June 11th, 2007

The New York City Profit Calculator

New York Magazine has a fascinating feature in today’s issue: The Profit Calculator. It covers a cross-section of New York City businesses and studies how they make their money. Chock full of interesting little details, such as

  • For a dollar store, it’s all about turnover. One store can sell a trailer of cookies (162,000 cookies) in four days.
  • For a copy shop, walk-in customers are a negligible percentage of business.
  • For a diner, a large menu is a liability.
  • Each visitor to the Museum of Modern Art costs about $50. The $20 suggested donation doesn’t even cover security and utilities.

Author

Raymond has been involved in the evolution of Windows for more than 30 years. In 2003, he began a Web site known as The Old New Thing which has grown in popularity far beyond his wildest imagination, a development which still gives him the heebie-jeebies. The Web site spawned a book, coincidentally also titled The Old New Thing (Addison Wesley 2007). He occasionally appears on the Windows Dev Docs Twitter account to tell stories which convey no useful information.

0 comments

Discussion are closed.