Start a Business with Residual Income

JIM MARKEL: If I was going to go out and start and operate a new business, I would make sure that I had a fair amount of capital to start it with, and I would probably pick a business model with a residual income. Right now I’m in the customer acquisition business and we acquire new customers and then we continue to sell them product and build a relationship. I’ve looked at other business models that have residual income, like you write a contract for something, and then there’s residual income that flows in continually, like on a service contract or a maintenance contract. And to me, once those get up to a certain level, they’re almost self-sustaining, like you don’t have to put that much in to fill them. Whereas we have to continually manufacture the product and acquire the customer and all that. It’s a bit more difficult of a business model. I probably picked the most difficult road to go.