Having built two modestly-sized businesses over the past half-decade, I feel ready for a change. The impersonality of creating something with broad appeal is financially interesting, but being so removed from the end-user can cause me to burn out faster if I’m not actively working on something engaging.
I’m not leaving the companies I run, but I will be taking a half-step back in the digital agency and will continue to direct operations at the others, while I focus on something new.
My next project is something that will be entirely made for and likely bought/consumed by the county I’m in. That’s not to say it won’t scale, but it will require a physical presence, selling to local shops, and carefully crafting something that’s unique to the area(s) in question.
The margins are nice, and it’s so specific that there should be a fair amount of interest locally and is the sort of thing that will additionally be bought as gifts – especially at the price point I’m targeting.
It’s such a unique business, in a vertical I haven’t seen explored yet, that I’ll be writing up a fair amount of it on the blog once the site and store go live — stay tuned!