MBA Project - Fish related Please Read

[Iriejedi]

Hi Fellow Fish Lovers.

I'm in my last quarter of an MBA program and it is time for the Business Development Plan class. I would greatly appreciate some honest answers about what you would pay for a fish tank if all you had to do was look at it, and the care, shopping, set up was done by someone else. Especially if you run a business or office - but home care is a valid area of my research.

Assume tank size if 100 gallon and includes a basic starter fish and coral package. Additional Fish, corals etc are ordered seperately and nominal prices at set up time (ie $5 per fish or $20 per coral - genrally only hardy species - in a 'catalog') -

Now consider:
What would you pay per week for care of a tank?

Option A - you sign a 12 month lease (rent a tank with weekly care). Assume astetically pleasing design


Option B - you design custom tank and pay 50% of cost for design, 12 month contract and at termination of contract you pay other 50% of original cost or give up tank position to 'the firm'.

Option C - you already own tank and just want weekly care.


I would greatly appreciate your opinions for each of the options.

When considering what you would pay, assume your personal income is not strapped and that your business is doing well enough to add a luxury item like a fish tank with personal care.

Thank you in advance!

George

 

[RazerCorals]

Irie, here is what I would suggest. I've done some large tanks with price tags for $10,000 for setup.

Your job is to setup the tank and care for it. The customer has somewhat of a say as to what goes in there. Basically, if it's a reef, don't introduce anything non-reef safe etc.

Generally you can charge $50-100 and hour, with abuot $55-60 being the industry average. Everything that goes into the tank they pay for. For example, I would sell them wholesale fish and corals, and take my 10%-20% mark-up. So technically everything in the tank they owned, but you were not 100% liable for an inhabitant if it died.

Also make sure you consider insurance, although maybe aquarium accidents can be claimed as "plumbing failure" if it's hooked up to an ro.di unit. Also stupid children will throw pennies in your tank causing everything to die. If you can avoid front access, do so. In wall stands are more fun.

Another important aspect of the customer owning everything is they've paid for it, and will want to take care of it. Also when they decide they no longer want an aquarium you can buy everything back for super cheap.

Hope this helps. I'm also a entrepreneur major at the University of St. Thomas if you've heard of our school.

 

[Yarr]

You woudl also need to factor in cost of comsumables. salt.. test equipment, whatever.... It is an interesting game and one i wouldnt go into without doing some pretty major homework. Also the average hobbyist usually has a fair bit of knowledge and that means that the tradesman needs to have a very vasy and broad knowledge of everything that the customer coudl possible ask without bullsh#$ing them.

 

[gussy]

I think you will make more getting an MBA job...not as fun though.

 

[mps9506]

I'll throw in my experience as well. Pretty similar to Razer.
SW tanks I charge anywhere from $45-$60 and hour depending on location and type of tank (fish only, reef etc.) FW I charge anywhere from $35-$60/hour again depending on tank type (cheapest being african cichlids, going up in price with plant tanks and discus tanks). Then I charge for salt, charge wholesale +20% on fish or corals for SW. Some tanks I actually don't charge for fish, because I rotate them out so the fish belong to me, I just bring them back to the store to sell and put new fish in the customers tank. It depends on what the customer wants to do.
Insurance is vital in the buisness. I've seen all kinds of freak stuff happen to people in the buisness. The most interesting was when one of my competitors (and friend) had a customers VHO setup (endcap) catch on fire. Did a lot of damage, he would have been out of buisness if not for insurance.

 

[Witfull]

a long long time ago, in a fishtank far away---i used to do maintanence....had to stop. people with out the knowedge or desire to learn would screw things up by "helping me" between visits and then complain and blah blah when things went wrong. for example, i still remember being called for a pump grinding noise. i go in and there is so much krill in the tank that it blocked the overflows. (had to have been an entire 16 oz block) no water getting into the sump....pump was fried....and guess who was blamed,,,my faulty set up,,,,LOL

the thing i loved most was doing surprise set ups. especially for kids. i used to get the parents to tane the kids to chucky cheese and party, while they were chinking quarters into all the games, i was at the house setting up a 10-20g freshie tank in there room or a few times bigger tanks for "bigger kids" (dads). once i was done,,,,i was done and the learning was on them.