0$ Chicken Coop

The 0$ Chicken Coop

Yesterday I met with a guy who sold a table saw to my roommate's brother. I was interested in his CNC machine, which he built himself. He lived several blocks from campus, in an area that was populated by small houses in regards to apartment complexes. The residents of these houses appeared to be graduates that had not yet married, but who hadn't continued on to grad school or left Provo in pursuit of work. Most of them appeared to be miniature Entrepreneurs, DIY's ( Do-it-yourself-'s) running out of home businesses from their small houses or barns turned into shops.

My contact also was running a business out of his barn shop. His barn was equipped with saws and routers and a brick kiln as well as his CNC machine. There were also several wooden electric guitar bodies scattered around which they had milled out with the CNC.

After asking a few questions about the machine another guy walked in and asked us if we could help him move his chicken coop. He needed several people to lift it so I offered to help as well.

We all hopped into the bed of his small red truck and drove to his house. In the back was his chicken coop with about 5 chickens living in it. He proceeded to hand us chickens and we would stick them in the coop. At one point of our moving preparations he looked at me and said, " This is a 0$ chicken coop! Made completely out of scrap material!"

We all grabbed corners of the coop and set it sideways on his truck, it didn't fit in the bed itself, and even sideways it left two of us standing on the tail gate which he left down, with the coop protruding about 2 1/2 feet out of both sides of the truck. The wait of the coop was so much that the back wheels looked like they were in danger, and that was before we hopped onto the gate.

We drove several blocks around Provo, finally deciding that the best place to put the coop was in front of my contacts house in a neighbors old garden. That's where I took the picture.

The difference..

I was intrigued by the ambition of these people. They were applying the value for value trade over and over again, and as a result were having a certain amount of success, but they definitely weren't the multi-millionaire that I had learned the principle from. What made the difference?

I believe the solution lies in their target market. To make a million dollars, you will either have to provide something that one million people will think is worth trading a dollar for, or that one person is willing to trade a million dollars for, or anything in between. The electric guitar market is completely saturated, even for custom guitars.

It intrigues me that the way then to make money is to find what people value and then to provide it to them. Or in other words, service.