iekobrid
Authorized XSr Dealer
006 said:Well, beleive me, I would LOVE to go into a partnership with Bobby. He's VERY good at business stuff. And he's a really good engineer too. He really knows how to make literally anything sound good. My problem with that though is that right now he wants to stay in this building. I would want two suites, so we could be recording two bands at the same time. Doubling the income. I mean...if we're both recording bands at the same time in two seperate suites, we'll double the income of the studio. Right? Plus our booking would be much more relaxed and easier to do, to me anyway, since we wouldn't have to tell bands "well, the next two weeks are booked up", instead, we could be like "ok, which engineer do you want, Mike or Bobby?" and base booking around that instead. We're both really good at what we do, we blow the competition out of the water with our production quality, and these are studios with 3 and 4 times the amount of money dumped into the equipment than we have. I think we would kill the competition if we had two suites.
Hmm....
Obviously I don't know what Bobby's credit situation is (or yours, for that matter), but if I were a loan officer, I would be far less likely to approve a loan if it were just for you to open your own new independent business than if it were for the you to buy in as co-owner of a chain of parallel locations of the same business. Especially if you make all the points you made above.
Were you to open your own shop, it would have roughly the same advantages and disadvantages of the one that currently employs you, plus create new and/or increased disadvantages for both business. Here are the pros and cons of the options on the table:
#1 - Status quo
PROS
* 2 of the best engineers in town
* [at least] 1 really good business manager
* established name / reputation
* established location
CONS
* limited physical facility = limited booking capacity = potential clients lost to competitors of inferior quality
#2 - Going solo
PROS
* 1 of the best engineers in town
CONS
* start up costs
* untested business manager
* unestablished name (the studio itself, not you personally)
* limited physical facility = limited booking capacity = potential clients lost to competitors of inferior quality ~AND~ competitors of equal quality (Bobby)
#3 - Looney Bin West
PROS
* 2 of the best engineers in town
* [at least] 1 really good business manager
* established name / reputation
* established location (sharing clients with the new location)
* increased physical facility = increased booking capacity = blowing away the competition (instead of increasing the competition)
CONS
* start up costs
So instead of trying to talk Bobby into a wholesale move to a new two-suite location, maybe you see if he's interested in co-owning a pair of one-suite locations? Unless, you know, he's already completely sick of hearing about it.