck on your efforts. You have a well done web page.

Some suggestions:

(1) Include some sort of webmail on your<contact us> web
page. Unless you like spam, you will need to incorporate
some sort of captcha test.
http://www.captcha.net/
http://www.captcha.net/captchas/

(2) Consider adding a Spanish and possibly other language
versions of your webpage.

(3) Examine the Keller-Williams business model [real estate]
to see how independent agents can flourish in a co-operative
environment.
http://images.kw.com/docs/0/7/3/073489/20838.pdf
http://images.kw.com/shared/kw/ProfitShareWhitePaper.pdf

Thanks, Dan. The $199,061 figure was for the northernmost of three ZIP codes
for New Rochelle. My mistake.

It's still one hell of a nice -- and an expensive -- town. My family
belonged to a beach club there in the late '50s.

--
Ed Huntress

If you look at my web site you'll rapidly see through the use of the
plural 'we' and realize that the only product that Wescott Design
Services has to sell is hours of Tim Wescott's time.  Thus, the business
doesn't have a life independent of little ol' me.

So, ever since I started the business I've been working on starting a
seminar business, too, with the intent of training up minions and
getting something going with a life of its own.  This so that if I get
sick or want to retire I can either have an income stream or something
to sell.

But dangit, the plans I made assumed a booming economy and a high-end
seminar that would charge great big wads of money to train someone up
and get them back on the job with newly improved skills quickly.

I have some specific thoughts on how to overcome this, but I was
thinking this morning that there has to be some lessons to be learned
from history -- specifically, what sorts of businesses were successful
at starting up or coming back from the ashes between 1930 and 1938, and
how'd they do it?  I was wondering if anyone has seen any good books
that cover this sort of thing.

(Note, if you're a popular historian with a business school bent, or a
business author with a historical bent, that there's an opportunity
right here).

On 08/28/2010 12:16 PM, F. George McDuffee wrote:
On Fri, 27 Aug 2010 08:10:23 -0700, Tim Wescott
tim_at_seemywebsite.com> wrote:
snip
I have some specific thoughts on how to overcome this, but I was
thinking this morning that there has to be some lessons to be learned
from history -- specifically, what sorts of businesses were successful
at starting up or coming back from the ashes between 1930 and 1938, and
how'd they do it? I was wondering if anyone has seen any good books
that cover this sort of thing.

(Note, if you're a popular historian with a business school bent, or a
business author with a historical bent, that there's an opportunity
right here).
snip
==============
One place to start _Small time Operator_ by Bernard B.
Kamoroff ISBN0-917510-18-6. available
http://www.amazon.com/Small-Time-Operator-Bernard-Kamoroff/dp/0917510186/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1283017221&sr=1-1


Be warned that when I pointed out the following to my more
reactionary and/or neocon relatives they almost blew a
gasket.

(1) There is no known economic theory, ideology or business
model that is optimal in all circumstances and under all
conditions. What is optimal in one case may well be marginal
in other cases, and counterproductive/suicidial in yet other
cases.

Well, that's kind of my point -- I had things all thought out for boom
times, I _think_ I have things sort of adjusted for now, but I wanted
the views of others.

(2) With the increasingly rapid changes in technology and
social conditions, it is difficult to impossible to draw any
useful conclusions from past successes other than the most
general, i.e. don't try to borrow yourself rich.

(3) There has been a profound shift in economic structure
and organization from an almost autarkic industrial economy
to a post industrial service based global economy, and this
process is not only ongoing but accelerating in that many of
the intelectual/professional activities such as legal,
medical, accounting engineering and programming are now
being outsourced.

Except, that the _really_ high end is getting 'sourced' right back to
the US of A. Most of the design engineers that I know of who have an
internet presence have at least gotten inquiries from the far east.

There are numerous signs that in at least some sectors the "outsourcing"
is tapering off, and not just because the 'out' end is getting
saturated. The two trends that close friends of mine have seen in
engineering, and that I'm starting to see cited in the press ("The
Economist"), is that (a) the foreign engineers know damn well that
they're in demand, and are quite successfully demanding more money,
bringing the cost of using them closer to parity with using US talent,
and (b) US engineers are better than Indian or Chinese engineers.

The trend that has me laughing my tail off when it doesn't have me
shaking my head (or shaking in my boots) is that the corner offices are
moving to India and China, too. Which on the one hand makes me want to
point and laugh at those CEOs that were gleefully laying off my
compatriots ten years ago, but on the other hand makes we worry about
who's gonna be left to hire me.

Not that I'm entirely disagreeing with you -- just that when you do your
extrapolation you can't just look at the position (bad) you're in and
the speed you're going (pointing to worse) -- you also need to look at
the level of acceleration (pointing to better, or at least less bad).
Basically, take your own advice from (2), but as a reason not to
necessarily predict gloom and doom.

(4) One of the problems with high line seminars is that you
must tell the customer/client what they want to hear, which
in too many cases is a corporation looking for a quick cheap
"fix" and not the employee(s) setting in the room taking
notes.

The seminars are pointed at working engineers, which is part of my
problem: it's not a lot of feel-good fooey for the front office, it's
solid improvement for the line engineer. Ten years ago this sort of
thing was an easy sell to the front offices. Today it isn't -- so I
need to position myself such that I can appeal not to the corporate
budget, but to the individual budget -- and still make money.

Good luck on your efforts. You have a well done web page.

Some suggestions:

(1) Include some sort of webmail on your<contact us> web
page. Unless you like spam, you will need to incorporate
some sort of captcha test.
http://www.captcha.net/
http://www.captcha.net/captchas/

(2) Consider adding a Spanish and possibly other language
versions of your webpage.

(3) Examine the Keller-Williams business model [real estate]
to see how independent agents can flourish in a co-operative
environment.
http://images.kw.com/docs/0/7/3/073489/20838.pdf
http://images.kw.com/shared/kw/ProfitShareWhitePaper.pdf

Good suggestions - I'll have to think about 'em.

If you look at my web site you'll rapidly see through the use of the
plural 'we' and realize that the only product that Wescott Design
Services has to sell is hours of Tim Wescott's time.  Thus, the business
doesn't have a life independent of little ol' me.

So, ever since I started the business I've been working on starting a
seminar business, too, with the intent of training up minions and
getting something going with a life of its own.  This so that if I get
sick or want to retire I can either have an income stream or something
to sell.

But dangit, the plans I made assumed a booming economy and a high-end
seminar that would charge great big wads of money to train someone up
and get them back on the job with newly improved skills quickly.

I have some specific thoughts on how to overcome this, but I was
thinking this morning that there has to be some lessons to be learned
from history -- specifically, what sorts of businesses were successful
at starting up or coming back from the ashes between 1930 and 1938, and
how'd they do it?  I was wondering if anyone has seen any good books
that cover this sort of thing.

(Note, if you're a popular historian with a business school bent, or a
business author with a historical bent, that there's an opportunity
right here).

TIA

--

Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Serviceshttp://www.wescottdesign.com

Do you need to implement control loops in software?
"Applied Control Theory for Embedded Systems" was written for you.
See details athttp://www.wescottdesign.com/actfes/actfes.html

On 2010-08-27, Joel Koltner <zapwireDASHgro...@yahoo.com> wrote:

"Ignoramus31855" <ignoramus31...@NOSPAM.31855.invalid> wrote in message
news:KamdnSpkmrTQQerRnZ2dnUVZ_qidnZ2d_at_giganews.com...
For the sort of a "how to have a business to run that sells something
other than my time" my answer for myself is websites. They run by
themselves and make money for me. It is also a very recession resistant
business.

What are your web sites selling?  Physical products?  eBooks?  Videos?

I am not selling anything, they are informational, but carry ads or
some such.

i