Today we will be taking questions from the audience...

Q: I heard recently that the economy is in the tank, how do you think that you will be able to sell greeting cards in the current recession?

A: First of all, let me say, what an insightful and well thought out question. I feel like I could have come up with that question myself. Well, primarily we are hoping to bombard our friends that we have on facebook with new postings, ads, oblique hints and the like until they all cave and buy every one of our 14,000 cards we had printed out at the begining of the year. If that doesn't work... Well, we're still working on a plan B.

Q: Where do you come up with these great designs for your cards?

A: Well, again another good question. Really we just copy them out of "learning to draw" books, and then we search through the "New Yorker" for clever one liners to caption under the illustrations. Some people think it is more then that, but it isn't really.

Q: How do you get your cards down to such a reasonable and affordable price? ($2.50 a card)

A: Well let me give you a break down of the pricing. We printed out 40 cards, 250 of 24 cards, and 500 of 16 cards. It totaled 14,000 cards. The cost for that many cards was 5,432.52 which brings the total physical cost of a card plus envelope to 39 cents.

So now you say, oh my gosh you mean that your selling these cards at $2.11 profit?! Well no. Here's how it breaks down. So far Stephanie and I have after a year not made one cent. You see we (Stephanie) invested $5,500 in the initial buy of the cards. So, before we count any profit at all we have to sell at least 2,200 cards. Then we have to set aside an additional 2,200 cards sold as money for the next purchase. That leaves us with 9,600 cards left to make money with which is admittedly 24,000. So is all that profit? No.. Because from every thing we have to subtract 2.75% which is $962 (the merchant fees) Plus $30 a month which is on top of the other fees. So for the year that is $360. Still we haven't gotten paid. Now we need to add in the $300 property tax, which is separate from any income tax we might make. Now add on website fees $120 a year, the cost of marketing $400 so far, and we are up to a grand total of $1,742 for the year. Ok, how many cards have we sold so far this year? About 200. For a total of $500. We're not rich yet.

So, how many cards do we need to sell a month to make this a viable business for Stephanie and myself? Well all things being equal, if we sold 56,000 cards in a year that would gross us $105,560 before tax, which is $52,780.00 before tax, $35,365.00 a year after tax.

End result, $2.50 a card is about as low as we can sell and make a profit until we move into the arena of 100k's of cards. It's not easy starting a business but we'll get there...

Other avenue's?

Today I started by posting some of the cards up on "Zazzle.com". It's a site that allows you to upload your designs, and it sells them for you, and gives you a very small amount in compensation.. Like for instance, the cards.. It will give you 10% of the profit. So for every card you sell at 3.00 it gives you $00.30. Pretty awesome right? Well I'm going to throw a couple of designs up on teeshirts too and see what happens. Who knows. Maybe this will be our big ticket.

Jason

Maybe I should just be honest...

I spent most of the day trying to figure out what exactly I should put up on the blog. It was frustrating, because I really wanted to put up some professional post. Some smattering about how I had just gotten off the phone after talks with a walmart exec, and they said they wouldn't go lower than the meridian line on cost out puts, or some such nonsense like that. But the truth is today, it was hard to get motivated to work. I mean I did.. Obviously, I sat in front of my computer all day and tried my best not to log on to "gizmodo" or one of the other countless sites I picked up as a bad habit while whittling away my hours working as a graphic designer at Nationwide. That bastion of compassion...

The reason I couldn't think of anything to write is because I was trying to come up with a convincing lie. This blog is being read by supposed supporters of Binary Cards, people who are willing to give money toward it on sites like "kickstarter" or maybe just friends and families that want to help. I feel a need to be professional. To proclaim conquests, and mergers, and heaven forbid, profit, or hell, income...

The truth is, I'm not a very good business person yet. I get burned out quickly. I hear "No" 5 times in a row and I am ready to call it quits for the day. I guess in many real ways I am just experiencing humanity. No doubt a feeling that most buisiness leaders felt before sucess.. That burning of the emotional muscle that's stretched to thin, the fatigue of extended failure.

What does this whole post mean then?

Well, I started this as an obligation to the people who supported me on kickstarter. But I think that I'm going to continue this blog as a window into me. Yes, I'll focus on the struggle to push Binary Cards into the forfront of everyone's holidays.. But maybe for you all it will be a little more then that. Maybe if your where I was 2 years ago in starting a business, or maybe your where I am now. I hope that I can give you some encouragement. There's hope in numbers right? It might help to know your not the only idiot with the chance of success. If I can do it (and I know I can) then you can to.

Stay tuned for an installment called, "Who is Jason Dawson?" I promise it will be loads of fun!

Jason