Bohnanza

Bohnanza's a classic card game that is quite good.  It's a negotiation / set-collection game that has an interesting level of depth to it even though the rules are pretty simple.  It's a good filler-like game like 7 Wonders with a different series of mechanics.  Unlike 7 Wonders, instead of dealing with the individuals on either side of you, you are negotiating / talking with the entire group.  This makes it both a better group game and worst (increased play-time due to negotiations).

Tammany Hall

Tammany Hall starts off simple, with players kind of doing their own thing in each of their areas.  As the game progresses though, conflict increases as players vie for control in each electorate and along with the conflict comes increased complexity of strategy.  In fact, towards the end Tammany Hall feels like it rivals Louis XIV in terms of brain-burn - there's just so much to analyse and review that your head starts hurting.  Not a game to play with those prone to analysis paralysis and/or individuals looking for a medium-to-light strategy game.

Suburbia

I haven't played a lot of these 'City Building' themed games so Suburbia was a pleasant surprise.  It's mostly a tile-laying game like Carcassonne, but tiles may have special abilities that effect or is effected by other player tiles so your tile choice is important.  In addition, managing both your income and reputation levels is very important, with a resource engine being needed to be built to do well.  Unfortunately, this is a game that benefits experienced players significantly (like Race for the Galaxy) due to their familarity with the tiles.  Also, I'd be worried about choosing certain strategies which are dependent on specific tile(s) coming out - if you miss out on those tiles (or have them specifically discarded), you could lose out to another player who manages to get the tiles they require.  S

Clash of Cultures

I explained this game as a streamlined Sid Meier's Civilization the Board Game to a friend recently and compared it to how Eclipse streamlines Twilight Imperium.  Each are great games in their own ways, with Clash of Cultures playing faster than Civilization, and having a different 'feel' than Civilization but missing some of the multiple routes to victory and flexibility Civilization offers.  Overall, a very, very good game and one I'll definitely add to my own collection for sure.

Flash Point: Fire Rescue

I've now played most of the major co-operatives and Flash Point is my no.2 so far after Ghost Stories.  Where Ghost Stories does well at both ratcheting up the tension and sudden bursts of 'oh god', Flash Point mostly works on the 'It's OK, it's OK, Oh God!' method of board hate.  The explosions caused by the fire are a bit too random I find to create a good sense of dread, yet you do worry especially when there's a lot of fire and a low number of damage markers left.  I do like the fact that you can play up to 6 players though, something that Ghost Stories just can't do.  It's probably a game to be added to my collection for lighter game groups that I visit.  It also seems to give the entire 'alpha gamer' issue a miss by keeping the entire gameplay / choices obvious enough that there really isn't a huge amount to discuss / fight over - and when there is, the choices can often be equally as good (do I go here to fight these big fires with everyone else or do I stay here to keep control of the minor fire here in case it flares up?)

Working In The Business

When you work in the business, you do the work that is needed to keep the business running on a daily basis.  In our case that means shipping out orders, answering customer e-mails, doing marketing and the like.  Quite often, the work that you do 'in the business' is the same from day-to-day.  If no one does this, you don't have a business.

Working On The Business

Working on the business often means developing processes, but can also mean developing the vision and strategy for the business in the future.   It means putting in writing all the things you are doing, and then looking at those things to figure out a better or more efficient way of doing it.  Sometimes, it's less efficient but more thorough - like our shipping process.  We've progressed from a single shipper doing a single check to multiple shippers doing multiple checks at different points in the shipping process.  It's driven our shipping error rate down from 2 to 3% per shipment to around 1% at worst.

The Issue

The biggest problem though is finding the time.  It's really, really hard to do this because you are often so busy working on the business that finding the time and mental energy requires creating space.  That space often means a decline in profit (or personal time) because someone still needs to work in the business.

It's even worst when you realize that often, the people you hired aren't going to be as good as you.  Or as dedicated.  I can still often do more work, more efficiently than most of my staff - the general numbers are anywhere between a 10 - 20% decline in efficiency.  This can grate.  In fact, it does grate on your nerves as you wonder why you are paying these people your hard earned money to do less.

Except if you keep thinking like that, you end up burnt out, doing everything and wondering why you can never keep up.  Why as you grow larger, things just get harder and harder.  Quality suffers, you burn out and somehow there's just never enough time.  Learning to build better processes and work on the business is a hard, hard thing to do - but if you don't, the business and eventually your customers suffer.

The Caveat

As I've mentioned before, there is a choice to grow or stay small.  Some companies, some individuals decide to stay small.  And a lot of these concepts of 'working in the business' or 'on the business' is something that only really matters if you want to grow (or have hit a certain size).  Sometimes, staying small is the right choice.

The simple answer? We had outgrown the old location and needed a larger spcae.  This is easily seen by the number of days it took to set-up.  Our last move 2 1/3 years ago took us 2 days with 3 helpers on day 1 and myself on day 2.  This office move took 4 days, with up to 9 helpers on day 1 and varying numbers for the next 3 days (minimum 5 of us!).  So, the amount of work needed to move product out of the old location, move it into the new location, set-up new shelves, build new shelves, etc was significantly higher.

We had built out the old space so tightly that there really was no wasted space left - we figured we could (maybe) squeeze in another 2 shelves before we hit full capacity.  If we wanted to grow, we had to move.

Grow or Stay?

From an outside perspective, the easy answer is grow.  After all, a bigger space means more stock, more product, more sales.  More money right?

Not always.  In fact, during the growth stage it means less money.  How much less depends on how aggressive your growth targets are (and how long your lease is!).  The additional space cost, the set-up cost, the downtime, all of it are expenses.  It's nice to grow, but with growth comes additional expenses.   Your fixed expenses balloon and you  now have to make more money to cover them before you can get back to your previous levels of profitability.

There's also another advantage of staying - you force yourself to get more streamlined and efficient.  If you only have so much space, you learn to get creative about storage.  You watch your inventory like a hawk and move dead product out faster because you need the space for product that still sells.  With more space, with higher growth, you can let things like that slide.

For us though (okay, me); the decision to stay still or grow is relatively easy.  I have long-term goals and those don't work for where we are; so grow it is.

The Move

I'm not going to post much about the move beyond to say that it was murderous and I made a major mistake by underestimating exactly how much work was involved.  We had grown in our old space so well that when we actually made the move, I had not realised exactly how much we had grown - and the logarithmic increase in work setting up the space meant.

All That Space

So now what? If you look at the photos you might see a huge expanse of free space in the back of the warehouse and even in the office.

Obviously, Starlit is going to continue growing.  We have plans to expand our miniature and miniature accessories further.  I am considering going 'deeper' on popular games so that we do not stock-out as often.  There's this entire CCG craze that we are missing (and might continue to miss on purpose).

We also have plans to grow in another direction... but that announcement is going to have to wait :)