We’ve talked here before about the benefits of a monthly recurring revenue model. With one-off selling, the customer pays you once and then you’re back at square one. But get them to subscribe and you get a steady drip of revenue.

Now obviously not every business can go with this model. But it’s worth asking yourself if there’s a creative way to get people paying you every month.

For example, nAscent’s Art Taster’s Circle offers up art subscriptions [via UD]. You pick a piece, they come and install it in your home. If/when you decide you’re ready for a change, they’ll come and replace it with another piece of your choosing. If you decide to go ahead and buy a piece, part of your monthly fee goes toward the purchase. No idea how large a market there is for this, but good for nAscent for experimenting with a new model.

You can sell bacon. Or you can start a Bacon of the Month Club. You can sell wine. Or you can offer a Monthly Wine Club. You can rent one movie at a time. Or you can be Netflix. Here’s a list of dozens of other things you can get by monthly subscription.

Any other interesting monthly subscription models out there that you know of?

Some Getting Real-ish lessons from “The Accidental Empire of Fast Food,” a story about the success of Danny Meyer’s Shake Shack:

1. Have an enemy. In Meyer’s case, the enemy is fast food that strips away the human experience.

“The whole experience is to cram people into a cookie-cutter space, to feed them as many unhealthy calories as possible — then get them to leave,” said Mr. Meyer, the president of the Union Square Hospitality Group and the Yoda of Shake Shack. “That stripping away of human experience? That is where fast food went astray.”

Contrast and compare, then, with the three Shake Shacks in New York City, where patrons are cheerfully welcomed at the counter of a neighborhood-centered, urban-fantasy version of a burger roadhouse. On the menu? Whole-muscle, no-trimmings, fresh-ground, antibiotic-and-hormone-free, source-verified-to-ranch-of-birth, choice-or-higher-grade Black Angus beef.

Furthermore, “people have to wait in line just to place their orders,” Mr. Meyer, 51, said on a recent afternoon. “After that? They have to wait for us to cook their orders. And then? We hope they’ll stay awhile, as they eat. To enhance the communal experience.”

2. Resist growth just for the sake of growth. (Shake Shack is opening more locations now, but slowly and only after years of refusing to expand.)

The Shake Shack rollout is precedent-shattering for the Union Square Hospitality Group. “We’ve always resisted expanding anything, ever,” Mr. Meyer said. “We resisted offers in Las Vegas. We resisted reality TV shows. And it took six years with Shake Shack before we decided to go forth and multiply.”

3. Get real with it, put something out there, and see how people respond.

Mr. Meyer’s accidental empire began with a hot dog cart in 2001, part of an art installation in Madison Square Park. “To our astonishment, every day, a line would form,” Mr. Meyer said. The cart expanded into a burger stand, “and none of us had any idea that that could be a success.”

4. Keep things simple.

Shake Shacks “are profitable,” Mr. Meyer said. “They don’t need a robust economy to work. They have a highly focused menu. They are replicable. There is no reservation operation. There is no florist. And it’s a fun thing.”

5. Focus on quality not quantity.

“Our focus is not on how many you do,” [Meyer partner David] Swinghamer said bluntly. “If we can’t do it right? We won’t do it.”

Mr. Meyer commented that “we will grow as broadly as we can, without losing the quality, the hospitality, the community. And the sense of humor.”

And it’s working. Each of the Manhattan Shacks makes more revenue per location than either McDonald’s or Five Guys Burgers and Fries.

Related:
Choosing the right things to say no to [SvN]
Danny Meyer: Hospitality is king [SvN]

In “Menu Mind Games,” William Poundstone dissects this Balthazar menu (full size PDF) and tells you the logic behind its design.

Can you guess the tricks being used here? Click image to find out.

The piece offers a revealing look at how restaurants use typography and layout to drive customers toward high priced items. Also interesting is the strange jargon used by industry insiders, like puzzles, anchors, stars, and plowhorses.

A star is a popular, high-profit item—in other words, an item for which customers are willing to pay a good deal more than it costs to make. A puzzle is high-profit but unpopular; a plowhorse is the opposite, popular yet unprofitable. Consultants try to turn puzzles into stars, nudge customers away from plowhorses, and convince everyone that the prices on the menu are more reasonable than they look.

Related:
Priceless: The Myth of Fair Value (and How to Take Advantage of It) by William Poundstone [Amazon]
Why We Buy: The Science of Shopping by Paco Underhill [Amazon]

A lot of companies seek to control employees. They have handbooks and policies. They monitor emails. They make rules about what’s allowed and what’s forbidden.

But “control” is a tricky thing. The tighter the reins, the more you create an environment of distrust. An us vs. them mentality takes hold. And that’s when people start trying to game the system.

That’s why workplace managers who seek “control” might want to consider the advice Shunryu Suzuki gives in Zen Mind, Beginner’s Mind:

The best way to control people is to encourage them to be mischievous. Then they will be in control in its wider sense. To give your sheep or cow a large, spacious meadow is the way to control him. So it is with people: first let them do what they want, and watch them. This is the best policy. To ignore them is not good; that is the worst policy. The second worst is trying to control them. The best one is to watch them, just to watch them, without trying to control them.

Imagine an employee handbook that just said: “We trust you. Be mischievous.”

Time: 21:36 | Download MP3

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Lessons learned at 37signals
In this talk, Jason discusses what he’s learned at 37signals over the years. Topics covered: The idea that you should “fail early, fail often” is bogus. Plans are guesses. Interruption is the enemy of productivity. Sell your byproduct. Emulate chefs. Focus on what won’t change. If you want to do something, you’ve got to do it now.

See related links for this episode. Previous episodes available at 37signals.com/podcast. Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes or RSS.

Seth Godin asked some people to write a brief essay about what they think matters now. It could be anything. Even just an image if you wanted. Here’s who contributed:

The result: What Matters Now, a free 82-page PDF eBook.

I decided to write about apologizing. Specifically about saying “I’m sorry”. It’s an easy thing to do, but so many companies get it wrong.

Here’s my essay:

Some recent posts at the 37signals Product Blog:

Basecamp
How to win a client by including Basecamp in your pitch
“I created a new project, I generated a username and password and sent it to his e-mail which he immediately got via smart phone. I showed him how I had the Chieftent application on my iPhone and I went about creating milestones and to-do lists for his project. If we begin today, I’ll have the design document for you by this date, entered it into Basecamp, if we begin today, I’ll have a mockup via development server for you by this date, entered that into Basecamp too. He was clearly impressed.”

Give your customers Basecamp reporting without requiring them to login
“Want to give customers, partners, suppliers or other external users access to live reporting on specific Basecamp projects, but without giving them a login to Basecamp?”

Interior designer and client use Basecamp to collaborate on design of new baby room
Interior designer and client use Basecamp to collaborate on design of new baby room.

Encamp, a great iPhone app for Basecamp, renamed Insight
Use it and wherever you go you can stay connected with your projects and tasks.

Legendary director Akira Kurosawa reportedly went to great lengths to make his films seem authentic.

His perfectionism also showed in his approach to costumes: he felt that giving an actor a brand new costume made the character look less than authentic. To resolve this, he often gave his cast their costumes weeks before shooting was to begin and required them to wear them on a daily basis and “bond with them.” In some cases, such as with Seven Samurai, where most of the cast portrayed poor farmers, the actors were told to make sure the costumes were worn down and tattered by the time shooting started.

Reminds me of how Sacha Baron Cohen never washes Borat’s suit.

A stickler for authenticity, during filming he never washed his gray Borat suit and never wore deodorant.

“The smell is an added thing for people to believe that I’m from a country where hygiene wasn’t a necessity,” he explains.

Sometimes it’s the little things.