There is a new product coming out soon, that I think is going to be the NBT (Next Big Thing.) It's a spin-off of a previous fad product, in a different format. Something about it tells me its going to really take off.

Now I could be completely wrong.

I've always wanted to get in on the ground floor of a fad. I got in early on sports cards, and leveraged everything I had to follow it up the curve. But I never had enough money to do it right, and was mostly playing catch up. And, of course, I didn't get out when I should have.

The lesson I took from sports cards was to buy more diversified product, but less of each. So when Magic the Gathering took off, I was able to pursue it a bit better then sports cards, and it was a much smaller curve, but at the end of the curve -- instead of getting out -- I followed the example of sports cards, and diversified, but with less of each game.

Wrong. Ate all those games.

Comics took off for a year, and by now I recognized a fad when I saw one. So I was very careful to cut orders for the fall and winter, 4 months in advance of when I thought the fad would fade.
My timing was exactly right, but I was foiled by the comic producers who dumped all the spring and summer solicitations into fall and winter, and I was screwed. I'd tried to outthink and outtime a fad.

Next up: Pogs. I remember sitting at the dinner table with my parents, telling them about these little circular card board do-dads that I was convinced were going to be the NBT. "What do you do with these things?" Dad asked. "You play a kind of tiddly-winks, but most kids are just going to collect them." "Why?" Mom asked. Needless to say, they didn't loan me the money I was hoping for.

Still, I leveraged Pogs to the max. (Financial genius -- leverage and a bull market.) It was my no hit ballgame, my perfect score. Too bad all the money had to be used to pay off my sport card, comic, and Magic debt.

Non-sport cards. Probably should have stopped buying sooner.

Beanie Babies. Again, played it almost exactly right. Used the money to diversify into games and toys.

Pokemon. Huge fad, which I did well with, used the money to diversify into Anime and graphic novels, including Manga.

Yugi oh. Never really got any traction, for some reason.

Then.....nothing. At least 8 fads in the first 16 years. No fads in the last 8 years. Can't really explain it. I'd become accustomed to waiting for the NBT. There were some developments outside my store -- D&D game came back big, and all the D20 games, and so on. Mostly, the NBT 's were in entertainment industries outside my working perimeters.

Now, one of the things I decided after I had time to think about this, was that I would become more of a reactor, then a leader. That is, I would make absolutely sure that it is a real fad before I got heavily involved. That fads always left wreckage in their wake, and I was probably better off creating everyday business.

But in the back of my mind, I've always wanted to see if my instincts are right. That if I stocked up before I fad took off, I'd be prepared to leverage it for all its worth. I have a little bit of capital I can try this with.

The NBT I'm talking about is coming out soon. I ain't telling you what it is, but I'll be upfront with you as soon as I don't think I might be giving away a competitive advantage. And if it flops, I'll tell you that too, because this will be an interesting experience.

Now its possible that it will come out and the reaction will be; so what?

But I don't think so. So far, I've ordered probably 3 times what I would a normal new product. I intend to gamble (because a gamble is what it is) a certain amount of money on it in advance, (probably twice what I've already ordered) and I'm going to try to stockpile it as it come out for when it takes off.

Or not.

You can see along with me.