The Life Cycle of Small Businesses
Buch Bär and Baby Bear bid farewell to the warehouse at Washington Book Distributors. An end of an era, and the beginning of something new as well.
The term “life cycle” often evokes memories of our days in biology class learning about tadpoles and frogs, with colorful charts on the walls depicting birth, growth, and ultimately death as a part of a grand pattern that all living things must inevitably follow. Indeed, this paradigm is so omnipresent in our world that we tend to use the term for all things with a beginning, a middle, and an end. While the life cycle of a frog doesn’t play much of a role in our day to day lives (unless you’re a herpetologist!), the life cycles of small businesses are far more impactful on how we work and receive the products and services we love. Let’s delve into how this process unfolds with a story of two close-to-home examples: our humble beginnings and growth here at Edgington Studio, as well as the lengthy life and well-earned retirement with honors of Washington Book Distributors.
We here at Edgington Studio are near the beginning of this business life cycle. From noteworthy idea to full-fledged concept, in June we explored an important element that all hypothetical businesses must ask themselves before getting serious about things: what is our value proposition? What is it we can bring to customers and the marketplace that can improve their lives and make us unique? Our answer: the Studio meets the needs of those who desire American-made sewn goods produced on a contract basis with top-notch quality, reasonable production times, and affordable shipping. This immediately became our mission statement and Edgington Studio was born. Well, if we’re being technical, it was the paperwork we filed with the State of West Virginia that resulted in us being “born”, though that’s not quite as romantic of a beginning, is it? With the legalities out of the way, we set out to find a great workspace for us to make our products. Through a friend of the family, we found an excellent nearby space to rent which met all of our needs and has become like a second home to us since we moved in in July. We immediately set out to make our way in the world, seeking out clients, making samples, recruiting contractors, and doing everything we could to live our mission statement and perform the most important activity a sewn goods company can possibly do: sew, sew, and sew some more! As mentioned in previous blog posts, we could not have done this without the help of some great friends, family, and local businesses who liked our idea and wanted us to succeed. As we continue to grow and months pass by, we are transitioning from a fledgling company to an established local business. Tadpole phase complete!
While the Studio’s future is unwritten, the history of Washington Book Distributors is a storied one full of overcome challenges and episodes of superhuman strength its owners possessed to survive and thrive in the book industry (which itself is nearing the end of its life cycle). Started in 1992, WBD capitalized on the growth of the DC area’s many retail stores, hotel gift shops, and museums by positioning itself as one of the best (and only) places to source all the various regionally-themed books the stores needed for their ever-growing throngs of visitors and customers. WBD’s owners started out lean both in money and manpower, taking only the loans they absolutely required to produce the income stream needed to grow independently from there, and “employing” family members to get things off to an affordable start until they could hire full-time staff. As their client base increased, they took on employees and grew the business. In a few short years, they had turned an idea into a business with millions of dollars in annual sales. At one point, they even had a publishing company subsidiary, Lift Hill Press, to publish a well-regarded book about the many private school options in the DC region. Growth was taking place, and it helped them to not only provide for their family, but also those of their employees.
Through no fault of their own, the world later changed around them: the advent of e-readers, Amazon.com, ever-worsening publishing industry quality control standards, and a downtick in the popularity of physical books all conspired to do great harm to the many stores they served, which in turn hurt their sales. These sweeping changes brought down the titans of the book industry, with huge retailers like Crown Books and Borders closing their doors forever. Despite these losses and the lesser known (though equally important) closures of many smaller companies, Washington Book Distributors soldiered on, and managed to add even more value to their offerings and expand their clientele by purchasing another publication firm. This breathed fresh life into the company, and they fought tooth and nail to keep existing accounts happy, find new customers to reach out to, and always maintain good communication through well-written monthly mailings. This approach and their tireless efforts sustained them for many years. However, the wounds inflicted by the sands of time and the seas of change were mortal, and their business that had started out with just two people and evolved to have a number of employees was reduced to those same two hardworking individuals once again. The day came when those two founders, my parents, decided that their mission had been accomplished and it was time to bring things to a gradual close. On December 31st 2020, Washington Book Distributors closed its doors for the last time, having served its customers with pride and distinction for 28 fruitful and memorable years. They were not haphazard casualties of a virus like many other businesses; indeed, this eventual closure had been planned for several years. Instead, they were the last bastion of the traditional way that the book industry served the public for the past century. While their closure came with mixed feelings, they left with their heads held high, knowing the incredible difference they made in the lives of their employees, their clients, and the millions of men, women, and children who read a book over the last three decades that was provided to them courtesy of WBD. At its heart, the business was built on the firmest foundation of all: the love of reading books. While the exact method of their enjoyment will change so long as technology continues to move forward, that love for reading will endure, and in a small way, so will WBD and its tireless owners.
Like a brilliant supernova gives birth to a nursery of stars, the end of WBD has ushered in new small businesses of its own. The process of selling off unneeded furniture from the company’s warehouse became a surprisingly profitable side business in itself, and the recent pivot to online sales for liquidating remaining inventory picked up significantly as the holidays brought gift buyers in search of the perfect present. As I write this, I am sitting in a chair in Edgington Studio that was gifted to us by WBD, so their legacy and generosity continue to sustain other people and companies as time goes on. And so we return to the beginning, seeing that the end of one thing often means the birth of another, and the life cycle of business continues. As the owners of Washington Book Distributors prepare to settle into a well-deserved retirement and we at Edgington Studio strap ourselves in for the wild ride that is business ownership, we salute all those who support, cheer on, or own small businesses in every part of the cycle. For all of us tadpoles and frogs, we’re only here for a short time, so we should strive to make it a good time and support those who walk alongside us on this journey. Enjoy the trip.
