Three Years and $3 Million to Break Even

How reliable is this rule? Are there exceptions? Or has launching a successful catalog truly become a millionaire’s game these days? We’ll find some answers in this column, beginning with a precise definition of our rule:

The Rule of “Three Years and $3 Million to Break Even”:

If you launch a new catalog and do everything fairly intelligently, you’ll still need to invest three years and $3 million dollars before you reach the first year in which annual revenues equal annual costs.