FSB Small Business
August 20, 2008, 9:49 am

Joy in Mudville

MLB teams can’t get enough of Lena Blackburne’s secret substance. Do you have a secret product? What are the challenges of keeping copycats away?

Categories:   marketing, running a business
Your Answers
From Sal Heemwin, Philadelphia, PA

If you have “the MLB teams” providing you with $20K/year of business, it sounds like you have saturated the market. If there is no more market, no-one would bother for such a smallish sum. Now if it were $2M, you might have to worry about people surveilling you, etc. Even then, of course the competition would have to prove to prospective customers that their mud is equal or better. (It is probably just mud anyway, but baseball players being a superstitious lot, the “placebo” effect runs king :-) )

Posted By Sal Heemwin, Philadelphia, PA : August 26, 2008 12:29 am
From Colin, Halifax, Nova Scotia Canda

S. Rys should get over him/herself. This is no different than a kid going to a fishing hole and catching a few fish. Do you pick flowers from the side of the highway when you see some pretty ones? How about taking shells or smooth rocks from the beach to decorate your aquarium?
Time to get a hobby!

Posted By Colin, Halifax, Nova Scotia Canda : August 25, 2008 1:09 pm
From S. Rys Austin TX

If this “rubbing mud,” is harvested from public land….then you, my dear sir, are at best a thief.

You should be compensating the commonwheal for the substance you are both packing away illegally and “keeping secret.”

I respect your business – and admit that $20K a year isn’t so much – but those dollars should be repatriated in fraction to the public owners of the land.

Posted By S. Rys Austin TX : August 21, 2008 4:42 pm
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