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In college I took an entrepeneurship class. Our whole project for the class was to create a business whoever made the most money got an A.
I started a business making bean bag toss aka cornhole games. I started slow but sold on craigslist and ebay wasn't really thinking about it as a real business so much as a school project but started selling games, then people started asking for customer games so would make sports team logos on games. Evenetually started selling to restaurants and bars putting their logos on the games as well.
I got into this back when the only way you could get a set was pretty much if you knew someone or saw them on someones lawn for sale while driving by. I used to sell my games for anywhere from $75-$200 and materials probably cost me under $15.
Anyhow, it went really well for a while and then grocery stores, walgreens, etc all started selling the cheap plastic versions which werent as nice but were a fraction of the price. I still sold a few heere and there but making one game is pretty much as much work as making 10 since I had kind of an assembly line going so it got to the point where I wasnt selling enough to make it worth my while.
Wondering if anyone else had a fad business that totally went out with the fad
EVERYTHING is a fad. All that changes is the length of time it takes it to fade.
That's not true, porn, sports, gambling, recreational drugs, movies, all these things have been around forever and will be around forever.
Things like slap bracelets, koosh balls, curly q shoeslaces, myspace, beanbag toss games, hypercolor tshirts, these things are all fads that have come and gone.
I do agree that even the things I mentioned above do get more popular and less popular through time, for example hockey used to be big years back the totally fell out of popularity and now its big again. Certain things have phases where they get hot and way more popular but certain things will never go out.
The effect on business is similar. Thousands of jobs were lost in prohibition. Movies... that is a LOT more complex, but movie THEATRES as such are on their way out, just as live plays now only have a few venues. My business supports one aspect of movie theatres, and I was able to watch and track trends for a few years. Those trends are not good.
I'm currently watching all the video rental and sales outlets die off locally. Before that, I watched gamerooms do the same. Were those fads? Not really. People still watch videos and play games, but the technology has changed and the modes of delivery have changed. The few areas that see minimal change are those big industries that can afford to create laws in their favor and stifle competition.
The effect on business is similar. Thousands of jobs were lost in prohibition. Movies... that is a LOT more complex, but movie THEATRES as such are on their way out, just as live plays now only have a few venues. My business supports one aspect of movie theatres, and I was able to watch and track trends for a few years. Those trends are not good.
I'm currently watching all the video rental and sales outlets die off locally. Before that, I watched gamerooms do the same. Were those fads? Not really. People still watch videos and play games, but the technology has changed and the modes of delivery have changed. The few areas that see minimal change are those big industries that can afford to create laws in their favor and stifle competition.
You bring up some interesting points, thats very true that things like mvoies and video games though still around change dramatically, in the 80's it was cool to hang out in arcades, now you can play a game of call of duty with your buddy who lives in another country.
The movie thing I find interesting. Do you think movie theatres will ever go out of business. I don't really like to pay $10 to see a movie anymore, especially when I can watch unlmited stuff on my xbox through netflix for $8 a month and I totally can see what your talking about in the trends not being good for theatres but I think the whole dinner and a movie for first dates, new relatinships, etc I just cant see movie theatres not being out there to do that type of thing.
One thing I do think is interesting is near me we reently got two new theatres that have bars in the lobby, let you drink in the theatre, have waiters serve you food etc.
Will they totally go out of business? Maybe. The anti-trust legislation that separated theatres from production made the whole system different and killed a lot of incentive. IF there is no longer seen a need for that, and the legislation is repealed, you could see a huge resurgence. However, in the U.S. the primary purpose of theatres now is to pump the figures for the video release - in other words, publicity for the product downstream.
I suspect you'll see more bar/dinner/upscale theatres in certain areas, and a loss of a lot of multiplexes. Large cities will probably always have a few theatres, but nothing like it was in the 1970s. Real estate, energy, and labor costs can eat theatres alive.
I live in a town of 2800 and we have a movie theater on main street that seems to do well enough, but I think it manages due to keeping it a small and streamlined affair and only bringing in films after a week or two of main release(theater owners keep more of the ticket revenue).
I remember when I started on ebay in 1998 at the time it was the beanie baby craze, which to me was the dumbest thing of all time. People were sinking their life savings into beanie babies and there was even a beanie baby "stock market" at one time. I remember all the nut bags that obsessed about the product tags and they even made tag protectors. Crazy stuff.
The trick is to stay a step ahead of the competition, and to be willing to reinvent yourself and your company. If you have a popular product, there are going to be imitators. You have to keep coming up with new and more interesting ideas, ride the wave, and then reinvent yourself again.
The key is to determine in the outset if it is a fad, and if so come up with a contingency when it goes out of style, and when there is less demand for it.
Look at it this way. It takes time/energy/resources to implement a new product idea. So, in that sense, that effort cannot be to waste, right?
This is one reason why companies do such intensive market research, so see if people will buy their new products over the long run. As for things like movies, sports, or porn, well yes these are constant things, but demand often depends on social attitudes. Is porn huge business in Iran?
I started a business making bean bag toss aka cornhole games. I started slow but sold on craigslist and ebay...
Anyhow, it went really well for a while and then grocery stores, walgreens, etc all started selling the cheap plastic versions which werent as nice but were a fraction of the price...
Trying to make sense of the time frame this took place for you. Those bean bag toss games have been around in cheap plastic versions since the 1960's or 70's or 80's, long before you could have been selling homemade versions on craigslist or ebay.
So how could you have been making profits off this novelty toy with your homemade version, then eventually get outdone when grocery stores & Walgreens started selling them?
Plastic bean bag toss games were in grocery stores & Walgreens long before the internet.
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