Keeping up a systematic search for business possibilities was today’s theme. Pet medical insurance aside, there is still opportunities. I’m reminded of the old saying that an opportunity does not cease to exist simply because nobody recognized it. My question is how did so many street-average schmucks know the Internet when they first saw it? I used a proxy server for ten years before I knew what that was. I get asked this brand of question a lot, “How did the first people know what to do?”I don’t have a clue. When the Internet started to grow in 1991, I worked for the telecom industry and I still have no idea how anybody said, “I’m starting an Internet company.” Certainly none of the 15,000 people I worked with knew anything. Back then, there was not even a school you could go to get this information. It is as if a huge army of tech-savvy pioneers appeared from nowhere and began making millions. They arrived already knowing about servers, protocols, modems, routers and even how much to charge by the minute to make a killing. Do you see my point?
The man on the street has a rough idea how to start most businesses from landscaping to running a hotel. That is not true about the Internet. Back then, everybody had heard about the Internet and how it was going to make your refrigerator smart. But people had been bombarded with such predictions for the previous fifty years. Who was to know the Internet was actually going to survive? The original Internet was for eggheads, child pornography and spreading viruses. (If you consider bad information a virus, in most ways, it still is.)
Everyone thought only large businesses could afford the equipment and personnel to re-sell Internet service, and nobody had any concept of actually running a retail business on-line. That came years later. I recall in 1995 asking for months about the difference between an on-line service and an Internet Service Provider. Fourteen years later, long after the opportunities are gone, I still have no satisfactory answer. I just accept that somebody, somewhere, knows there is a difference and they ain’t talkin’.
At the shop, we know we have to change things. Earlier I told you how every long-term business downtown [except the bad ones] has turned over or gone under in the last two years. They didn’t adapt. We want to get into another type of business, but everything looked at so far is as expensive as starting up new. We need something that at least matches the infrastructure we already have. For example, whatever we sell should be something that people will drive over and get, not something we have to deliver or ship. We are not adverse to those things, we just care to avoid them. It has to be small and valuable because we don’t have a lot of shelf space.
I explored spy gear, in particular, anti-surveillance devices. There is very little competition within 100 miles, and what exists is along the line of security cameras and toys. Like an alarm company selling prank voice-changers on the side. The so-called “Spy Shop” south on Federal is not even worth visiting if you are serious about protection. The police supply shop up the street here sells some junk but nothing to protect yourself from being bugged. If you want to buy an anti-camera detector or sweep your premises, there is no place you can try out the gear first, nor any safe place to buy. Safe means anonymous.
Repeat the question. You want to know what? Okay, I’ll describe it. An anti-camera device works on the principle that all camera lenses produce a halo when a bright light shines directly on them. It has to do with internal prismatic effects. A detector sends a one-wavelength colored beam and enhances any characteristic reflection. Stand in the center of the room and look through the detector and start turning around. When you see a huge bright blip, there is your hidden camera.
Tonight’s show at Jimbos tonight was a wipe-out. Zero dollars. And I have to dismantle everything to find the “boop” problem or revert to a DVD player.
