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Flawed business plans

Ed the Editor's personal blog corner

Yesterday I was bombarded with an ill-conceived business idea from an enthusiastic friend of mine. Thankfully today is another day and it seems that her enthusiasm has waned. Not another word about cooking for neighbors has been mentioned. Cool! As I breathe a sigh of relief, no longer living with the threat of supporting Mrs Ed in a catering enterprise doomed to divorce us, I am reminded of an equally flawed money-making opportunity I dreamt up once. In my defence, I was 12!

One summer holiday I was cycling past a local pub that specialised in good home-cooking. It used to get mobbed out by hungry drinkers, my parents included, and I thought, "The pub offers something different every day, they only have a blackboard at the door with the Dishes of the Day scribbled on it, I win prizes for calligraphy, why not offer them hand-written menus?"

With a head full of loose ends, I pedaled home to tell my father. He must have smiled inside when he heard my plan. "Hey, dad, I am going to prepare a sample menu and go see the owner of the pub and see if he wants to pay me to write say 10 new ones every day."

"How long will that take you?"

"Erm, don't know. 10 x 5 minutes?"

"And what about the cost of materials, delivery, some profits. How much are you going to charge for 10?"

I can't recall the figure I quoted but it made him look to the heavens. I think he could see I was not quite grown up enough to start a business that would turn a profit. Saving me from further embarrassment, he neglected to point out the technology of photocopiers, and patted me on the head and suggested I stick with a paper round.

On reflection, I came to my own sad conclusions too. I realised I would make about $2 a day and be cycling up and down a long hill at least twice before lunch. Apart from the risk of sweating all over my beautiful menus, the biggest hole in the plan was continuity. Why would a business pay for a service that was going to finish at the end of the summer break? (My mother had killed stone dead my idea that I would get up at 5.30 on schooldays to prepare the menus. Not that she wasn't supportive of my little plan, but pragmatic as ever, she pointed out that it already took her an inordinate amount of time to get me out of bed at 7.30.)

Oh, the exuberance of youth. And a shame that my friend of yesterday has still not tempered her child-like enthusiasm with common sense. Apparently the latest idea is for Mrs Ed to run weddings. Great idea, except the scheme has more holes than a Swiss cheese, starting with the minor issue that hosting weddings isn't a part-time proposition, and Mrs Ed has a great job already. Back to the drawing board for her, I fear, before the next whacko suggestion.