Hey everyone, as promised here’s the first installment of our small business horror series. I reached out to an old friend and he provided me with the following story, although not directly finance related – it’s good enough to scare you. He described it to me verbally, so here’s how it went:

“We just opened a really funky snack store close to a college campus. I wanted to introduce the store to the students and do it in a ‘cool’ way. A friend suggested I graffiti one wall of the store. He figured college students were into that kind of thing and it was the vibe I wanted to give off. It sounded good enough, so I put up a couple of Craigslist ads, found a graffiti artist and asked him to stop by. When he arrived, he said he had done live shows before and thought a live show of him graffiting the wall would help draw in customers. I agreed and we set a date.

When the grand opening day arrived, I was nervous and excited. The artist arrived and immediately got to work while I invited students to come inside and join us. But apparently, graffiti fumes are toxic and my store wasn’t organized correctly for great circulation. Not one student could come inside. The worst part is no one ever forgot about that day and always figured it was dangerous to enter, despite several other marketing attempts.”

…and there you have it. Small business horror! The moral of the story here is don’t let toxic fumes be how your customers remember you! Have you asked your customers their first impressions of your brand? What was your first impression of Indinero? Take some time to not stink at the beginning.

Well, thanks for checking it out! Got a horror story? Submit it at smallbizhorror@indinero.com. Don’t worry, you won’t be embarrassed. It’s all anonymous.