Gooood morning GFY
 

It is 4:04 AM PST. I am drinking coffee...wathcing C-span and preparing to do some work.

What are you doing today?

You get up at 4 in the morning? :eek7

4:25am, haven't gone to bed yet.

My new awake for 36 hours, sleep for 12 hours strategy is working so far :thumbsup

10:30pm here.

Hey, has your brother looked further into food and drinks at his LAN place than vending machines? should be a lot more profitable to have a few fridges in there either stocked by reps or by himself with supermarket beverages.
Companies will provide him with a fridge and also pay for electricity and stock.
For instance I will probably be looking at a coke fridge (coke products - coke own juice and water etc) a milk fridge (flavoured milk and juices) an icecream freezer (stocked with all of that particular brands products) a chocolate stand a foot and a half by two feet of Cadbury's products and a candy stand/fridge.
Most companies will also guarantee a minimum sales $.

I was looking into providing chips and burgers but the costs involved are prohibitive, tens of thousands of food safety compliance things like grease traps and ventilators.

might look into 7/11 type microwavable food to be bought from supermarkets.. pre-packaged stuff.

hey.. you might not be willing to divulge this information to either me or the board - but perhaps you could ICQ me on 281373324 with a little info on the town his set up is in? even just the name so I could do some research on the size of his target market vs where I am looking at... age distribution, mean income that sort of thing?

731pm here pathfinder....

one question...

people really watch cspan? i thought that was just a space filler for dead air time....


i just orders some prosciutto and tortellini to fill my stomache before i go poach some teenage traffic-stop-homless window-washer girls .... i call it 'hunting'....

I don't really have a schedule...sleep when I can...but because of pain I usually do not get many hours of sleep at a time. I went to sleep about 11:00 PM last night and awoke about 3:30 AM this morning...which is a long period of sleep for me.

goodmorning my friend

I'm still at a total loss as to how many billable hours ten computers could generate a week in a town of 30,000 people with a smaller than average % of young people. Also likely operating hours. I'm thinking of starting as 9-9 until friday and then go until midnight fri, sat, sun or a once a week all nighter on friday. Hard to see where employees wages start eating up profit on an 80, 90, 100 hour working week until productivity levels are known for time periods (ie early, midday evening) and individual days... I foresee a lot of trial and error.

I do not think that he has done anymore than the vending machines at this point. I don't use ICQ and I do not want to identify the town...but I can tell you that it has a population of 25-30 thousand...is not really an upscale wealthy area...and also does not have alot of entertainment available...other than a theater. There are alot of older retired people in the area. The majority of his clients are adults (18-30's)...which suprised me but did not surprise him...as this is what he predicted. I can also tell you that while the business is profitable and is still growing...he is a little disappointed that it has not taken off in a bigger way than it has...but if I remember correctly this is only his fourth month in business and I personally think that his business is doing well for the short period of time that he has had it. He was wanting it to take off big time so that he could quit working at the college. I have reminded him that as long as growth continues it is doing OK. I told you that he had his first all nighter a while back...but this is now becoming pretty much an every week-end event now.

BTW he is coming up to see my new location a few days prior to the newyear...so I will be able to talk to him at length.

youre right!!!

same thing here , 5:26 am

Well...he has played with his operating hours...as well as what he charges. He currently is open during the week days (Monday-Thursday) 6:00 PM to 11:00 PM....and on Friday 6:00 PM to 12:00 AM unless someone wants to pay for an all nighter (I am not sure what he charges for an all nighter) but he gives them a discount to use the place from 12:00 AM to 8:00 AM. His hours on Saturday and Sunday are 3:00 PM to 12:00 AM unless someone wants to pay for an all nighter on Saturday night. During the summer he will adjust his hours again. I do not know if he has done it yet...but he told me that he was going to add five more computers...as the ten that he started with were full to often so he had people waiting to play.

no problem mate I understand. I wouldn't particularly want to be broadcasting that to people I'd never met either. Theres just so much you have to know before starting something like this though.
Yes I don't see it being a major money spinner either, the question i'd really like to know is how little a money spinner it is. Even if the profit is only a few hundred a week, it's worth doing depending on the weekly outlay. The single biggest question is probably how many people go through the doors a week and what number of billable hours that translates into, and what the peak number of machine usage is.

I see the weekly outlay on operating expenses being around $1,100-$1,300 based on 10 computers and not that much in the way of large advertising (ie no tv ads, mostly referral word of mouth guerilla type campaigns) a 25% return on that - meaning around $300 a week profit wouldn't be so bad. And I can certainly see why he would be looking into franchising, although it depends on what percentage of his profit is derived from working there himself and saving on wages as a 90 hour week can eat such a small profit up fairly quickly.

Although of course by "not so bad" I mean something to build on - tell me am I aiming too low? I'm trying to be conservative.

Listening to old school techno!! bounce bounce bounce

morning:D

Interesting, I was envisaging a lot more day activity - students during free periods, tourists using email, casual workers. Not to say a lot more day activity than night activity, I just thought he may have been open during the day, although of course i think a bulk of the customers would come from people getting off at 5pm. and weekends.

I was also thinking 3.70 an hour (AU$5) and probably have allnighters (12-8am) at a flat rate of 15 or so.. or half price.. it's hard ot say though as i don't know what traffic you'd pick up from bars and clubs as they close at 1pm-3pm to lock people in for 8 hours when the demand may be higher..

this will be a lot of fun to tinker with.

Well...his monthly overhead is something more than $2000 and less than $3000 and this includes a budget of about $500 per month on advertising...and also includes the fact that he got a real deal on the building...only $600 per month...and a one year lease. It is a nice building...good location and he was lucky to get it that reasonable...it is pretty much SOP to have to obligate to a five year lease. Of course his overhead will go up once he hires an employee.

He also made a deal with a computer business to lease him the computers for a mere $25.00 per month with the provision that he include them in all advertising that he does as well as at his business. He is currently working out additional advertising deals with some of the local pizza parlors...what this includes...I do not know at this point in time. He is also working on some kind of advertising deal with the local high school coach...and I do not know what this includes.

Well he has not really tested the day business other than on week ends...as he works full time at a college...in addition instructs a class three hours per week on top of that...he has two hous per day commute time. He originally opened on Saturday and Sundays at 10:00 AM but changed to 3:00 PM but I think he did this primarily to be able to have more time for himself...but it could be that business was slow during his original hours.

he sure is getting his computers cheap.. that is $25 per computer a month right? hmm.. I think I might be on the high side, but I'm including an employee at $7.50 p/h for 30 odd hours in that figure.. It's also possibly more expensive here as interest rates are a lot higher - do you know roughly what his profit margin is or what sort of profit he makes a week? is $300 low medium or high?

with the day trading hours, I figure as long as I can make more than the $7.50 p/h it would cost to have an employee there I may as well given my biggest weekly costs are mostly fixed. (yes I realise electricity, phone, internet usage would mean more than 7.50 p/h but you know what I mean - hopefully even non-users may just want to use it as a conveinience store and pick up a coke or use an atm or something.. )

Yes...that is $25 per computer per month. One month he told me that he made about $1800 above his overhead and each month is better than the previous month.

I'm basing my calculations on about $30 a week per computer which is derived by pricing a state of the art machine through flexirent, which is a national business machine renting provider.. i may get a bulk discount or other sorts of rates.. I am proceeding at worst case scenario pricing however, as you must.

$450 a week within the first few months.. excellent. Very viable.
Sorry for the 20 questions, you know how it is before you plow your hard-earned into something though... so many variables so many questions to answer.

I think I might hit the sack.. thanks for your help mate. Bug you later.

BTW...when he comes up I will try to remember to get the name of the gaming management software that he is using...the last I heard he was completely satisfied with it. BTW he started with 10 computers for game play...and an 11th computer that is dedicated to the management software...player game profies etc. and a 12th computer at the front desk. He leased the ten gaming computers.

I view the $30 per week per computer as to high...hell you can buy ten machines and make payments to own cheaper than that. In addition maybe you can work a deal...as he did with a local computer store...for the additional advertising exposure he provides them...maybe not for $25 per month but a resonable deal.

Bump for bhutocracy.