It has happened folks. We have finally cleared out the last of our first major bookstore acquisition. After two months of packing up over 600 boxes of books, revamping our business's workflow operation at my brother's house, and doing all of this with minimal help, I am excited to announce that the formula of time plus action does indeed equal success.
In wrapping up at the bookstore, the owner and the two of us had a slightly emotional departure as we developed quite the friendship from the beginning of the acquisition. After some conversation and hugs were exchanged, we told him to keep in touch with us if he had any more opportunity he'd like to include us in in the future. That's when he dropped a surprise - he subtly hinted at his imminent retirement to us and said he would consider selling the bookstore. After asking a price, he said he would be willing to consider $80k. With the potential of buying/renting the warehouse I talked about in a previous blog, my brother and I are interested. In fact, there isn't an opportunity that comes along that we don't seriously consider. Without committing to anything, we said that we would give it some thought and meet to talk about it in the future.
Following this, we made it home, dined on some Chinese food my brother's fiance picked up, and decided to get in touch with our childhood friend Tyler. Tyler is an excellent helicopter pilot who turned his dreams into a success in his early 20's and has helped us before on our production of the Dinosaur King of the Hill for our YouTube channel, B1Q Studios. It was the first time he had seen what my brother and I started after the YouTube adventure and was very surprised to see what we've gotten into.
It was a conversation long overdue. We talked about the past, present, and future of both of our ventures and probably had quite a few more hours of conversation in us in regards to all three of those time periods. We touched on a major topic though that is relevant in mentioning in these blogs which is the immediate next step for the Bookselling business. Tyler noticed how far in we were and said "You guys know what your next step is and I mean this in all seriousness... one of you has to quit your day job. You guys are not going to get to where you want to get to if you both continue working at your current companies."
He's 100% right. As a matter of fact, and I told him this, my brother and I just had that very conversation just a day or two ago. And this conversation came about because we were putting some serious consideration into hiring on an actual employee. When we put some thought behind this, it made no sense to bring someone on while each of us was still employed.
Closing out the night a little past midnight, we said our goodbyes with Tyler and moved the bookshelves down to the basement for our ever expanding Merchant Fulfilled inventory. The conversation added a fresh take on the operation and added both perspective and validation to what we are doing. We are simply two people with a common idea that are putting it into action. We do not agree on everything but the objective is the same and that is the beauty of a working partnership. Don't be afraid to fail because the cost of failure is a lot less than never starting.
General Topics:
Key's to Success - How I Found My Courage in Business
Blogs:
First Blog - Introduction
Second Blog - We're Buying a Warehouse?!
Third Blog - Touring the Warehouse
Fourth Blog - Light at the End of the Tunnel