by Ever have a dream blow up in your face?
I have.
Almost 20 years ago, I talked my wife into starting a professional photo-printing business (this was before the digital photography).
She had a thriving photo retouching business where photographers would send their negatives and she would remove spots and pimples off the face and then we would send the negative into a local print shop for printing.
The print shop offered terrible service and quality, I saw that…and saw an opportunity.
We chatted and, after a lot of convincing, she reluctantly agreed to support the business.
I found a bunch of second-hand equipment, notified her retouching clients of our new service, and waited.
Slowly, one by one, each client came on board. First with one order (out of 20 she had to retouch) and eventually we would print the entire order.
Faster service. Quality service. Quality product.
Our business tripled in three years.
We had heard about digital cameras coming out, but all the professionals were saying the quality was terrible.
So, we invested more. We added a second printer and three new lens drawers.
And then, digital camera technology improved.
Slowly, over the next few months, photographers’ orders dwindled. We received more and more reports that digital cameras and digital retouching were taking over.
Eventually, clients dropped off to the point we had too little income coming in to support the business as well as our family.
We had to pull the plug.
I hung my life and my retirement on that business. I had convinced my wife to invest in the business. Hundreds of hours getting it setup. I was crushed.
…but the lessons learned from that experience were invaluable…
If you want to perfect your business prowess and learn from me and other parents who have tried, failed and kept going, join us at https://www.facebook.com/perfectmanblogger
