[Jewelry making - Article 01311] - Re: [Orchid] Independent jeweler in today's marketplace

[Daniel Spirer]

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>     The man who said he spent $150,000 setting up his business blew me
>     away! Where on earth does anyone get $150,000 without borrowing
>     it, and if you borrow it how are you so sure you are going to be
>     able to pay it back? 

    Well, in fact there are a lot of people who have that kind of money.
    But yes I borrowed it. I had an existing clientele and a proven
    business plan in place when I did it so I wasn't particularly worried
    about paying it back. Has it been easy paying down the debt? Of
    course not, but why does everyone think everything is going to be
    easy? We planned on about a 5-8 year payback time frame. It's just a
    part of the cost of doing business. Almost all businesses borrow
    money at some time or another to smooth out ups and downs in their
    business. On the other hand, the fact that $150,000 blows you away is
    interesting. Do you know what it costs to start up a restaurant from
    scratch in most urban locations now? You generally can't get away
    with spending less than a half million dollars (many cost far, far
    more than that). Since most restaurants work on about a 5% margin
    after costs that means you have to sell ten million dollars worth of
    food to pay back your initial investment! As I said in my post I'm at
    the low end of retail start ups. Unless you're relatively small and
    starting by the seat of your pants (as Ron Mills described in today's
    posting--and as I did in my first store location 25 years ago when we
    opened for $15,000) $150,000 in an urban setting is small potatoes.
    Think big, be big. Think small...well you get the message here. 

Daniel R. Spirer, G.G.
Daniel R. Spirer Jewelers, LLC
1780 Massachusetts Ave.
Cambridge, MA 02140
www.spirerjewelers.com
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