Social Feed

I just don't understand the logic behind continuing Voom. I know there are many still holding on to the Voom balloon, hoping it will continue to fly. Ever since the rumors started to float around about the end of Voom, I've been trying to come up with a comparison to some other business proposition, and I think that I've finally come up with one.

Before you start to bash me and say that the numbers aren't totally accurate, I know they aren't and they weren't meant to be. But the ratios are close enough to make my point.

Imagine you live in a small town of roughly 5000 people. There are 3 well established coffee shops in town, for this exercise we'll use Starbucks, Peaberry , and Dunkin' Donuts. You figure they all make money selling coffee, it can't be that hard, let's start Voom Coffee.

After a little over a year, quite of few individuals around town have tried your shop, many are impressed by some of the new exclusive brews featured there. But most don't stay around long, since many of their old favorites are not on the menu, and there was a lot of service problems early on. After this first year of business, people still pretty much stay loyal to their brand of coffee. Starbucks and Peaberry still have about 2500 customers, mostly the newcomer that wanted something newer and better. Dunkin' Donuts being the old coffee shop on the block has about 2000 customers, but they are adding some of the fancier blends to match the drawing power of the newer places. About 500 people can live with making coffee at home and don't care for it much anyway. That leaves you with 3, count 'em 3 loyal and very vocal customers.

Now, all the other shops are making money on each cup of coffee they sell. But not you, it costs a lot with all the new equipment, the free coffee you gave out trying to attract customers, and a myriad of other things. You are actually losing and arm and a leg for every cup you sell. You start to toy with the idea of selling off you shop, but your 3 customers beg and plead and whine for you to continue to operate, if for no other reason, just to keep them happy. In the end it becomes too much, and you sell your shop and all your machines.

But you still have the recipes for your exclusive blends! Maybe you can get the other shops to pay you to put them on their menus. Or better yet, maybe they'll let you lease one of their stores to sell the stuff nobody really wanted in the first place.

Be honest, in that situation what would you do?

Comments?