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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;BooksB4Coins, post: 2275533, member: 36230&quot;]First, is this just a school project where real life viability isn&#039;t that important? If this would need to have even a remote chance of success, I fear you&#039;re barking up the wrong tree, at least from what you have thus far shared.&nbsp; While offering a &quot;starter kit&quot; may sound like a fine idea, in practice you&#039;re not likely to find many takers.</p><p><br /></p><p>One thing that sticks out as a bad all-round idea is the safe. For starters, no &quot;safe&quot; that could profitably be added to a $100 &quot;starter set&quot; is worth a darn, and would do no more than give potential purchasers a false sense of &quot;security&quot;. Acquisition costs will likely eat up a large percentage of your per-set maximun investment, and will also add to shipping costs, perhaps even to the point where the few interested in such a thing will walk because of it. If you want to sell cheap &quot;safes&quot;, sell cheap safes; otherwise, you would be wise to drop the idea altogether.</p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;theme&quot; idea takes an already very-niche idea to the extreme. Sure, there are collectors who like plants and animals, but basing a business solely upon it? No... not a good idea unless, perhaps, focused mostly upon the new ATB series, but even then your price, especially if you insist on that &quot;safe&quot;, will drive a nail into your coffin. Most who have an interest is US coins, other than perhaps children, often have it because of a childhood experience, or because of the connection to history. There are, of course, other reasons as well, but the point is that for the broadest appeal, US coins should more than suffice as a &quot;theme&quot;. Cents have long been a popular starting point, but partially completed circ sets are dime-a-dozen and easily found on at least one of your potential venues. The same goes for everything else... why pay up for a &quot;set&quot; with possibly unknown coins in unknown conditions when money could easily be saved clicking elsewhere. Short of gift buyers, interest very well may be nonexistent.</p><p><br /></p><p>The &quot;investment&quot; idea is, with all due respect, poor, and in context would be nothing more than a gimmick. At best you&#039;re going to be offering a handful of widgets at forever buried prices, which certainly does not make for a fine starter &quot;investment&quot;. In addition, putting forth the idea that collecting is an &quot;investment&quot; is really false advertising. Nine plus times out of ten, people will lose money on their collections, and this is especially true for those collecting low end, low dollar material.</p><p><br /></p><p>The point I&#039;m hoping to make here is that if real world potential has any place in this project, the idea needs a lot of work. Recently there was another young fellow with a school project he wanted to tailor to his coin interests, and with all due respect to him, the idea was doomed to failure from the very start. This was because of his insistence on the &quot;business&quot; being what he thought a good idea and not what there is an actual demand for. One of the biggest reasons for failure of small businesses started because of an interest or passion is that the market has no need for it. As an example, I&#039;ve personally watched what seems like countless pizza joints come and go during my lifetime. Whenever a new one opened, I made a point of patronizing it and always tried to get the proprietor to talk about why they started the business. Nine times out of ten it was because of a dream, perhaps not to sling pizzas, but to own a business, and this particular one offered low start up costs and higher profit potential, yet they failed to account for market needs and failed because of it. Just because the place down the road brings people in left and right, it didn&#039;t mean another place would double the fun, and the same can be said for coins. There is no shortage of people selling them these days, and in fact theres more sellers now than ever before because of the internet and the very venues you wish to use. Why would and why should anyone buy from you when there are countless other options out there, likely including the very same suppliers you would be using? </p><p><br /></p><p>Again, if this business project doesn&#039;t need to be viable, non of this matters and I&#039;ve wasted my time. However, if it does I do hope you take this all as food for thought. I wish you luck regardless.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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