The Art of Making Sh!t Up

Chapter 18Are You Worth $10 an Hour?

I was talking the other day with my favorite type of entrepreneur, a young person who has found a niche, started their own company in that niche, is hard working, street smart, and creative in operating and growing his business. So there he was in his store, I.D. Drake's Men's Consignment and Music, head down on his computer, posting and writing descriptions for sale items. Good and conscientious, right? Not so fast.

We got to chatting as we normally do and Ian began to describe the new store he is designing and planning on opening in the next few weeks. He just needs the time to finish the design work, he says. Meanwhile, he is alone in his current store posting away one laborious post at a time. So I ask him why he hasn't hired someone else to do the manual labor of uploading these images and descriptions to the website. Here is where he makes the classic new entrepreneur mistake:

Ian:	Norm, if I hire someone to do this, I'll have to pay them what, $10 an hour? So that means that those items will need to sell at a price that at least covers the cost of the person working, and quite a bit more to turn a profit. If I do the work and post the images I know that I'll at least make a profit when something sells. I nodded my head and continued looking around his shop. Tons of great stuff in here.
Norm:	Let me ask you something. Do you think your time and effort is worth $10 an hour?
Ian:	Of course.
Norm:	So you would pay yourself at ...