That's not entirely true. Investing in "something we don't already have" is actually more risky than you would think. Perhaps there's a reason why we don't already have it. Usually, just about any idea you come up with, someone else has already had it..

Competition can be a great thing, actually. I've been thinking about restaurant franchises a lot lately, and the opportunity to make a lot of money in a place like this. In a sense, that would be venturing into the territory you're referring to (something we don't already have), but it wouldn't necessarily have to be confined to that. I mean, hell, look at how packed Red Lobster on Franklin Road is on any given evening. I hate the fucking place, but apparently other people don't. Another Red Lobster in the area could potentially be VERY successful! People wait in line at that location for quite some time to be seated, and keep coming back!

I've also been wanting to get into the hotel industry. Think about it.... almost all of the hotels between Roanoke and WYTHEVILLE are usually booked up completely due to the MARTINSVILLE RACES!!! Only taking Roanoke into consideration, the race track is an hour away! Now think about how many hotels are between Martinsville and Wytheville, several hours away. Lots! They're all getting business due to something completely unrelated, and lots of it! They don't have to advertise for it.. they don't have to do anything! People come to them! On top of that, they raise their prices and people STILL come to them! It's a win win situation when things like that come around. It's not just Nascar, but you get the idea. If you were able to open a nice hotel at the beach, you've got people like myself spending $700 on a room for a couple of nights. In Roanoke, that would easily pay the rent for a MONTH at most moderately priced apartments here, but you've got people willing to pay that much for a few days on the oceanfront at the beach. I took my girlfriend to Myrtle in August (I think) and we got a relatively nice oceanfront room. If I recall correctly, I paid somewhere in the ballpark of $700 for the room alone for two nights. We left here late Thursday when she got off of work, and I drove all through the night. I thought I would be able to find a place to stay when we got down there instead of booking online, but I found out there were no vacancies anywhere once we got there. Drove around until the sun started coming out! Finally found a place that told me they might have a room but they wouldn't be sure until 8AM. To give you an idea, we left Roanoke at 9PM. We had nowhere to go.. Virtually nowhere was open.. No place to stay until 8AM, and that wasn't even a guarantee. I drive, and drive, and drive, and drive. Finally, 8AM comes around. I call, and she said she had good news and she managed to bump me into someones room that had just cancelled.. but that we couldn't check in until noon. Fuck! Drove around for 4 more hours. After that, I was happy to pay $700 for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday morning.

See what I mean? Think about it.. Lets say a decent hotel has 400+ rooms, and it's peak season. Prices are up, rooms are booked.. Hotel is full! Lets say, just for the sake of making a good round number, that it's $1000 for a week (or whatever other length of time). If there are 400 rooms, and every single one of them is paying $1000 for that length of time, the fucking hotel just made $400,000. Sure, the property is expensive. Sure, they have lots of employees to pay.. Sure, there are all these other expenses, but FUCK! $400,000 for a week or LESS in many circumstances? That's a business I definitely want to be in!