I agree, and a lot of blame can be put at the feet of government.
Posted on 08/08/2005 6:19:03 AM PDT by robowombat
Teen forced to close fair booth Wednesday, August 03, 2005 - Bangor Daily News
Entrepreneur couldn't afford $5,000 for liability insurance
BANGOR - Sometimes an early start can help, but it doesn't always make the first part of the road toward success any less bumpy.
Ben Bustard, 17, found that out this week when he tried his hand at selling homemade toys at the Bangor State Fair.
The budding entrepreneur from Bucksport came up with the $100 he initially was told he needed for $1 million worth of liability insurance, but he shut his booth down Tuesday after the projected cost rose to several thousand dollars.
"It's frustrating because it's a product that I know sells really well," Bustard said Tuesday afternoon.
Bustard was selling Marshmallow Shooters, a type of blowgun made from PVC pipe that shoots small marshmallows, similar to the way a cork flies out of the end of a popgun.
He said that last Friday, the first day of the fair, he made about $700 by selling 70 of the toys for $9.95 apiece.
Fair officials initially let Bustard sell the homemade items while he was waiting for insurance approval.
After failing to get insurance through a rider on the city's policy, and then finding out his business could not be insured through his parents' homeowner policy, Bustard was faced with either paying a $5,000 premium for his own policy or having to close his booth. He chose the cheaper option.
"As a high school kid, I can't afford a $5,000 premium," he said.
Mike Dyer, director of the city-owned Bass Park, where the fair is held, said Tuesday that the shooters were not on the city's "do not insure" list, so he sent it to the city's insurer for approval.
The insurer, however, determined that a rider for Ben's business on the city's policy was not acceptable.
"It's the ultimate business lesson," Dyer said of the experience.
According to Bustard's father, Ken Bustard, the insurance cost was aggravated by the type of device his son was selling. Benjamin came across the shooter design on the Internet and, after building one, decided it would be a popular thing to sell, the father said.
"The challenge is that it is not an established product," Ken Bustard said. "The insurance thing made the whole thing impractical."
Benjamin bought the PVC piping in bulk, went through the necessary licensing paperwork, and invested $2,000 in making 500 of the toys, according to his father. He hoped to gross $5,000 over the nine days of the fair.
"He would have done well," Ken said. "He would have averaged 100 or so [sales] a day."
Benjamin said that "99 percent" of the response to his product was positive. After shutting his booth down Tuesday, he took a shooter with him when he visited a friend at a local hospital, where again the device proved to be a hit.
"Now I have nurses asking to buy some," he said.
The young businessman plans to do more research on insurance companies to see if he can find one with a cheaper premium.
He also plans to sell his remaining inventory by word-of-mouth and maybe at other upcoming fairs.
"It was difficult [to shut the booth down]," Ken Bustard said. "People really liked it."
I think you have it wrong. Since the insurance cost is $5,000, your business must be able to generate revenue in the 80K neighborhood before you can seriously consider renting the booth.
Regulators don't care about your problems. If you can't afford to pay the man, you can't play.
A good lesson.
So much depends on where you live. My wife and I live in a part of Virginia that has a very low accident rate, minimal congestion (compared to the larger areas), and fairly low repair rates. She has one speeding ticket. The two of us are insured for two vehicles and we pay about the same amount as your lowest price for one person and one car.
"He said that last Friday, the first day of the fair, he made about $700 by selling 70 of the toys for $9.95 apiece."
Vendors at a local festival were selling these for $5 this past weekend.
E-bay!
Who generates 80K of sales from a fair booth?? Its a good lesson, alright. A lesson that things have to change.
The elected officials in Bangor, ME are mean-spirited.
Or more likely, some kid would think how cool it would be to shoot marshmallows down his, his friends, or his little brother's throat and then they would end up choking on it.
When marshmallows are outlawed.... well, you know the rest.
Thank you, scum-sucking, sleazoid ambulance-chasing vermin.
Your costs are not dependent upon the purity of your motives, the worthiness of your cause, nor your inability to generate revenue.
The cost exists above this.
From my perspective, most business failures are caused by the entrepreneur's failure to estimate what revenue will be required to make the business a success.
The example we are considering emphatically demonstrates this point.
The young blow-gun manufacturer should take the lesson to heart.
I agree, and a lot of blame can be put at the feet of government.
did you notice the double "AND" you have in your quote?
This kid's in the wrong business if he wants to make money. He needs to become a lawyer.
My bet is that one (or more) of the kids who bought one at $9.95 quickly learned that the blowguns not only fired little marshmallows, they could fire round sourballs, choclate malt balls, ballbearings, frozen peas or, maybe, paintballs. Sometimes (but not always), local governmental agengies do things that are not irrational.
actually it would be the jury that did the actual awarding.
Remeber JURIES are the determiners of fact and in the end, liability.
I bet if he called it a marshmellow "injector" instead of shooter, it might have made a difference.
They probably treated it as if it was a real gun.
$10 for about .60 of PVC pipe and 10 minutes of labor....
Marshmallow Shooters are cool, and you gotta love the profit margin.
I had my Cub Scouts make marshmallow shooters last year. It was our best craft ever.
Several bags of mini marshmallows ended up on our back lawn. The birds loved us for weeks after that.
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