Have you ever had a friend look at a business and randomly throw out numbers that made it seem like that business owner must be making serious bank? We’ve experienced that many times, and know from conversations with operators and owners in those industries that their real profitability is often far, far less. The reason is often that there are unique challenges to profitability in almost every industry and so we wanted to create a space for entrepreneurs from across industries and markets to discuss the challenges to profitability in their industries.

Ryan Moy

The biggest challenge is adjusting to inflation and the rise in operating costs. When costs of product double but the brand of the product that you are serving, which is value for the quality of food, makes it tough to increase prices to match to the cost that we are getting it for. At the end of the day we are just shooting to break even and not take advantage of the customer when we have to increase prices. Read more>>

Hao Yan

I believe many directors, like me, enter the industry with a romantic vision, thinking that their unique perspective on film will be enough to pay the rent or that if they had the chance to direct their own movie, it would definitely be a hit. However, the reality is that the market often dictates whether this project is on or not. On one hand, there is a need to please the market and the audience, while on the other hand, there is a desire to maximize the display of one’s uniqueness as an artist. In some short series I’ve been working on, there were conflicts between directors and producers for similar reasons. Read more>>

Lacy Allen

Running a restaurant in the middle of nowhere has so many limitations. Staffing is challenging, sourcing ingredients and food can be challenging and providing quality of food at a decent price while also making a profit is a huge challenge. We have seen a lot of price increases in the last 2 years in our food costs and we’ve had to increase our prices to adjust accordingly.  Read more>>

Britt Dumonceaux

Photography is a very unique industry in that much if not most of it is made up of solo entrepreneurs — I’m not sure I can think of another industry that is quite like it in that way! And that presents a rather strange challenge for us because we are truly just single, tiny individuals, trying to navigate the world of business with whatever bag of feelings and past experiences we each carry. And that’s usually a pretty heavy bag, to be honest! Read more>>

M. S. Spencer

Very few writers can actually live off their royalties. The old line publishers—if they publish anything that isn’t by a celebrity—give a tiny portion of the cover price in royalties to the creator. Independent, traditional publishers like mine are more generous, with royalties as high as 40% of the cover price for e-books. However, with e-books you are limited to online sales and thus don’t have the browsing feature of bookstores. Authors make up for this with a high social media presence, participation in book signings and other events, or individual contracts with small businesses to display books for a share of sales. Read more>>

Emma Coffman

Lately, agriculture has been romanticized in social media, movies, and TV shows, inspiring many to grow their own food, homestead, or start hobby farms. While this renewed interest is wonderful, it’s important to remember why many people left the agriculture industry in the first place. Decades ago, nearly everyone had a farm or ranch, but rising input costs and stagnant sale prices quickly made it difficult to sustain. Today, this challenge persists, with input costs so high that many operations are no longer viable. Read more>>