Business or Bust

While the senior guards were inspecting (or rather, picking on) the new guard, the young boy noticed that nobody was guarding the Queen Mum's residence, so he stepped in and assumed the post. I took this photo in London in 2000, and it's one of my favorite photos. It shows someone that recognized a need and jumped in to fill the gap. It's also kind a cute.

A few weeks back, a self-proclaimed expert on achieving financial freedom did a guest spot on Fox NY's morning news. Her advice was simple. According to her, anyone can start a business with a budget of $1000, all of which should go toward Google ads. Silly me, I've been wasting all of my life with developing "the idea" and organically translating that into business & marketing plans.



Coincidentally, a few months back, someone from the User Experience group at Google asked me to critique the administrative site for their advertising program. In addition to a complete heuristic evaluation, I also offered an impromptu dissertation on the legitimacy of the businesses behind the links, and how I felt that, while it makes tons of money for Google now, it severely contradicts the realm of ethics and morals that Google so strongly advocated in their earlier years. CNBC's recent special, "Big Brother, Big Business" seems to confirm that Google will emerge as the definitive global leader in, well, everything (so I don't think they took my little comments to heart). Since Google knows more about me than I do, I'll only say good things about them. And since they've aquired Blogger, I guess that also makes them my publisher. They've even been able to influence medicine.

Back to my point... Starting a business should be about finding a need and creating a solution, as the little boy from London did. In NYC, they have their own special categories of business, but it's not always clear what need they fill. Take this one on 23rd Street in the Flatiron district...



This hole in the wall is literally about 3 square feet, from which a little old lady sells brass junk. There are a ton of businesses in NYC that operate out of a closet like this on the sidewalk. I can't imagine what the rent on this is per month, but I'm guessing it would take a hefty chunk of the suggested budget of Fox's smart business expert. I don't even see any room to use a computer in order to buy ad space through Google. And if she could, I can't imagine what the ad would actually say.