I'd like nothing more than for it to be a success but someone has to ask the hard questions. The nornal course would be to discuss the whole proposal with PV, get their tacit approval and support, then hit up punters for the crowd sourced capital, not throw it out there on a wing and a prayer.
I would love nice things at Lysty but given the historical hoops PV seem to have made LDTR jump through, I'm wary that the nice things may just end up being more akin to holograms.
My main concerns are:
Lack of risk and accountability due to crowd sourcing the start up capital.
Lack of any real beneficial support by the shop's landlord.
Lack of any sort of approval by the land manager.
The idea seems great and has all the warm and fuzzy feel for the MTB community but it's just not fleshed out enough imho. At face value it seems like a bunch of mountain bikers wanting to work in and around mountain bikes without the need for any risk. Not to mention the landlord not outlaying anything in an attempt to attract more custom to their business. It's really not important to Montagues if the shop succeeds or not, as long as a significant portion of park users driving past become aware of what they are offering.
A couple of questions worth asking are:
Would a lender be forthcoming with the funds given the current business plan and forecasts?
If not, why not?
More than one devils advocate in this thread isn't a bad thing.
Yeap, that's why I started the thread. I would have liked to go through this earlier but the group decided it was best to keep quiet about the project until we were able to launch, they thought it would be best to not have all the local bike shops fuming for months about us being handed an opportunity. The launch was delayed significantly by red tape also, lawyers & government departments and banks etc all take time to do their part and stages can't move along until certain things are done.
As with everything else, I'll put this to the better minds and see what they say, but my take on it is:
- montagues will not be funding the venture, and why would they? If we don't work out, another shop will gladly fill the space and they know it. This is no different from any other retail space, you want a space you pay for it
- pre approval for works from PV isnt going to happen. This is such a tough one to convey properly and remain diplomatic - in essence we (the MTB community everywhere) are locking horns with PV. What we're attempting to do is remove some arguments and dangle some carrots in front of them. There's no way to promise success in this but we'd be in a much stronger position with an income stream. Regardless of how much success we have, the community will be better served by a shop that's profits go to this cause. We can't promise X amount of trails, but we can promise we'll fight for them.
- who should take the risk and why? Given this is a not for profit organisation, putting our houses on the line for zero return seems a bit of a stretch. We're asking for community backing to try and achieve something that will benefit them. I don't know how to answer to the accountability, we're talking about putting in a best effort to make something special. Failure is possible I guess, I don't know who should be lynched if that happened.
- a lender would be pretty reluctant to hand over money based on the current model given that there is no collateral to put against it and that we're a not for profit. It's being explored, but not with any expectations.
- the people that got this rolling have zero intention of working there in any paid capacity. I'm the only one that's expressed any interest in working there (I'm a latecomer to the project), and even then I'd be going up against all other applicants that are in all likelihood better for the jobs. It's a good point to make clear though, that this isn't going to be just a bunch of riders trying to work in a shop, that we'll be employing professionals
Clarity has been our biggest downfall so far, we have to own that. We'll be working hard to fix that and many other issues over the next couple of days. Most of this has come about due to this thread, as defensive as I sound, we appreciate the honest and well thought out feedback
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