Starting a Website

After my last post, I decided it would be wise to invest a few bucks to grab my proposed domain name: adultguitar.com. In the harsh light of the day after, I have second thoughts about the name: does it sound too fuddy-duddy for my target market, which may be trying to recapture some of their youth? Regardless, the name is mine.The experience of establishing a domain name was quite easy, as I expected it to be. Domain registrars have had years to perfect the process. I went with Register.com, and am glad I did. buried in the fine print at the bottom of their website is info referencing awards they won from J. D. Powers for quality of customer service. As a newbie to setting up a site, I had opportunity to find out how good their customer service might be…..In mid-December, I switched to an iMac after having Gateway PCs for more than 10 years. Most of the switch has gone painlessly, with the exception of my Quicken program. But setting up a mail account for the mailbox at my new domain wasn’t happening last night. So I left a message for technical support at register.com. The form letter told me to expect help within 24 business hours. With the holidays, I wasn’t optimistic they would meet that time frame.So imagine my surprise when I woke up this morning to find my answer waiting for me. It was a simple thing I was doing wrong, but their standard on-line documentation wasn’t helping me figure it out. With the help of their e-mail, I was up and running in minutes. Even before my first cup of coffee! The only thing missing was a return address to send my compliments on a job well done.

Starting a Guitar Website

I have been thinking more about the idea of starting a website related to guitars and guitar playing. The working title is “Adult Guitar” and my early research shows this name is available (I’d better go register it!). The idea would be to offer articles to help those of us that want to play, or play more, as we get older. It might include reviews and links to instructional resources, on-line and otherwise, as well as gear reviews. Money would be earned through advertisements and perhaps selling instruments. Unfortunately, most manufacturers are not interested in internet-only dealers, and I’ve just about ruled out a storefront at this point. It is just too hard to make the economics of a store work well. At least as important as to what the site would do is what it wouldn’t do. It wouldn’t sell Gibson and Fender guitars. It wouldn’t have instructional videos, guitar tabs, or resources for bands (like MySpace has developed). It may have forums for musicians to connect with others to play together, and could sponsor meet-ups if the geography of visitors was conducive to off-line meetings. Most importantly, it would offer resources for integrating music into family and work life, which have become so hectic for most.I guess the first step is spending some money getting a domain name. 

Guitar businesses – not retail

Although I have not posted in awhile, that doesn’t mean my mind hasn’t been active thinking about guitar-related businesses. Sadly, I have spent much time going down the road of opening a guitar store, and I see no way to make money at it. There is a great risk that the enterprise would fail, and fail in an expensive fashion. I think I am being realistic with this assessment, and not reaching this conclusion from either pessimism or fear.So I’ve been asking myself what other businesses might I become involved with that would still satisfy my desire to be involved in something musical, or better yet, guitar-centric. I’ve thought about web sites, and realize there are many websites that cater to the guitar player demographic. I personally have over 20 bookmarks that I visit on an infrequent basis, and a handful that I visit regularly. I have 10 RSS feeds in my google reader alone (fortunately they don’t all generate to many posts). There are instruction websites, band websites, and of course, sales websites. The last thing the world needs is another FREE GUITAR LESSONS website.I am currently thinking about a website targeted towards people like me (surprise!). More specifically, the website would be targeted towards men and women in their 30’s through 50’s that play guitar, or used to play guitar and would like to play guitar again. That’s the working concept, anyway. 

Guitar Store Closing

When I first started research on opening a guitar store, events unfolded quickly and easily. I took this as a sign that perhaps this project, unlike some other businesses I had researched in the past, was destined to happen. These past few weeks have seen the opposite: continuing omens of the futility of opening a bricks & mortar guitar store.

The most recent sign came yesterday. Months ago I obtained a sales tax number from Pennsylvania in a surprisingly easy transaction. At the time, I specified that I wasn’t anticipating any sales before November 2007. But I wanted to check with my tax accountant to learn if there was anything I needed to do before the end of 2007 for tax purposes. I didn’t want to wait until my normal appointment with the accountant in March to find out I made a mistake handling this. The conversation went something like this:

Me: I obtained a sales tax number.

Accountant: Why’d you do that?

M: I was thinking of opening a music store.

A: You don’t want to do that. (Followed by a short ramble on the perils of brick & Mortar music instrument retailing)

M: How do you know so much about this business?

A: I handle the accounting for Old Street Address Music .

M: Oh, they want to close their store and just do internet, so that’s why you are so negative.

A: (Pause). How do you know they want to close the store?

And so it went. I learned there are two partners: one 47-years old and one 61-years old. And they make most of their money on internet sales. They also handle internet sales for an outside domain name, where all they do is package and ship the instruments. I learned their inventory management is poor. That they sell mostly to musicians, and have almost no walk-in traffic.

I joked about me buying their store location, if they wanted to sell. But if these people, who have owned this store for 30 or more years, have decided to sell because the earnings don’t justify the expenses, then who am I to think I could do it much more profitably? Admittedly, there is room for improvement to inventory control. But to buy the store, and without the ability to use the store name when selling on the internet, isn’t appealing. And without the internet sales, the economics of this store don’t work well enough for the owners to keep it.