On the Verge of Gettin' It On...

In his excellent "The Technium" blog, Kevin Kelly posits a hypothetical threshold of "1,000 true fans" an artist would need to make a living while working their chosen craft (http://www.kk.org/thetechnium/archives/2008/03/1000_true_fans.php).

The biz model Kelly suggests strikes me as fundamentally similar to the manner Community Acupuncturists approach their clinics; that is maintaining financial partnerships with many 'modest-paying', appreciative 'fans' rather than a scant number of higher-paying ones.

Kelly writes, "Assume conservatively that your True Fans will each spend one day's wages per year in support of what you do. That "one-day-wage" is an average, because of course your truest fans will spend a lot more than that. Let's peg that per diem each True Fan spends at $100 per year. If you have 1,000 fans that sums up to $100,000 per year, which minus some modest expenses, is a living for most folks."

With many acupuncturists new to the CA model unable to fathom how charging $15-40/treatment could lead to a financially successful clinic, the principles behind Kelly's post may help illuminate the dollars and cents basis for the Community Acupuncture biz model in a slightly different light than what has been written previously here on CAN. Coupled with the 2005 US Census household income data that Lisa continues to spin into a veritable marketing work of art, the theoretical financial foundation for affordable, high-volume acupuncture clinics has been written (again). The successes of WCA and many other newer CA clinics across the country demonstrate it can indeed be done as well.