Watches and Horse Manure
In this week’s edition of Fortune magazine there is an ad for a Patek Philippe watch at $59,500. The tag says: “Patek’s legendary high resale values make this 18-karat rose-gold chrono a worthy investment."
Last week I was in Orlando for a God’s Green America summit. Because of the nature of the conference and the highly leveraged use of technology, many of the presenters were young. In observing this young and talented group I noticed that not one was wearing a watch. A small phone now provide internet access, GPS functions, games, calculator, varied communication capabilities – and oh yeah, the time. So why would someone carry or wear another separate piece for that one small function?
Change in business is relentless. We have to be aware of the trends and certainly of the rapid obsolescence of businesses that seemed important a few years ago. In the early 1900s there were 200,000 horses living and working in New York City, or 1 for every 17 people. The average horse produced about 24 pounds of manure a day. With 200,000 horses, that’s nearly 5 million pounds of horse manure a day. Obviously, if you were a pooper scooper, you could have a successful business. But things change.
I have decided not to “invest” the $59,500 for the watch. If you’re interested in that I also have a slightly used abacus for sale.
Last week I was in Orlando for a God’s Green America summit. Because of the nature of the conference and the highly leveraged use of technology, many of the presenters were young. In observing this young and talented group I noticed that not one was wearing a watch. A small phone now provide internet access, GPS functions, games, calculator, varied communication capabilities – and oh yeah, the time. So why would someone carry or wear another separate piece for that one small function?
Change in business is relentless. We have to be aware of the trends and certainly of the rapid obsolescence of businesses that seemed important a few years ago. In the early 1900s there were 200,000 horses living and working in New York City, or 1 for every 17 people. The average horse produced about 24 pounds of manure a day. With 200,000 horses, that’s nearly 5 million pounds of horse manure a day. Obviously, if you were a pooper scooper, you could have a successful business. But things change.
I have decided not to “invest” the $59,500 for the watch. If you’re interested in that I also have a slightly used abacus for sale.
Comment
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Comment by André Dugger on November 5, 2009 at 8:07pm -
Dan, super job again of helping us see what should be obvious, but is often overlooked. And you are so right with not throwing out the old pooper scooppers yet. I just read tonight the candle industry is over $3 billion a year even though candles are not needed to provide our primary light source. Be creative with the old pooper scooper like the candle industry has been. Zig Ziglar says if people only purchased what they needed our economy would crash. Keep inspiring us Dan.
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Comment by Dan Miller on November 5, 2009 at 7:42pm -
Yeah - don't throw those pooper scoopers away just yet. Let's find a new use for them and make a killing.
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Comment by Jason Garey on November 5, 2009 at 2:48pm -
Hey Roy. Maybe you could market them as.....snow shovels of a different color. Great post, Dan.
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Comment by Roy Simmons on November 5, 2009 at 12:20pm -
Darn! I am going to have to offload 4000 horse pooper scoopers! I thought I would make a killing!
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