I came home from work this evening only to find some of my tools and scrap wood laying around. I looked out back and saw Megan with my hammer and a couple pieces of wood.
When she saw me she asked "Daddy can you help me?"
Naturally I replied, "What are you doing?"
"I 'm building a garage."
"A garage? Why are you building a garage?" I asked.
"Nikki and I are going to open a scooter fix it shop."
"Oh, but honey it would cost thousands of dollars to build a garage. Where would you get the money?" I replied.
"Oh, were going to sell scooter wheels for $2 a piece."
"But honey, we would have to get a building permit." I countered.
She replied, "O.K. lets go get one."
You have to admire the girl was on a mission.
3 comments:
"Thousands" of dollars seems to indicate a minimum of $2,000 required to build the garage. At $2 apiece, that's 1,000 scooter wheels. A pair of scooter wheels (without the bearings) wholesales for around $7. Megan will need to invest $3,500 in inventory and will lose $1.50 on every scooter wheel that she lets go for only $2. After selling 1,000 of those wheels, she'll be $1,500 in the hole and in need of a get-rich-quick scheme to raise the $3,500 needed at that point to build the garage that was her original goal.
Seems like pointing all that out would have been the more sensible route than "we need a building permit," Dad.
Not to mention (although I'm mentioning it now) the cost of the building permit, materials and labor for building the garage, advertising, operating overhead, personnel costs, and other investments related to operations. Does she even have a business plan? This whole thing smacks of impetuousness.
Why don't you suggest a lemonade stand, instead? She can get her mom to suck up the cost of supplies and to create the product; she can borrow at no cost the materials for a temporary stand (perhaps a card table and chair, again from her mom?); she can elude the authorities' desire for vending license fees by keeping short-term hours of operation (and by presenting herself as "just a cute little kid"); and she'll walk away with nothing but profit, provided her mom demands nothing in return for her own labor and investment.
Tell Megan to call me if she has questions.
Thanks Kevin!!
Lemonade Stand....done that!
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