Those who know me well know I’m really into computers and technology.
As I type, my new MacBook Pro (which I have recently learned to love, btw) has four instances of different operating systems running via VMware. My OS of choice right now is Ubuntu 8.04. I started using Linux back when Slackware was version 1.0. Long time ago. Linux has come a long way since those days.
Today, I’m working on setting up a new virtual image of Ubuntu on my third screen that has native disk encryption. The fact that you can set up your own military grade encryption on your computers is fascinating to me and it’s just fun to play with - not that I have anything that deserves that sort of encryption technology. Too cool for words. The wonders of open source software!
VMware is an interesting product but there is a lighter weight free version of virtualization called Xen that I’m going to be getting into shortly. A man only has so much time in his day for these sorts of things so I plunk along as I have time between everything else I’m doing.
And, you’ve probably noticed that I haven’t blogged a lot lately. Been really really busy so things kinda slow down on the blogging front when necessary. This morning I was drinking our Guatemalan Dark and love it love it love it. I may make some Kenyan AA here shortly after lunch. I’m in the mood for some really strong coffee to go along with the military level encryption on my hard drive.
Okay…with that last sentence…I think I just proved I’m more of a computer geek than most people want to know about.
We recently closed our shop in North Scottsdale and did so for a variety of reasons. One reason was we wanted to return all our efforts to our core business which is roasting the finest coffee on the planet.
Other reasons do have to do with the local economy and the fact that things have slowed down tremendously quite apart from our own efforts in running the shop - business decisions in this economic environment are not always easy and smart business owners have to balance their efforts between what will keep their business working and prosperous over the long haul with the expectations of customers and the community. There isn’t one customer at our Grayhawk location that we wanted to part with - we considered all of them more than mere customers but friends and business partners and it was a privilege to get to know them over the last several years.
But, some decisions in business are hard to make and hard to follow through with and we will miss all of our Grayhawk customers - we’ll look for ways we can stay connected. Of course, our coffee can still be found in AJ’s Fine Foods in the Phoenix metroplex and also remains available for retail purchase here on the web.
Closing our shop in Scottsdale for us represents new opportunities and a return to focusing exclusively on what we do best - providing the finest in fresh roasted coffee. The last several years represent wonderful times getting to know great customers (and now friends!), lessons learned, and a new way of thinking and doing business that didn’t exist before and we are so grateful to have had the opportunity to serve North Scottsdale and the Grayhawk community with our business.
We look forward to upcoming days - things will be a bit different for us and for our customers in North Scottsdale but if we work hard together we’ll remain friends and remain successful just like old times.
At Areopagus Coffee, we don’t grind coffee for our customers. The reason simply has to do with keeping the coffee as fresh as possible right to your door. Once you open the bag and start grinding coffee, you start losing flavor very quickly, literally in a matter of hours. So, when you order coffee from our website you won’t see an option to buy whole bean or ground. We leave that up to you.
This morning was a bit different than others - I had to stop by our shop and so I grabbed an Americano. The Americano is an ideal drink because it takes the strength of an espresso and the added water smooths out the flavor to produce a strong but creamy cup of coffee. Good stuff. Of course, I used Ethiopian Harrar for the espresso shots. Nice. Very very nice.
Well, the past couple of weeks I have noticed lighter traffic to downtown and other places. Seems like there are a great many either not coming in to work as usual or taking public transportation. I have one friend who says the buses in Phoenix are now packed due to gas prices.
And, lo and behold, look what has happened. Gas prices have come down some ten or fifteen cents in the last few weeks. We’re starting to see prices like $3.99/gallon. Perhaps there is more to this capitalist supply and demand thing than people would like to admit! Of course, I don’t deny that there are other factors which play into high prices but I’m skeptical of media and other reactionary reports that this is all about oil company profits.
So, the drive in this morning wasn’t too bad - and now I’m drinking our Mexican Chiapas Organic - an exceptionally light to medium-bodied coffee that is perfect for the morning. We’re a little different than other coffee roasters. We don’t buy organic simply because we like organic coffee. The coffee we buy has to taste good and more than that it has to be the best. If it’s organic too all the better. But taste comes first with us.
Organic coffee has had an interesting history over the years. Although recent years have seen widespread efforts to certify coffee and other products as truly organic - given that these products come from across the world and primarily from undeveloped countries - it really is difficult to put too much weight in the term “organic” as it applies to coffee or other commodities. Of course, advocates of organic this and that won’t spend too much time telling you things like this because it doesn’t exactly help them with their cause.
I’m all for helping the environment and producing healthy products from start to finish. But, like anything, these things require balance in terms of understanding and especially in regards to how it works out in a business like ours. That’s why above all we’re about taste and making sure our fresh-roasted coffee is among the best out there. In this case the Mexican Chiapas Organic we sell is definitely tops. Both organic and incredibly great-tasting.
Being in business for yourself isn’t easy. You learn a lot about yourself when you embark on entrepreneurial endeavors. Some good, some bad, but even when you do fail or when your business doesn’t go the way you planned you just have to pick yourself up and start again. It’s the persistence of learning from your mistakes and moving on that helps you with success.
I own an iPod touch and early yesterday was able to download and install iTunes 7.7 without issue. Later in the afternoon/evening I tried to upgrade my iPod touch to 2.0 and was unable to for a few hours. However, about 10pm, iTunes automatically recognized that the update was available and so I clicked through it, downloaded, and installed it no problem. That probably means that the servers were just overloaded.
Sometimes, customers have unrealistic expectations and so a lot of people were upset at Apple yesterday.
I’m sure Apple will learn from this and I wasn’t upset about the download issue. I plan to get an iPhone at some point but there’s no way I’m going to stand in line for hours to get one. I’ll wait a month or so at least until they get any more kinks worked out. My guess is that less people would have been upset had they not rushed so quickly to wait in line for hours only to find that (because of the demand) there were network problems in getting their new iPhones connected and working right away.
Some business problems can be anticipated and Apple (and AT&T, incidentally) probably could have done a better job preparing its infrastructure to handle such heavy demand. But, sometimes that sort of demand is just very difficult to forecast and it costs mucho money to make the sort of changes necessary to handle it without incidents like yesterday. Then, once the high demand of the first few days is over - what do you do with all of the infrastructure you now have in place to handle demand that you’ll likely not have again until the next major release?
But customers don’t think of these things when they’re standing in line for hours in the hot sun (at least in Arizona!) - and so unrealistic expectations produce unhappy customers. Happens all the time in business. The only thing you can do is learn from your mistakes (if that’s what they really were) and move on and try to do better next time. Apple is a company that strives for excellence and so we’ll see a smoother process put in place as the weeks and months go by - I have no doubt about that.
In the meantime, now that my iPod touch is upgraded, I’ve been really enjoying the new free apps you can download and install. There is a Bloomberg stock app that is just incredible and the new Remote app that allows you to control iTunes on any computer you have via your iPod touch is just amazing. I’ve been experimenting with the Evernote app as well. Nice tool.
All in all, I remain a satisfied customer. I say, give Apple a break. Their stuff is just too good to stay upset about this one. They’ll learn from this and it will go better next time I’m sure.
More on mistakes you shouldn’t make in starting a business…
Don’t major on the minors and minor on the majors - I can’t tell you how many startups we’ve seen where people spend all sorts of money preparing for the big money train they think is going to roll right in once they open the doors. Buy all sorts of equipment you don’t need right away. Place advertisements that won’t bring in business in any verifiable way. Hire employees you won’t be able to pay for in six months because you’ve run out of seed money. You see it in coffeehouse owners who spend thousands for furniture and other buildouts that (while still relatively important) pale in comparison to things like the quality of the coffee they wind up serving. So, spend $50,000 on furniture, equipment, and the right type of countertops - make it look like Starbucks. This same dreamy owner will then buy the cheapest junkiest coffee on the market with no regard as to how it really tastes. Thankfully, most independent coffeehouse owners don’t do this kind of thing. But once in awhile you see potential owners come into a market who think they’ll make money just by opening their doors and setting the right atmosphere. There’s a whole lot more to running a great coffeehouse than that and missing on the main product you sell and serve by concentrating on lesser things is a huge mistake that will only hurt you in the long run.
Now, if your main business is providing some sort of social outlet and community center as a coffeehouse then what kind of coffee you sell and have people drink may well be secondary to your main goals. But, most coffeehouse owners are all about the coffee and should be.
Unless you’ve got unlimited financial resources, you’ll need to prioritize where your money goes. Some things are central to the core of your business and other things aren’t. The things that aren’t can come later. The things that are core to your business have to be taken care of first.
I was a financial advisor in a past life…it was an interesting experience. I did it for just over two years and during that time learned a huge amount about the financial markets and exactly what you can and can’t do with money in our economy. I also learned that it just wasn’t for me. I liked the firehose-like information flow that comes from all the activity in the various financial markets around the world. I just didn’t like the heavy sales emphasis of the financial planning world and some of my ideas about retirement and what that may be for different individuals didn’t always jive with the party line at the firms I represented (maybe I’ll post about that later).
A lot of people have the idea that you allow your money to be directly managed by a financial advisor when you transfer your accounts to him. Ordinarily, that just isn’t the case. Most financial advisors have one job–to grow a book of business and their business is more about sales than it is anything else. In fact, the big houses normally hire twenty candidates to one. What that means is that they hire twenty candidates, train them, license them, take them through an 18 to 24 month program, and in the intervening months sift out all but the one or two shining stars that actually make it. The pressure to produce at the big firms is exceptionally high and not for the fainthearted.
I do believe there are people who are legitimate financial advisors and who excel in their business and in helping their clients. But most all of them are something other than money managers.
With the technological advances of today’s world, most people can do their own investing with just a little bit of the hard work that at one time was exclusively done by stockbrokers for their clients. There are some situations where you really ought to have a financial advisor involved in managing your money (along with an attorney and an accountant - for example, setting up and maintaining trusts and foundations and the like), but if all you are doing is methodically saving for your retirement through investing in mutual funds or in the stock market for the long haul there are plenty of ways to do that on your own without the 2-5% in fees a financial advisor is likely to take off the top every year you invest in one way or another.
Instead, take a look at some of the online firms such as E*Trade or Zecco. Google around a bit and look into some of the finance and investment blogs by the average guy or gal out there. Read. Learn. Grow. Take the time to learn more and it will pay off down the road in allowing you to invest wisely.
I’ve learned a lot about business over the last several years.
If you’re thinking of starting a business or new to a business, one thing is for sure - you’re going to make a lot of mistakes. So, I thought I’d outline some of the mistakes you never want to make in starting a business. Some of these are mistakes I already made and others are ones I’ve noticed others have made along the way. You can try and guess which ones are which!
We’ll see how this goes - maybe I’ll make this into a series of posts.
Don’t finance your startup business with credit cards - Unlike Dave Ramsey and other financial gurus, I don’t believe your entire financial world should be about getting out of debt. Sometimes debt is a good thing (and I think most financial gurus would agree, including the ones I link to above). In fact, used properly debt is an incredible tool that our free economy makes available. Don’t misunderstand me, however. I think what Dave Ramsey and others are doing is generally positive as a lot of American consumers need to be out of debt and away from their credit cards. But, in terms of financing a business, credit card debt is not the safest way to proceed. In fact, it is normally a recipe for trouble because most people who use credit cards to finance a business are doing so because other options aren’t available - such as using actual cash or other hard assets to start things up. The problem of course may not be immediately apparent, but what happens if your business doesn’t do well?
Now, I’m not talking about financing a micro-business with $1000.00 of product you buy and then put things for sale on Ebay or something similar. Not exactly what I would do but all things considered not the worst way in the world to start a business simply because you are starting small.
My caution about financing a small business with credit cards is on a different scale. Don’t take the $50,000 or $100,000 in credit cards you may have and start a small business. Too much interest - the cost of the money is too high - and down the road when you need credit to expand you likely won’t have it. And, that’s if things go well. If your business doesn’t succeed or takes time to get where you want to go - and remember the stats are somewhere around 80-90% failure rate in the first three years for a new business - you put yourself at the mercy of really high interest payments that still need to be paid, you can wind up with bad credit for not paying them while you feed the money monster that can become your “business”, and you can spend too much time managing your business operations and its finances when you ought to be concentrating on things like sales and new business.
Don’t think, either, that a bank will bail you out and allow you to turn those high interest payments into some sort of consolidation loan without hard assets behind it. Banks only lend money to people that don’t need the money. A strange truism to the small business owner but one that is generally true. Try not to learn this one the hard way. Small businesses represent a huge risk to banks and that’s why the Capital One commercial with the miniature small businessman running around on the banker’s desk is so true to life (and what makes it so funny for those of us who have ever talked to a bank when we actually needed the money!).
Many small business owners have been fed the marketing line that the bank exists for you and that the customer is the one that the bank serves. In reality, a bank exists to make money for its shareholders and most banks have a real hard time making money off of risky loans. So, the only time they’ll loan you the money is when they’re rock solid sure that they’ll get their money back.
This post turned out longer than I thought so I’ll continue with more soon. In the meantime, here’s the Capital One commercial I was thinking about (what a laugh!):
This month may prove to be interesting - and in honor of the new iPhone coming out on the 11th I’ve installed a WordPress plugin that makes it easy to read the blog using an iPhone or iTouch - so if you get one or have one, read away!
The stock market is going wonky and I’m watching it carefully. The shipping stocks are still doing well from a fundamental perspective so I’m not overly worried about any economic craziness (though I’m not happy that the recent turn down in the market affects their prices so much). It’s great that Google Finance is now giving real-time stock quotes. I like that a lot! Gas prices are too high but it doesn’t seem to have affected the traffic in Phoenix at all.
You would think July would be a slow month for coffee in a place where it reaches over 110 degrees on any given afternoon, but we’re incredibly busy as always. I’ve continued to drink Sulawesi Toraja in the mornings. Lovin’ it, but I’m about to switch to Ethiopian Yirgacheffe - I’m actually getting impatient about it if you can believe that.
Okay, I’ve seen some amazing things but this one clearly is something you don’t see every day:
Last year on April 8th, Slovenian marathon swimmer Martin Strel became the first man to swim the entire length of the Amazon River from headwaters in Peru to the Brazilian port city of Belém: 3,274 miles. It took him 66 days with a support crew of near twenty people following him in a boat for protection.
He’d already conquered the Danube, the Mississippi, and the Yangtze. In 1997, he became the first to swim non-stop from Africa to Europe, and he did it in 29 hours, 36 minutes, and 57 seconds… without a wetsuit. WTF? Seven swimmers had attempted it before and all had failed.
The Amazon was different. As the “Fish Man,” as the locals called him, reached the finish line at Belém, he had to be helped to his feet and ushered into a wheelchair amidst a cheering crowd. His blood pressure was at heart-attack levels and his entire body was full of subcutaneous larvae. But he lived to tell the tale.
