i don't see that they're offering any super special bargains or unique products... think bikes direct, or superb.

but what they do seem to offer is kindness and customer-centered business model. treating each individual customer as just that, an individual, will go far and keep people coming to your doors as long as you don't mess up any other part of the business.

jdg and i went around to a lot of places today and he mentioned, and i agreed, that some stores and industries are simple enough that if you treat people right and do a good job across the board it's hard to **** it up.

and i kind of agree that usually what happens with places that suck or go under is they will try to stand apart and accel in one area, they'll try to specialize in this one thing that they think no one else does(in this case, build people very custom bikes to fit their tastes and obviously, budgets) and they focus so primarily on the one thing they think will set them apart, that it becomes the one thing that makes them fail, sometimes hard, in one or many other core, basic characteristics of running a business successfully. maybe it's keeping a happy workforce or responsibly handling the books and finances or marketing your services to the right customer base or keeping a quality product that evolves with customer's standards and expectations...

and it can be really hard to do that, where as if you were to not try to set yourself apart and just focus on making everything run right it's pretty hard to ignore industry wide standards that successful businesses ALL do unless you just never look at what it takes to do something successfully.

and i have no experience doing this so maybe i'm way off base, and what i have to say is next to meaningless because obvsiously if you accel at nothing you have no brand and no reason for people to choose you over your competitor... but for the most part i get the feeling that people just too often get myopic and narrowminded about their one obsession or focus, and that's when fails happen.

and with this particular store, i don't see that they're doing that. sure, it looks like they're focusing themselves on this 'inverted bike shop' concept and setting themselves apart, maybe even to excess. but it doesn't seem like they're forgetting any of the basics yet either, so i don't have any reason to think they're not going to continue to do well.

now all they have to do is offer an njs style lugged track frame for a low prices and they'll make me happy too.