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Location: Oviedo Florida | Before anything else let me tell yall a little bit about myself. I have never posted here but I have been lurking for the past year or 2. My name is Chris and I am a 19 year old student at the University of Central Florida. I am majoring management (with an emphasis on Entrepreneurship), and minoring in accounting. I plan on getting my masters in accounting. After that my dream is to open my own horse trailer dealership. I am in a summer economics class and I have to write a paper about anything related to business, I have chosen to write " Small Business in a Declining Market".My plan is to compare and contrast a succesful small business and a failed small business and show how one went right and one went wrong. I am here to ask if anyone might know someone that I could contact through email or instant message that has has a failed small business in the equine world ( feed store, tack shop, custom living quarter conversions, etc...) that would be willing to talk to me about it. My plan is to compare and contrast a succesful small business and a failed small business and show how one went right and one went wrong. I thank you all in advance for taking your time to, if nothing else, read this. |
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Veteran
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Location: North Texas | Chris,
Good luck in your studies.
I have a question re: your choice of industries.
Why do you consider equestrian related businesses to be a declining market? I don't have industry facts to back up my opinion but I'd but a tall beer that the equine industry isn't declining. Check out things like office copier sales or radio repair; those are declining markets for sure.
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Location: Oviedo Florida | I decided on the equestrian based industry because that is what I am interested in. I don't have the facts either, but what i meant in declining is more declining as in the average person's knowledge and use in the industry. I might even do it as just purely based on success and failure in small business. I am not worried about finding personal story in the success because I know plenty of people who have succeeded in their business ( a trailer dealership owner, 4 or 5 people who work in tack, a buggy builder, feed store owner, so on and what not). I'm not too interested in office copiers and radio repair. Thank you though for the advice. |
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Expert
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| Hi Chris, welcome to the Forum.
An interesting assignment... (-:
As your second post indicates, you've already found a number of people who are succeeding in equine businesses, so some of your conclusions are ready for you. I don't think they're all niches either, some are relatively new (equine massage, etc.), some are revitalizing (carriage building), some are just ongoing (tack) though changing.
As to "declining market"; I just did a couple of searches on horse populations, trying to find the peak and present. From memory the peak was around 25 million in the mid 1920s and it was 5.3 million last year, 5.25 million the year before. OK, so the population has declined from its peak, but the nature has changed (largely, though not entirely from work animals to companion animals (a term I picked up this week - well, its a bit better than "pets")). The "equine industry" is HUGE when you add up what is spent on horses, for horses, etc. I don't have numbers, but you'll have to size the market for your paper anyway.
Re failed businesses: I think you'll find it hard to get anyone to admit failure - besides, "success" has dimensions other than the usual B_school parameters of ROx, net/gross profit, break-even, npv and whatever all else.
I can think of someone who teaches and has just bought a_NOTHER horse farm (her third), not much over 30 years old. I know other people who have made a steady but modest living for longer than I've been alive, their "success" is largely in the reward of time with the animals.
Success and failure are very subjective terms - I think.
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Location: Summerville, SC | I agree with Reg. Life is about what makes your family happy. Success and failure are in the eyes of the beholder. My family lives for our horses. We live in a very small house (1300 sq ft.) Drive older used trucks (newest is 1994) and live financially payday to payday BUT we have 11 beautiful horses and lease a really nice farm. We just purchased our own land and are in the planning phase of our own facility. Our friends think we are crazy for owning so many horses and I always hear, sell them! What is more crazy, pooring all your time and money into horses or pooring it all into big homes and fancy cars. Some think we are failures because of our financial struggles but to us, we are on top of the world. To us there is nothing like walking into the barn and having all our horses nicker out to us or driving onto the farm and having them run up to the fence to say hi. Sure, we struggle financially every day, but to us we have the world and wouldnt trade it for anything. Sorry if this ventures off of your project some, Reg's post just stirred some emotion. I wish you the best of luck in your college project. Just remember, what some call failure, to others is utter success. |
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Location: Brazil, IN | Chris, I think this sounds like a great paper to have as an assignment. I too am a business student double majoring in marketing and bus. administration. I don't know where my mom found some of the info she used as a 4-H leader about the equine industry. I will try to find out and PM you, but as a place to start, check out the Indiana Horse Council website. You will have to google it to find the address, i'm not positive of it. Good luck on your paper! |
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Location: Oviedo Florida | Fordlvr ( love the name), I definately agree with you. Me personally i could spend the rest of my life in a small apartment renting stall space and owning not much if anything if i was happy with my family. But I'm basically talking about a business that didn't work out therefor had to be closed. Erin, thanks a lot. Marketing huh? I was thinking a while about going into marketing when i go into graduate school, but I thought accounting would be much better because if i ever have my dream dealership I want to be able to keep my own books ( what can I say, I'm stingy). It also gives me something good to fall back on if that doesn't work. |
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Location: Oklahoma | How in the world do some people get so off track? The young man is simply writing a paper comparing a failed business to one that made it. It has nothing to do with what makes a person happy. |
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Expert
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| Originally written by Trailer guy on 2005-06-29 3:10 PM
How in the world do some people get so off track? The young man is simply writing a paper comparing a failed business to one that made it. It has nothing to do with what makes a person happy.
It is just a matter of definitions.
Success and failure can be measured in terms other than dollars, cents and percentages. Money itself has little/no value until converted into "what makes a person happy".
Errrr, does it ?
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Location: Oviedo Florida | Dollar and cents does make the difference between success and failure when it comes to a business. Thank you all for the advice! keep it coming. |
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Extreme Veteran
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Location: Decatur, Texas | Perhaps you could change your criteria from a small to a large business and contact Ken Lay, Andy Fastow, & Jeff Skilling (Enron) to discover how to cook the books on a large company to make it appear highly profitable while going completely down the tubes. I'm sure they could enlighten you on the modern corporation "ethics" of doing business. Then when caught, just 'fess up that it was someone else's fault and if they do have to serve time, it will be in the very best 5 star rated country club "prison" that our tax dollars can buy. |
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Location: Oviedo Florida | I could definately do that, infact that is one of the subjects he suggested ( the downfall of Enron). He said some people have done the economics of drug dealing, and the economics of auto theft, and have gotten good grades on them. I think what I will do is change it to " small business in a little known market" instead of "declining market". Like I said it can be on anything business related. Maybe I will do " Why I want Mr. Trucks' Job"  |
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Expert
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| Re Lay, Fastow, Skilling, et al:
The opposite (black and white negative) stories are of people with maybe $150 to $200 K salaried positions that they're sheltering with small horse farms that are running "at a loss".
Betcha can't find any of THOSE in this forum (-:
Sub title suggestion: "Succeeding at a Loss."
"So HARD having to live on all this acreage with animals all around us, how we MISS the traffic and noise of city life."
Schedule F did Ya say ?
and C ?
or instead of C ?
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Need help on a paper
