Business Principles

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I am considering starting a business--actually I have been thinking about it for some time. Yesterday, I wrote down these principles to follow when thinking about what my business will be.

1. The product must be easy to sell. I'm a software developer, not a salesperson and I can't afford to hire one. The product must fill a need and the price should be commensurate with that need. Anything that is perceived as extra must be free.


2. The product must be easy to support. That means high quality and simple to understand. I cannot afford to answer a bunch of questions all day.


3. The company cannot require a large staff. Even when it's going, I want to support my customers with less than 10 employees. If I make the product easy to sell and support, then this should be easier.


4. Every sale makes a profit.


5. The product must offer natural reasons for repeat business (not planned obsolescence).


6. A potential for large deals must exist, but the company cannot depend on them.


7. Shareholders (which might just be me) are paid dividends.


8. My only income is dividends from holding shares.


9. There will be no options or shares granted to employees. Employees can participate in success through profit sharing (which must be generous). Employees may buy shares.


10. There must exist a culture of fanatical customer care.

 

Fortunate Son Jeans

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Wrangler joins the list of companies that think we don't know all of the words to the songs they're using in commercials. In their ad, images of 5 Star jeans and American flags are accompanied by Creedence Clearwater Revival's words:

Some folks are born made to wave the flag, Ooh, they're red, white and blue.

I'm a huge Creedence fan, so I can't hear that song without thinking:

It ain't me, it ain't me, I ain't no senator's son, son.
It ain't me, it ain't me; I ain't no fortunate one, no,

Fortunate Son is anti-Chicken Hawk song. I guess Wrangler thinks we don't know the words.

Wrangler joins a prestigious list, including Phillips Electronics. Phillips uses the Beatles song It's getting better all the time, but leaves out "(it can't get no worse)". There's a car commercial that uses music from The Who's Baba O'Riley which starts with "Out here in the fields" but ends with:

Teenage wasteland
It's only teenage wasteland
Teenage wasteland
Oh, oh
Teenage wasteland
They're all wasted!

Those words are so much a part of that song that I'd bet non-Who fans think the song is called "Teenage Wasteland". And then there's that drug commercial that plays the Overture from Tommy, and I can't help thinking about the ending of Tommy:

We're not gonna take you
We forsake you
Gonna rape you
Let's forget you better still.