#FastCashFriday

Well, Arlene's back for Dragon's Den Season 12 (Airs Sept 28). She was on hiatus to focus on other projects. But, in my opinion this is Exhibit A on what NOT to do in a pitch and negotiation today. This is exactly the attitude that is killing deals in the Valley or anywhere else. Entitlement and False Desire. Most investors really don't need your deal. They are rich already... So assuming that your business is the business that 100Xs their portfolio... You see this a lot in the film business. When a hot shot actor thinks he runs the show because he's attracting the fans to the movie. 

But strong handing and insulting the people with the money is never a smart idea. With the rapid changing of the web application market. The BitLit entrepreneur brought up Goodreads.com. The problem with starting an app from scratch is content scraping. Not only the big hits. But the Long Tail books as well. I haven't bought a mainstream book in years. 

So, Goodreads who has sold to Amazon has a benefactor that controls a vast portion of the book sales in the entire world on the internet. BitLit's strategy I am assuming was to get sold to a competitor. 

I was in Indigo on my rounds and I saw some clerk with an app checking the books on the shelf. 
She said it was from Goodreads. I immediately thought of the bonehead move this entrepreneur did to Arlene when you go out and "wing it." Winging it never works and you usually over estimate your hand. 

Goodreads doesn't make money either in case you were wondering...

So, Goodreads aka Amazon is your competitor in Database Applications. I don't think they have heard of AWS... Which Goodreads runs on. This was a losing idea from the start, because you're not going to out Amazon, Amazon. Classic case. You've probably heard that one before.

As for what Mike said... There's wholesale, retail and fairy tails. 
I have been in the market for a well fitting suit for about 6 years. Harry Rosen, Thomas Jeffery and other retail stores are the suppliers. 

I learned that Tom Ford which sells a $5,600 suit uses the same factory and material from Zegna. What I really learned that Zegna sells the suit to Rosen for about $2400 or less and marks it up to $3,600. I learned this retail tactic while working at Future Shop at 15 years old. 

This week I found the alternative. Going direct to a tailor who has a line to the wholesaler of Zegna and all he charges is for material and labor! 

Cut out the middleman. Naive people, like myself would have paid full price for an overpriced Zegna suit...

Manufacturer ---> $upplier(Harry Rosen) --> Customer

Manufacturer ---> Customer == Direct Sales

The source is the connect.  The connect is the hardest yet most valuable person to know. This is 80/20 Networking. Remember the wholesaler has a shit load of supply. All you need to do is find demand. Bong, Bong!

PS: YouTubers have it backwards. They forget they are the manufacturer(Volume and Quality)... All YouTube needs to attract is the eye balls. Now do you see why Google bought them. Same model. I could get deeper, but there is a valuable secret to the business model if you think about it...