Thread by @mijustin

Good businesses have margin.

Profit margin, yes.

But also margin for your time, your emotional and physical health, your relationships, your sanity, and your integrity.

Low-margin work eventually leads to ruin. The margins rarely get better; the sunk costs get worse.

If you’re employed by a “low-margin” business, do everything you can to get out.

Your boss will download their anxiety, lack of health, and mania on to you.

They’ll make YOU feel the pressure THEY feel.

Things won’t get better. Get out as soon as you can.

An example from my life:

In my early 20s I opened a skateboard/snowboard shop. It was low-margin everything:

- low markup on the products we sold
- high complexity (ordering, employees, inventory)
- high risk
- high stress (theft, capital)
- long hours, low pay (as an owner!)

One thing you’ll notice with low-margin businesses: you’re always “adding more” hoping it will increase your margins.

At the skateboard shop we added a mini-ramp, did events, published a magazine, ran contests, and started doing bike repairs.

“Throwing good effort after bad.”

Just found this, and it relates so much to this thread:

“Adding more and more layers to a system intended to avert disaster often makes catastrophe all the more likely.”

99percentinvisible.org/episode/cautio…