I think that's the real message of the article. I don't think it's about the coffee market in NY, or in general - it's about making sure you think and measure before you leap.
Starting a business is a huge deal and consumes huge amounts of your time. If the sums don't add up - that is, you're not going to be profitable unless you work as slave-labour in your own business - maybe you shouldn't do it. I think this is a trap that many educated people fall into that don't have direct business (or time billing) experience.
This is applicable to tech as well - if you build a product, sell it super cheap (say, software @ $20 per year), and it takes around 1 hour per year in technical support per user (per year), you need to consider that when pricing. It may not be worth it. Or you may just have your pricing or business model wrong.
Starting a business is a huge deal and consumes huge amounts of your time. If the sums don't add up - that is, you're not going to be profitable unless you work as slave-labour in your own business - maybe you shouldn't do it. I think this is a trap that many educated people fall into that don't have direct business (or time billing) experience.
This is applicable to tech as well - if you build a product, sell it super cheap (say, software @ $20 per year), and it takes around 1 hour per year in technical support per user (per year), you need to consider that when pricing. It may not be worth it. Or you may just have your pricing or business model wrong.