I am in my early fourties, married and have been self employed since I was 20. I have owned business in food service and current own a specialty retail shop. I am not wealthy, in fact you could say i live paycheck to paycheck.  At times i struggle to pay the bills. So why do it? Why not give it up and get a job? The reason is simple; Im really that happy! I love my work.

I am fortunate to have 3 great employees. They have been working for me for 12, 9 and 4 years. It is because of these guys that i can live the lifestyle i choose.  Maybe I got lucky. Maybe I just have an eye for good people. I honestly don’t know.

My current retail store I would consider a specialty retail store. We service a very niche market we refer to as tabletop gaming. We sell miniature war games,  collectable card games, role playing games and board games.  We have table and chairs set up in an area where we organize tournaments and play of the products we sell(known in our industry as in-store gaming).  While some of things we do, might not cross over into other types of retail stores, im guessing a lot of things will.

We constantly struggle with credit card processing. Hidden fees, undisclosed rate changes and generally bad service. We are under constant attack from big online discounters like Amazon.com, not that all online sales are bad. We have an online store for the products we sell. But we also have to make money and places like amazon.com  can hurt us with predatory pricing, if they choose.

We are always on the lookout for new things we can try. Diversification seems to apply to almost every business. While I probably wont be selling bread, milk and eggs anytime soon I’m always on the hunt for something we can add that will help us grow.