Boom and ...

Now, I couldn't compete with that. 


Some years ago I had a nice little sideline designing and printing bespoke business cards. Time rolled on, and the days of the 8-bit computer such as the Amiga and Atari ST came and (almost) went.


Industry woke up to the idea that home users and businesses people would pay for anonymous, mass produced simple PC's. That they were actually quite limited compared to the 8-bits,  didn't matter. They did the job. I know. I still have all three.


So there was a surplus of Atari's ST's in particular. The price plummeted. 


This was the days of the 'greed is good' era. Everyone wanted to be a high flyer in the financial world, get themselves known, and for a while, trade was brisk. Then some bright spark bought up hundreds of Atari ST's,  chucked them in even more aged, repainted Space Invader cabinets with some robust dot matrix printers.


They planted them in Service Stations and Hotel lobbies along motorways across the UK, mass producing five black and white cards for a quid. I couldn't charge less than £1.20 a colour card, and that was a minimum 60p per card, bulk a cost, or 75p per card for small amounts with a shaving of profit. I was stuffed.


Damn, I wish I'd thought of that.


Today I watched a TV advert where they are selling 250 colour business cards, various designs, for £2.50.


Despite understanding the business model, and and knowing their swimming in invisible investment (Debt And Deal - I was self  financing). 1p per colour card retail including vat?  I'm impressed.


Shows you though how small companies can struggle to compete, and why the banks are unwilling to lend to them. 


By the way, check out Moonpig.com's 'video cards'  - birthday, anniversary, that sort of thing - for a good idea.