Breaking Down Business Models from Beatdown Videos
While other hustle bloggers spend their energy copying, pasting embedded code from WorldStarHipHop rap hustle videos to “motivate” their audience, we here at Dream and Hustle will be showing some revealing business models in these beatdown videos posted on that web site. This article is going to focus on beatdown videos and the business setup around them and help us get insight on doing business in the hood.
Detroit Deli
This video based in Detroit showed two idiots getting themselves cornered by a whole group of cats getting beat down inside of a deli. Now, if you are getting ganged up on, the first thing you don’t do is back yourself into a corner. Another part of this video is I’m noticing that these little cats can’t throw blows, they just swinging their arms and legs like they in the 3rd grade and ish. All I got to say is these cats better not get into a fight at the NCO club – they will go straight from NCO to ICU because military cats will show their lightweight behind how put a real beatdown on somebody.
Another thing if you watch the video is keep in mind this is Detroit and calling the police is not really that much of a rescue mission. I have the feeling in Detroit, you are on your own in situations like this. But here is the thing I notice is the plexiglass. Do you notice the workers are behind a security plexiglass just watching cats fight it out?
The one thing I noticed about hood business that use plexiglass that even though they protecting themselves, the cats outside tend to act like fools and have no respect for the business. What gets me is the fact that someone would even bother to put up plexiglass to run a business. If you are that insecure, then why even open a business in that community? The answer is, these entrepreneurs probably expect to take money from the community and have no contact with the community they do business in.
A lot of plexiglass-based fast food joints tend to go out of business because they locked themselves into a container and when they do that, you see kids who treat that outside waiting area as their stomping ground. I saw this over and over again as I was growing up in the hood where cat get shot, beat down, robbed all in front of that plexiglass because the thugs know the business owner won’t step outside that plexiglass. And that business own customer is being victimized and they just look on.
I personally do not support or patronage plexiglass-based businesses in the hood – if someone got to do that plexiglass stuff because they scared of being robbed or attacked, then they shouldn’t open up a business in the hood. The real issue is these plexiglass businesses are not people who live in the community. If people know the business owner who live in the community and hire in the community, they won’t be have this kind of crap going on.
Sac-Town Smackdown
This beatdown video is a little different because what I’m seeing in this video is the type of businesses we are seeing in the background. This video has a guy first standing in front of a coffee café shop.
If you look at the shop, it appears they have everything right from the LED signs, the posters and the price displayed and all that other good presentation a business should have. This coffee business is the kind of business someone created so they can serve the local community but they have to deal with some violence going on outside.
Then on the second part, we see a well-designed beauty supply store on the other side of this strip mall with the bigger than life vinyl posters. But if the knuckleheads are loitering and out of control, then that will cause customers to stop shopping there, the business lose money and lay off people who needed that job and the whole community suffers because of these few knuckleheads.
The takeaway here is no matter how well we do our business, if we do not put the knuckleheads in check, the businesses will suffer. Doing the math, I do not understand why the Black community tolerates a few knuckleheads who can destroy millions of dollars in economic empowerment for everybody. This is definitely an issue that has to be addressed and I will address that in further security articles.
A-Town Jacked Up Business
This video has taken a new life of its own throughout mainstream media due to the hate-based nature of the attackers. I saw a million things wrong with this video and the first thing is the guy who got jumped was not aware of his surroundings. If you look at the video, he is walking and talking on his cell phone as he come out of the store and not paying attention to all those brothas around him. If you are from the hood, you would have saw something wrong the minute you stepped outside of the store.
This is the surveillance video above and notice how the cats are creeping up on the corner. I wrote a previous article about the need for smart cameras that can detect multiple people showing up on a corner and also do face recognition. This video is a perfect example of the missing billion dollar void of creating smart cameras that can better track these kinds of clowns and see them a mile away.
Looking at this snapshot, a smart camera would have definitely picked up a bunch of “blobs” moving on this corner and gave an alert that something was about to go down. The technology is there and I already written up on how to setup smart cameras so let’s hope someone is convinced this is a worthwhile venture to pursue for security in the hood.
However this corner store or whatever it is almost hilarious! At first glance you think it’s a corner store but you start looking at the signs and it says something about chicken wings, New York style and on the side of the building it has another sign that says Laundromat in the back and then you see cats coming out with bags in their hands. What the heck is this place, a fried-chicken-laundro-corner store?
If you look at the surrounding neighborhood, it is not a lot business or commercial zone in this community. So it looks like this one store just took all of the community business models and stuffed it into one building. But is this a good business model for the hood, just one building?
The thing I have a problem with this corner store business model is how all of the eggs are stuffed in one basket. There are no other forms of businesses around and I seen a few corner spots. People like me who from up North who come to this community become bewildered because this Southwest Atlanta part is not designed or got the “bones” to be a bad neighborhood and can be very secure if cats want to.
The only reason we can think why this Southeast/Southwest area of Atlanta is because the city overall is blatantly ignoring economic development in this community and the local politicians are bread blocking their own people in this community. The real question is let’s find out who own this fried-chicken-laundro-corner store where the beatdown occur and I bet you will find the true cat breadblocking this part of Atlanta from becoming economically developed. Atlanta has a lot of bread blocking cats who need to be badly indoctrinated into the repercussions of messing with another person hustle.
The Takeaway on these Business Models
When we launch businesses in the hood, it is the most obvious aspect that security has to be addressed on a real level. Throwing up plexiglass is not security and it causes the customers to revolt and feel alienated and any business that put up plexiglass should be ran out of business. On other videos, you see people congregating doing everything except doing business. I don’t understand that, especially in Atlanta where you can carry conceal, taunt these punks and drop cats legally if they come at you.
But the truth overall is businesses in the hood have to be open and transparent and very secure at the same time. But most important is the creation of a cluster, the creation of an association where merchants can meet up and discuss the issues they facing and create a security framework, including smart cameras to make the area a place for customers to shop and do business and feel comfortable to come back. Those are the things these beatdown videos are teaching us about doing business in the hood.
I think about this everytime I go to Uncle Remus on Madison and Central. The lobby is so small but the lines is almost always packed. There is just a very small window for ordering and a door for employees to enter through. The whole door thing doesn’t make since to me because if someone really wanted to get back there they could just wait til shift change(which is so obvious customers know not to bother ordering during that time) and bombard their way in. It feels very impersonal which is why I order and then sit in the car until I think it is ready. At this point they are aware their customers aren’t going anywhere so change is unlikely. I haven’t really experienced anything that could cause alarm but I assume they have because of the set up.
I would say most of the businesses I grew up around with the plexiglass are still in operation today by the same people. There is less violence in that area though. One thing is what can be done to stop this outside if you don’t really want to be a victim or regularly defend yourself against these people. These knuckleheads video taped this just to show themselves being destructive and I can’t understand why one would be so stupid as to do this and post it online.