"Less is More" mentality for small business

Monocle is a great source of juicy global nuggets of information... news, commerce, politics... all their stories (at least those that I've reviewed) have a sincere, local feel to them, offering a vivacity and honesty to the people and places they capture.

One of the latest episodes (it's another automatically-updating Podcast subscription of mine) features Bildschone Bucher (forgive the missing umlauts), a small bookshop in Berlin. I've always been fascinated by small bookstores because I never could grasp how they stayed in business. Not having researched the subject all that much, I would occasionally walk/drive by a hole-in-the-wall bookstore and think "Why on Earth would any person in his or her right mind search for and buy books HERE!? The selection is minimal, prices are bound to be higher than the big guys (or the library!), and most often the location isn't prime real estate either..." Well, silly me...

Bildschone Bucher's philosophy is simple... "Whilst everything (major booksellers) are aggregating and getting larger, we are intentionally staying smaller." "Big bookstores want to show more, display more, get you to buy more. People like coming into our bookstore because they don't feel overwhelmed; we aren't pushing anything down their throat, and there is a manageable selection from which to choose. Part of our service to our patrons is choosing a selection of books for them."

Ay, there's the rub. Yet another example of success by staying local, carving out a niche and serving it well.

Bildshone Bucher's decides on what makes its cut based on whether or not the staff "falls in love" with a particular book. By chance, they tend to fall in love primarily with photography books (about 80% of their inventory). Some of the images on their site are dazzling... check it out!

Also interesting to note that the founder had first started his bookselling venture online, with a concept and website called 25 Books. Only after its success did he decide to move the business to a brick and mortar operation as well...

(Updated 3/1/08)
And to FURTHER illustrate the point, I just read one of Guy's posts which I had not seen previously... "If You Want Customers to be Happy, Give Them Less Product Information."

It's a study that showed consumers who were given less information about chocolate and body lotion were able to optimistically use their imaginations to wishfully think and form positive impressions about the products. Whereas, those overloaded with details of the products' chemical composition, preservatives, etc. could not as easily overlook those details.

So, for some products, is consumer ignorance truly bliss?

ANOTHER Fortune Cookie? and some BIG NEWS

So I thought I saved this fortune from yet ANOTHER overly insightful fortune cookie, thus I've waited a few days to make this post in hopes of it turning up. Alas, I'll have to proceed without the photo... believe at your own risk! And for those of you who are wondering - No, I don't eat Asian food that often. It was merely a coincidence -I promise!

Last week I enjoyed a much overdue meeting with my friend Anh Nguyen. He's the type of guy a very level head, and his personality weaves a fine balance between entrepreneurial go-get-em enthusiasm and hard-working conservatism. I worked with Anh to help him open a Quiznos franchise he started and has since sold off, while maintaining his full time career at Deloitte. Every once in a while we bounce new venture ideas off each other. Naturally I was eager to update him on our progress.

We met up for Chinese due to his recent conversion to vegetarianism... a difficult routine to get into for a full-fledged omnivore, but likely a rewarding one once you get over the hump.

Upon opening my fortune cookie on the ride home I remembered the fortune I'd received after lunch with Brandon (full story) and I was hopeful to keep my string of positive, relevant fortunes alive!! I got my wish. It read:

"You will receive some needed support this week. Accept it graciously."

Did we ever!!!!

I'm about ready to burst because I still in good conscience can't quite proclaim our good news YET... but it's like millimeters away and I can't wait for the huge sigh of relief (which will be followed by a tsunami of work...). The bottom line is we secured funding for our first acquisition and I definitely underestimated how difficult that process is. I knew it would be lots of work, but all this projecting and negotiating and justifying and amortizing and present valuing.... all gets a bit tiresome. And I'm confident this was an ~easy deal, in the world of "deals."

Now I have to make sure to "accept it graciously." Heck, I'll do whatever the fortune tells me to do if I keep up this streak!!!!

Are Your Favorite Sites Global Faves Too?

Curious to see how your blog, favorite social network, media source, or company website stacks up in today's growing Internet space? These are two great resources to learn how much traffic the Internet's leading websites (and in fact almost all websites) are garnering.

www.alexa.com

The gold standard of online traffic data. Alexa developed a proprietary ranking system averaging Reach and monthly Page Views - this means a site's rank reflects 1) number of users and 2) number of pages viewed. Read the full explanation: (Alexa Traffic Ranking Definition).

It's got a great feature where you can plot the growth trend for multiple sites to see how they compare to each other. (Notice how I say "growth trend" as opposed to "trend" w/o hesitation. I'd be interested to see some hard data on how many websites/ebusinesses are truly in a "mature" stage of their life cycle. My guess - not many.)

http://www.quantcast.com/

Quantcast uses a much friendlier user interface (in my humble, non IT-background opinion). My favorite feature is the clearly stated Unique Visitor and Unique Page View count, which Alexa does not display in its rankings. Plus, Quantcast's Top 100 U.S. sites provides an interesting 1-line demographic snapshot of the featured sites (Top 100 U.S. sites).

You can also "Quantify" your site/blog by becoming a member, enabling you to view detailed reports of your site's traffic. Of the top 100 sites in the U.S., 7 of them have already done so. I can't vouch for the service b/c I don't use it - my guess is Google Analytics still takes the cake in this arena.

Plus, I just subscribed to Quantify's blog. 90% of the posts are featurettes highlighting a "new addition" to the Quantify family. It's a great way to find some great new sites you might be interested in (although StumbleUpon's definitely a more efficient method to serve this purpose). A couple of recent discoveries:

ICanHasCheezburger.com--- My gut is telling me this site makes (MUCH) more $$ than it should. If that's the case, I can only say one thing (equal to the sentiment I have towards country singers) - good for them.

HairFinder.com --- Ditto above. It's really just a facade site driving traffic to Amazon book sales.
And they get 1.3MM global uniques / month!!! Oh affiliate Marketing, how I love thee!