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> "I told myself what I'm sure every single novice restauranteur tells themselves: I'll be in the 1 percent that make it, by sheer will." Sounds like every sta

> "I told myself what I'm sure every single novice restauranteur tells themselves: I'll be in the 1 percent that make it, by sheer will." Sounds like every startup founder all over the world who builds a mobile or web app these days. Many just see the 1 in 999999 success stories and think that having an idea for an app is a licence to print money. I would far rather see more stories like this, but from app founders. Not to discourage or dissuade anyone from trying at all, but merely to set the expectations at a realistic level.

jopsen 9y ago
If you app is the next Facebook or tinder, or anything that relies on network effect, then yeah you'll probably fail... But I'm sure there is a lot of enterprise apps out there making a dime. Whether through consulting or a spin-off service. Restaurants aren't niche..
- CM30 9y ago
  > If you app is the next Facebook or tinder, or anything that relies on network effect, then yeah you'll probably fail... Unfortunately, that seems to be what many people want to create when they start making an app. Or a website in general. Seen tons of people think it's incredibly easy to replace the likes of Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/YouTube. They then quickly realise it isn't.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
tclancy 9y ago
Well, it is and it isn't, because (at least to me) it's a lot easier to fail with a virtual product and no physical space or employees outside the founders. It feels a lot easier to fail multiple times in that way and keep trying when it's just you taking the loss. Having to let people go, watch stuff get sold at auction and wind up paying on a huge note or going through bankruptcy is a lot more painful[0]. I've been a dev for almost two decades as an employee and as a solo contractor and somewhere in the middle my wife and I with 3 friends started an event space. Even though it was a success, we suffered through a lot of the same issues. We found a fantastic, disused space in a mill building; the landlord was incredibly sketchy and his physical plant people were hard to deal with. Because we did weddings and similar events (birthdays, anniversaries) almost exclusively we wound up dealing with lots of outside vendors who varied wildly in quality. And we couldn't simply "Oh well" when an event planner was an idiot or a caterer screw up: the guests don't know anything about how the place works. Anyone who screws up is on us. There were a few things that made us a success: 1. We were good business planners and cheap. I had experience from helping my dad run his business, we got a mentor from the local business school and we had lots of connections in the area so we could work around the shitty level of quality we got from the internal craftsmen. 2. I am good at being tough. I don't like doing it and my non-spousal cofounders mistook my talent at it for liking it which led to conflict, but it saved us a lot of what the author seems to have run into in this article. I had a standard speech for vendors who were mistake repeaters that started, "I am fully capable of stepping on my own dick, I don't like it when people do it for me". 3. General business sense: we put together a fully-functional restaurant kitchen for the caterers. Not one item was new. We got lucky by running into a few pieces but most of the stuff was bought second-hand at an auction. I learned a lot of things at that auction (and if you are anywhere near Peabody, MA you should go as it is open-air theater[1]) but the main takeaway was, "A whole lot of restaurants and coffee shops fail". There had to be 20 espresso machines that month alone. [0] Not that you can't wind up in hock starting a virtual company, just guessing the average exposure is a lot less. [1] https://www.a1restaurantmarketequipment.com/ https://www.a1restaurantmarketequipment.com/
nunez 9y ago
It is a LOT cheaper to build an app though; $100 for Apple Dev privileges + your time So you can try loads of times (assuming the capital is there) and fail whereas for most restaurant owners, they only have enough money to do it once, and that money isn’t enough...

jopsen 9y ago

If you app is the next Facebook or tinder, or anything that relies on network effect, then yeah you'll probably fail... But I'm sure there is a lot of enterprise apps out there making a dime. Whether through consulting or a spin-off service. Restaurants aren't niche..

CM30 9y ago
> If you app is the next Facebook or tinder, or anything that relies on network effect, then yeah you'll probably fail... Unfortunately, that seems to be what many people want to create when they start making an app. Or a website in general. Seen tons of people think it's incredibly easy to replace the likes of Facebook/Twitter/Reddit/YouTube. They then quickly realise it isn't.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

tclancy 9y ago

Well, it is and it isn't, because (at least to me) it's a lot easier to fail with a virtual product and no physical space or employees outside the founders. It feels a lot easier to fail multiple times in that way and keep trying when it's just you taking the loss. Having to let people go, watch stuff get sold at auction and wind up paying on a huge note or going through bankruptcy is a lot more painful[0]. I've been a dev for almost two decades as an employee and as a solo contractor and somewhere in the middle my wife and I with 3 friends started an event space. Even though it was a success, we suffered through a lot of the same issues. We found a fantastic, disused space in a mill building; the landlord was incredibly sketchy and his physical plant people were hard to deal with. Because we did weddings and similar events (birthdays, anniversaries) almost exclusively we wound up dealing with lots of outside vendors who varied wildly in quality. And we couldn't simply "Oh well" when an event planner was an idiot or a caterer screw up: the guests don't know anything about how the place works. Anyone who screws up is on us. There were a few things that made us a success: 1. We were good business planners and cheap. I had experience from helping my dad run his business, we got a mentor from the local business school and we had lots of connections in the area so we could work around the shitty level of quality we got from the internal craftsmen. 2. I am good at being tough. I don't like doing it and my non-spousal cofounders mistook my talent at it for liking it which led to conflict, but it saved us a lot of what the author seems to have run into in this article. I had a standard speech for vendors who were mistake repeaters that started, "I am fully capable of stepping on my own dick, I don't like it when people do it for me". 3. General business sense: we put together a fully-functional restaurant kitchen for the caterers. Not one item was new. We got lucky by running into a few pieces but most of the stuff was bought second-hand at an auction. I learned a lot of things at that auction (and if you are anywhere near Peabody, MA you should go as it is open-air theater[1]) but the main takeaway was, "A whole lot of restaurants and coffee shops fail". There had to be 20 espresso machines that month alone. [0] Not that you can't wind up in hock starting a virtual company, just guessing the average exposure is a lot less. [1] https://www.a1restaurantmarketequipment.com/ https://www.a1restaurantmarketequipment.com/

nunez 9y ago

It is a LOT cheaper to build an app though; $100 for Apple Dev privileges + your time So you can try loads of times (assuming the capital is there) and fail whereas for most restaurant owners, they only have enough money to do it once, and that money isn’t enough...