I started my first business in 1985. I was ten.
My two best friends and I, aged nine and twelve, had noticed something the comic shops in Guelph, Ontario, hadn't. Our town was full of serious collectors, and the shops were selling to them off a shelf.
So we cycled to Card'n'Comics, bought up the key issues, the first appearances and the back issues people were hunting for, re-sleeved them in proper Mylar with acid-free backing boards, and delivered them door to door.
We made $500 that summer. We kept $85. It was all gone before school went back in September.
But here's the part that took me decades to appreciate.
The shop wasn't short of comics. And we weren't selling to strangers. Every collector on our round already shopped at Card'n'Comics.
The shop sold comics. We sold the collection.
Same customers, different shape
Forty-one years, two IPOs and thirty-plus exits later, I see the same gap in owner-run businesses all the time.
One owner told me her market had gone quiet. It hadn't. She'd built a consultancy past £1m selling one thing: an £18k transformation, all or nothing.
Every renewal conversation hit the same question. Can we just keep the monthly check-ins, without buying the whole thing again?
She heard enthusiasm fading. It was the opposite. Her clients didn't want less of her. They wanted her in a shape she didn't sell.
There was a £4k-a-month retainer sitting in the gap between "finished" and "start again". She was already doing most of the work. She just wasn't charging for it.
Listen to the question, not the no
Your revenue tells you what customers are buying. It doesn't tell you what they would buy.
So before you chase a new market, cut your prices or decide demand has dried up, look at your last five lost renewals, declined proposals or "not right now" emails. Then ask one question:
What were they actually asking for that I don't sell?
Not what they turned down. What they asked for instead.
If two or three of them asked for the same thing, you don't have a demand problem. You have a shape problem.
Reply and tell me what yours asked for. I'm genuinely curious how often it's the same thing.
Steve
