I've been teasing Linda for about 4 years now, since we opened the BookMark, that one of these days one of her customers was going to drive their car through the front door.

The parking spaces are exactly level with the building. All it was going to take was one little old lady hitting the accelarator instead of the brake, or one drunk forgetting to brake at all.

Sure enough, she's sitting at her desk yesterday when the whole building shakes and she hears a crash. Next door. 30 feet away.

See a danger, and it seems, more often than not it happens. Of course, if you're looking for danger all the time, you're going to be right sometimes, and you're not going to remember the times you were wrong.

Still, it seems to me that the downside happens way more often than most people realize.

What brings this to mind, is small business.

I believe that most everyone who opens a small business does so out of emotion, not logic.

Logic would be that you would find a product or a niche or a location that hasn't been filled. Except, I don't believe those exist, or exist very, very rarely. Every niche is almost immediately filled. Sometimes you can get in on the ground floor, but that is an emotional decision, too. Very few 'ground floors' ever add a second story.

So you open a business because you believe that you can create new business, or do the job better than anyone else. That isn't all that logical.

There have been, what, 4 or 5 wine shops downtown? All have eventually folded. But I have no doubt at all that very soon someone else will try. Were the other 4 or 5 owners all feeble-minded, incompetents? Are you such a super intellect and hyper competent that you can show them how to do it?

Eventually, small business success or failure does come down to the logic. Do you have enough people coming in the door? Are they spending enough money? Does your margin cover your overhead?

Charisma, will-power, and hard work will work for awhile, maybe long enough to get you over the hump. But eventually, the numbers have to work.

But no one opens knowing what those numbers are. You're doing it on emotion.

The other side of the equation is the owner him or herself. How many resources do they have? How important is it to them? When I tried to sell the store in Redmond years ago, everyone asked, "Can you guarantee me a profit?" I just laughed, and said, "Not only shouldn't you buy my business, I'd advise you to never open a business." Guaranteed profit my ass.

I've resisted commenting on the Camalli, the new bookstore in town. (By the way, the name is going to be a problem for them...I've tried to remember it several times over the last week, and I've gotten the spelling wrong every time...) A while back, when I commented that the new grocery in the Northwest Crossing was probably doomed, I was quite rightly chastised for prejudging, without any inside knowledge.

So I will only say this: (Based on the fact that 2 out of 3 independent bookstores went out of business in Bend when Barnes and Noble opened (with the 3rd downsizing to half it's size...), given the fact that almost half of the independent bookstores in America have gone out of business in the last decade.):

They are climbing a very steep, very slippery slope. I hope they have traction devices and the will and the desire and the stamina to get to the top.

Sometimes people overcome all the obstacles, sometimes they get lucky, sometimes they are indeed just smarter, harder working than anyone else. Whether you are that person is a decision that comes from inside.

Of course, if the numbers are on your side, you've got an even better chance....