The yes that takes a minute

A woman in Sohar sells printed tote bags from her spare room, and a customer asks whether she could put a name on one. It takes her a minute to say yes, and another minute to add a line to her page: custom orders welcome.

Then the custom orders arrive. Each one is a conversation. Which lettering, which colour, could it be a little bigger, could the name be in two languages, could she send a picture before printing. A bag that used to take ten minutes now takes a week of messages, and a mistake leaves her with a bag nobody else will ever buy.

None of this was hidden. It simply was not on her mind in the minute she said yes, because the yes was easy and the cost came later, spread across every evening for as long as she keeps offering it.

Plenty of business decisions have this shape. Opening a second way to order. Making a size you have never made. Agreeing to leave stock with a shop on credit. Each is quick to begin and slow to look after, and the looking after is the real decision.

Most people who take these on then give them just enough attention to make them a drain, and never enough to make them worth it. The page says custom orders welcome. The replies take three days. Everyone ends up a little disappointed, including her.

The question before the easy yes is not whether you can start it. It is whether you are ready to keep tending it for years.