Failure (Part 1)

McDonald’s is the world’s most successful franchise.  98% of all new restaurants will be successful.  This is touted during their franchise sales pitch, especially when you consider some of the considerable and expensive hoops that McDonald’s corporate require from every applicant for a franchise.  When you consider that 80% of all new businesses will fail in the first five (5) years of existence, seeing an opportunity to virtually not fail is highly attractive to those wishing to start a business.

We who run bots are not all that different.  We run our own online store, but MTGO Library is the heart and soul of our franchise business. 

These two thoughts kept swirling in my head while I was trying in vain to explain what I do to an acquaintance of mine who has a very annoying trait: he is exceedingly negative.  I don’t mean legitimate concerns and questions one has, but of the more annoying and pessimistic variety.  He would emotionally declare that if he ran a bot, he’d never make a trade.  That if  he bid on a collection of cards on Ebay, he’d overpay and wouldn’t be able to sell the cards at cost, much less at a profit.  Then he’d be forced to sell those same cards at fire sale prices.  If you think this was annoying, try listening to this for about fifteen (15) minutes.

But this negative rant also got me thinking about businesses.  They all tout the successes of businesses and never even mention the prospects of failure.  Again, we’re not all that different.  This series will look at how bots can fail and in so doing, make certain we do not emulate those mistakes.