"Maybe my business plan is too amusing."

I wonder if we aren't going to see a bunch of articles like the one from the Oregonian today (printed below.)

It's meant to solicit sympathy, but reeks of entitlement.

"Is she coming home to tuck in the kids before returning to clean the store? She let go of her cleaning crew.

No, she told him. An employee's coming to help her scrub the floors."

Oh, the horror. The horror!

Admittedly, she calls it a 'cleaning party,' but through obviously clenched teeth. See how plucky I am!

O.K. 20k income after a couple of years for a start-up small business; husband having a second job; bringing kids to work; doing your own cleaning.

I would consider all those things normal, frankly.

What I consider strange is this:

"The shop -- opening at the height of Portland's housing market -- thrived. On Saturdays, the store pulled in about $2,000, helping pay the mortgage on their $550,000 Irvington home."

A 550k home?

"Now the Saturday take is under $1,000, and midweek days are around $300. Last year, the family took home just $20,000. Scott Korn left the store to take a baking job late last year. Seven employees shrank to three."

I think there is a fundamental misunderstanding of what a Mom and Pop business is.
If I'm doing the math right, there might be enough income for a modest living if Mom and Pop ran the store: but not Mom and Pop and three employees, much less seven employees!

Come on, even if they are open half time on Sundays, you're talking 52 hours total. Even with the 2000.00 dollar Saturdays, a couple of on duty people should be enough.

In other words, the store can be run by a couple working most of the week, trading days, and a part-time employee for Sunday and one other day, to give them two days off. (Which, I would consider a huge luxury for a start-up.) If the couple work together on the busy Saturdays, that leaves each spouse with a 28 hours week, so conceivably there is office work and outside work to push those hours up to 40 hours each.

Oh, the Horror!

Linda and I run separate stores, with (usually) one part time employee per store. We do this because our two Mom and Pop's can support one Mom or Pop per store. That's just what we've come to expect.

The business plan is too amusing, but not in the way she meant. She wants to keep her big house and her big success story and her big money, and not have to really work for it, or wait for it.

A lot of stores have opened during the boom that have exactly the same attitudes, and I suspect we're going to see exactly the same response.



Downturn tough for Portland mom-and-pops
Slumping sales are forcing a Northwest 23rd Avenue merchant to close her doors
Thursday, June 12, 2008
ERIN HOOVER BARNETT
The Oregonian Staff

Stacey Korn arrives just before 10 a.m. to unlock her shop on Northwest 23rd Avenue. She hoists orange molded plastic benches from the back and places them outside under the windows. Then she sets up her sidewalk sign:

"Shop 'Hello' -- nifty gifts for the whole family," it says. "Patronizing us is like flirting with a wealthy widow. You can't overdo it."

Korn needs her sense of humor now more than ever. As the economy slumps, sales at her Hello Portland store at 525 N.W. 23rd Ave. are half what they were soon after opening in late 2005. Her family of four went from living almost entirely off the shop's income to barely getting by and deciding to close in September.

"My friends at Irvington School don't know my kids qualify for free or reduced-price lunch," said Korn, 41.

Her boom-to-bust story is about the kind of shop that falters in a downturn. Hello Portland sells lots of stuff people want -- from $45 hip handbags to $25 "I might barf" baby onesies -- but nothing anyone truly needs. More than that, it's a story of a small merchant's struggles, of the people left behind when a local store fails.

"You hear people say, 'I love this. I can't live without this,' " Korn said. "And then they walk out the door."

Korn gets by with her trademark pluck.

She left a dysfunctional family at 16 to attend acting school in New York and then in Los Angeles. She turned to graphic design school and did secretarial work at advertising giant Ogilvy & Mather, learning computer skills thanks to client Microsoft.

She found a creative niche designing saucy greeting cards for Paper Moon. "Desperate Career Girl," said one. "Sexual harassment: She could dish it out, but could she take it?"

Her big break came when Reuters, the media and financial company, contracted with her in 2002 at $250 an hour to design Web sites. She was still nursing her second child, so her husband took a hotel room next door and paged Korn when Piper was hungry, handing the infant to Korn at a lower-floor restroom in Reuters' Manhattan building. Her bosses never knew she had a baby.

After two years, Korn opened the Hello store on Martha's Vineyard. Richard Singer, the primary developer and landlord on Northwest 23rd, lured Korn and her shop to Portland in 2005, beating out Bridgeport Village.

The shop -- opening at the height of Portland's housing market -- thrived. On Saturdays, the store pulled in about $2,000, helping pay the mortgage on their $550,000 Irvington home. Now the Saturday take is under $1,000, and midweek days are around $300. Last year, the family took home just $20,000. Scott Korn left the store to take a baking job late last year. Seven employees shrank to three.

Korn thinks concerns about finding parking around 23rd are worsening the impact of the downturn. And many of those who do come in just play -- picking up Japanese vinyl toys despite signs saying not to.

"It's like amusement," Korn said with a sigh. "So maybe it's my fault. Maybe my business plan is too amusing."

Extra effort

Sometimes she's direct. When a customer asked if she could buy the shop's melamine plates on the Internet, Korn told her, "Yeah, you could. But I'm here selling these so that I can feed my kids."

Reinforcing that connection is crucial for mom-and-pop businesses, especially now.

"Everyone is just kind of holding their breath to see what's going to happen," said Robyn Shanti, coordinator of the Sustainable Business Network, whose membership includes 360 locally owned Portland businesses. "People also realize if they don't patronize those businesses, they're not going to be around. And if they're not around, we'll lose the whole quality of life in our neighborhoods."

Korn is doing what she can. She tries making customers comfortable, fading out alternative rock music and fading in her "Old people just walked in" mix of Billie Holiday and Glenn Miller when seniors step in.

She puts a sale table outside on warm days. She uses cash to buy merchandise, avoiding additional debt. She rarely gives out even basic handle bags -- "Can you put this in the bag you have?" she asks -- saving 35 cents a pop. And she's gotten her kids involved, saving on child care.

On a sunny spring weekend, Piper, 6, and a friend sat outside selling $1 buttons they made, quickly pulling in $58.

Looking for work

Sometimes stress gets the better of Korn. A week ago, she parked her car just over the line into the valet zone for the restaurant next door. The restaurant had it towed. The cost: $210. "What am I going to sell on Craigslist to pay that ticket?" she said, sobbing. (She sold her car-top storage container.)

Kind comments help. Leslie Hildula comes for offbeat party favors and invitations. "It has this kind of inner-child enthusiasm for life," Hildula said of the shop.

But as the Korn family prepares to take on a foster child in need of emergency placement, Korn must be pragmatic. She hopes to find a stable job in graphic design or another creative field.

On Tuesday, Scott Korn arrived at the shop at 5 p.m. to pick up the children.

"Bye, cutie," he said to his wife as he headed out, Piper and Skyler, 10, ahead of him.

"Bye, sweetie," she said.

Then he remembered to ask: Is she coming home to tuck in the kids before returning to clean the store? She let go of her cleaning crew.

No, she told him. An employee's coming to help her scrub the floors.

"It'll be a party," Korn said.

Erin Hoover Barnett: 503-294-5011; ehbarnett@news.oregonian.com