In Which Everything Begins

Like my room as a teen, my brain is full of clutter. It's as though a giant tornado decided to visit in search of its long lost relatives, which of course were nowhere to be found. During this tornado's search, it ripped apart all filing compartments, strewing all sorts of information everywhere.

Now that we've got that cleared up, this is my first time on Blogspot. I've heard a lot about it, but I never knew why anyone would ever bother having a blog. I've never been a blogger, but I've been pretty great at rambling on Facebook around 2am or 3am. I figured since people suggest I publish my ramblings, I might as well start with a blog.

Anyhow, the only thing that pushed me into starting a blog after all these years is the idea that has been dancing around in my head for a good four or five years. Having my own business. I'd like to start a business, I thought. Wouldn't it be nice if I could have my own business, I thought. No use thinking.

Nothing happens if you do nothing but sit around and hope everything falls in your lap in time. Some people are lucky like that, but think about it... If you sit in your room listening to music all day and everyday, hoping that someone will realize you're this amazing person that deserves fame and fortune, what are the odds of agents (or anyone else for that matter) crashing through your ceiling and falling into your lap? First you're at home, doing nothing and suddenly, someone falls from the sky, through your roof, into your lap and deems you king of the world.

Finally coming to this realization, I decided I should actually do something about this whole business ordeal. So what did I do? I started thinking about WHAT business I actually wanted to start. Over the past two years, I've gone from an art store, to a department store, to a book store and who knows what else. Too many ideas, too little time.

Not knowing what to pick, I started selling books on Amazon.com ...I had fun with that one. I learned that making a profit is easy, but making a large profit isn't always a piece of cake. I don't have a business account on Amazon, so I have to give them some sort of payment for everything I sell. In just one month, Amazon made $300. That's not fair, I thought. What's up with that? As time passed, I noticed there were some months when Amazon made more money than I did.

What was I doing wrong? Easy. On Amazon, you can change the prices of your product(s) - Amazon is kind enough to give you the lowest price from other sellers. I was rather stupid about it for about a year, thinking it was better to go cheaper. I had forgotten the rules of supply and demand. Some of my products were listed for just a penny. As time passed, I realized I wasn't the only individual seller. I hiked up my prices (some to a ridiculous amount) and waited. I was still selling the same books and the same amount of books. I made more money, but it took a lot longer.

How does this work? People only have so many of a certain product. Once they run out of their products, they can't sell that product anymore. I simply waited until the other sellers ran out of their books. This finally made my product the cheapest. Millions of orders are made on Amazon, so I knew that other sellers would quickly run out of their products. Thus, I raised my profits by at least 300% (yes, my books were THAT cheap in the beginning). This system doesn't always work in other businesses outside of Amazon, I'm sure. Amazon was just one of my get-rich-quick/easy money schemes.

I have to admit, however, that the Amazon thing did me a lot of good. Once I actually started using my brain, I started thinking more about business. I started learning. I opened a new account and named it ZAVTRAK. Businesses have to start somewhere, right?

Now I just have to get the clutter in my brain cleaned up. Dust off those cobwebs and reorganize everything. Once I can think straight and focus, I'm sure I can figure out how to continue this ZAVTRAK idea... I just have to figure out what I want.

ZAVTRAK (завтрак) - Russian for "breakfast" - I was hungry when I came up with the name.