How much cash is in my bike shop’s bank account?
Backstory starts at Avery Brewing goes through two schools and lands at Rayback Collective.
I, Ryan, created a product called a Standard Bike Repair Workstation to counter the facts:
- bike repair is seasonal
- customers are fickle in the internet world
- real wages have not risen for our customers since 1973 (according to WikiLeaks tweet)
While it felt necessary to Create a Product order to Survive the Shark Waters that is Business, once I got into it, I realized that the Fun is in Inventing a Thing.
Looking back, I rmemeber that ‘a lot of ‘the process’ was Mind Numbing and Slow, I Never Lost Sight of the Vision in my Head and the idea that the Product is Beautiful and Destined.
Talking cash and How much do the Workstations Cost
Because it “all relates” to the cash flow of Standard Bike Repair.
The first Standard Bike Repair Workstation, at Avery Brewing, cost my business a little more than three thousand dollars.
Not only did I “overdo it,” I also had to buy tools like a table saw and 12″ chop saw. And since, I like tools that last and know that good tools make an average carpenter “look a lot better,” thus I laid down the American Express to pay for the DeWalt versions.
Glamorous work area. #glamorous #work
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You may be curious, How did Standard Bike Repair’s little home based shop get a hold of Avery Brewing?
It all started with the stained glass window, which I bartered with a customer for, with a lightly used massage table that my sister-in-law donated to me when my brother’s family moved from Boulder to Florida.
While I was meeting with Anna from PACE Boulder to get Standard Bike Repair into a Zero Waste Business, Peggy stopped by to hand me the latest stained glass for the next Wood Partner’s project.
I had gotten one for my shop and when Wood Partners called me to supply a few of their apartment buildings with ‘bike shop repair areas,’ I included the stained glass art as a way to ‘build a brand’ and supply art to the dull look of the tools.
Through ‘the grapevine,’ I heard from Anna at Zero Waste/PACE Boulder that Avery Brewing was “looking for a bike repair station for their employees and could not find one for less than a thousand dollars.”
If you look at the fourth model of the workstation, you can see that the 4×4’s and tools look relatively simple and could ‘conceivably cost less than a thousand bucks.’
This is true. Trouble is, I have never sold anything that I made with my hands for anything close to a thousand bucks. Thus, given the chance, I ‘over-indulged’ and ‘put fifty tools on the workstation’ in the hopes that ‘if my product wasn’t good enough to be worth a thousand bucks,’ surely ‘it would still be worth a thousand bucks, thus making it so Avery Brewing had to make good on their promise of a thousand bucks.’
That is my Human Problem, which is my desire to ‘over-achieve and compensate.’
Behind that goal was to ‘do enough research and development and improvements of the public bike repair station to make a Great Product. A Great Product is something ‘that I want to put my name on’ and has the ability to Go Big.
The idea of making this a Functional Workstation was repeated in my mind many thousands of time.
How can I make yhe Standard Bike Repair Station ‘legitimately better’ than the current Achool of Thought behind Public Bike Repair Stations?
Often the tools ‘get cut and stolen anyway.’ They are ‘hard to use’ too.
See the carabiner attached to the screwdriver. It is so Easy to Steal, we are Practically Begging You to take it.
The screwdriver cost three dollars to replace. The red lanyard, attachment rings, heat sink grip, carabiner and rivets add up to about $23. Meaning, if Public Bike Repair Stations are going to get their tools stolen anyway, let’s make it Easy to Steal, so that it is Easy to Replace.
My goals were two-fold: invent a great product that Standard Bike Repair can sell besides the service of bike repair. ‘Bike repair’ is not scalable. With the advent of Amazon and the customer belief that ‘everything is cheaper online,’ the business owner, AKA me, must somehow be ahead of the sea of change that threatens to engulf businesses and people.
Cash is ‘just one of the problems’ in business. Another one, is “customer satisfaction.”
The screenshot above is an example of ‘a problem’ that is not currently a ‘problem’ in ‘the eyes of Google.’
By ‘problem,” I mean, that in order to keep that rating, which is arguably the number one reason Standard is still in business, it takes a tremendous amount of ‘die hard work.’
Maintaining this level of customer service according to Google is a ‘constant uphill battle’ and ‘reason to keep going.’ Without people being able to find my bike shop via Google, it would not exist, partially because there is not enough foot traffic in the alley and signage in Boulder for home based businesses is restricted.
Measly Bike Shop Bank Account as of July 5th
Is this okay?
Not really. But, you see, I worked at US Bank as a teller in the middle of Boulder for four years. And one of the things that I realized: despite ‘all the wealth in Boulder,’ most bank accounts ‘looked pretty pathetic’ and ‘less than a thousand bucks’ seemed to be Most People and not Some People.
My experience at US bank taught me that ‘many people run their lives on a shoestring’ thus I learned to ‘not be afraid’ of running my business on ‘said shoestring.’
Speaking of Shoestring, that brings us up to schools. We put two workstations at schools this year: Columbine and Pioneer Elementary.
1st Picture Below
Crazy kids helping each other. When I was in Thailand, I saw what looked like a 12 year old kid welding with his friend as my girlfriend, Hiroko Okubo, and I passed by on a boat driven by a Thai man. I also saw many houses on stilts including a man who was Sitting on His Deck with his feet hanging over the water looking at us. It didn’t look like he owned anything besides the house and his clothes.
I decided that man had No Stress. And the boys that were welding Knew What They Were Doing.
