An easy angle on choosing an investment is price.  How much can you afford to spend?  Perhaps a better question is how much can you afford to spend on a single animal?  And an even better question is how much can you afford to spend on a single animal and lose it all?  Investing in high-end ball pythons is highly speculative.  Prices fall, animals die and economies fluctuate.  If you spend $20,000 on a single ball python there is no guarantee that you will ever make your  money back.  There is a lot of opportunity but no guarantees; this is the live animal business and prices are often set with whimsy.  Understand your own financial tolerances before you even begin to think about morphs.  Once you come to terms with where you fall on the risk-versus-reward scale you’re ready to start looking at specific projects.

Whether this is supposed to be a business or a self-sustaining hobby the ingredients of a successful breeding project are two parts personal preference, one part economic reality, and a healthy dose of marketing.  If you are 100% dedicated to money you have to breed animals, regardless of what they are, that will provide the best return on investment.  This makes it highly probable that you are going to produce some animals that bring you little joy.  And if  profit truly is your only motive I suggest entirely different lines of work.  When money is the sole objective breeding reptiles is not the right enterprise in which to be.  This planet offers plenty of ways to make great money with products that don’t poop on the shelves.  Ball pythons are depreciating assets that eat.  What other business can you be in where the value of your investments spirals rapidly downward, the costs of production continue to increase, and every ‘unit’ you sell produces a future competitor?

I suspect that all reptile breeders, even the most financially motivated of them, started doing this out of love for the critters.  I recommend finding the animal(s) that you like working with that also have a market capable of providing a return.  Easy to write, difficult to do, I know.  Animals you love that don’t have much commercial value are good to keep around in small quantities (to satisfy the soul) but most of us need to focus on animals that ride the line between joy and profit.  It’s okay to lean more to one side or the other but this business doesn’t really support going all in on one while ignoring the other.  Dedicate too much to the joy of husbandry and you’ll find yourself living in a money pit that grows continuously deeper.   Focus too much on profit and you’ll be mentioned in the same breath as other less than stellar names in the business.  Neither is desirable.

Unlike many other business ventures the world has to offer, reptile breeding requires that you derive some joy from the product making process.  I’m not talking about the so-called flippers, importers and large-scale wholesalers here; I’m talking about actual breeders.  Being a breeder and being in the reptile business are not always the same thing.  There are many shades of grey.  There is a big difference between a person who breeds reptiles to sell and the person who sells reptiles so he can buy and sell even more.  Both are in the same business but in very different ways.  In many ways breeders are idealists while flippers, wholesalers and importers are more pragmatic business people.  I know a few people who do well at both.  Breeders tend work with animals they like.  Businesspeople work with animals that make money.  The best of us attain an equilibrium between both needs.  And in this aspect of the business I continue to search for balance.  I am a steadfast idealist emulating a profit-oriented businessman.

Anybody who regularly reads what I write knows that I frequently reflect on the financial aspect of being a reptile breeder.  I think about it often which is interesting because I don’t live a life with money as the central point of motivation.  I like and want money, of course.  Almost all of us can say that.  But despite my frequent contemplations I’m not obsessed with making it.  And for lack of better words, that is a problem.  When observing other people and how they make money I have come to believe that those who are usually the most financially successful are the one’s who have a certain …ethical flexibility.  They put profit above all.  Those are dangerous words as I do not intend to imply that successful business people do things that are illegal, immoral or even unethical; they are just more likely to do things that are single-sided and exclusively profit-oriented.  Financially aggressive people see angles and take opportunities that I don’t.  From time-to-time my lack of this particular type of vision frustrates me.  And here’s the rub: even if I did see the opportunities I can’t say that I would always leverage them.  I am too well equipped to see and respect the others person’s needs.  And from a single-minded, make-all-the-money-you-can, business perspective this is a potentially fatal flaw.  In the eyes of some this dooms me to a life of comfortable modesty.  Impressive wealth is not likely in the cards.  I don’t tend to participate in “I win / you lose” business arrangements.  To steal words from author Stephen Covey I’m very much a “win/win-or-no-deal” type of businessman (and I am certainly not afraid of ‘no deal’).  This type of business means I actively trade some of the money I could be making for other, less tangible, things.  Fans and deriders of this business mentality are probably equal in their distribution.  But don’t take me wrong; it is not bad to be more aggressive [than me] when making money.  I applaud and occasionally envy the people who are better at it than I am.

Despite not taking excessive advantage during business transactions I am strongly driven to make a profit from what I do.  This only makes sense.  I am not an altruist.  Other people do not pay my mortgage.  Moonbeams and warm fuzzy feelings are not currency.  I do not give the product of my efforts without appropriate compensation; we must all work for what we have.

Allow me to offer you a scenario for consideration.  It’s comes from a business deal, but not a reptile one.  Imagine you are a professional speaker.  People come to you from all walks of life to hear what you have to say.  You charge $2,000 per person for a 5-day seminar.  There are 12 people enrolled in your next offering.  Most of your seats were sold at full retail and there were a few businesses who bought multiple seats so you extended them a modest discount.  The night before the seminar begins a colleague comes to you and says, “I have a friend who wants to take your seminar but he only has $550.  Will you let him attend for that amount?”

What would you do?  Would you let him attend at a 73% discount?  Most people can answer immediately.  It requires little thought or contemplation.  And your answer, I believe, tells to which side of the ball python business you lean.  If your answer is “yes” your primary focus is profit.  If you say “no” your focus is more idealistic.

Taking the money makes sense from the following perspective:  The seat is empty.  It is not going to sell at the retail price.  The course is going to run regardless of the someone sitting in that  13th seat and it won’t cost you anything extra to let them attend.  His attendance is $550 of pure profit for no additional effort on your behalf.

Taking the money does not make sense from this alternate perspective:  You have assigned a value to the product you provide.  Twelve other customers have paid full (or close to full) price to be there.  This lends credibility to the value of your product at the price being charged.  It is also disrespectful to those twelve if you take the $550.  Why was their seat not $550?  Are they somehow different?

That is not a make-believe scenario for me.  It has happened more than once in my ‘real job’.  As you might suspect my answer has always been “no”.  I have never even hesitated.  I didn’t even hesitate in the early days of my business when things were financially tight.  To my occasional financial detriment I have always had a principled approach to making money and that approach sometimes takes away from maximizing profits.  I had (and still have) an obligation to my customers and to myself that prevents me from taking every dollar possible.  It would have been catastrophic to my business if I had taken that money and my other customers found out.  It would also have been an admission that my product was not worth the retail price I was charging.  The friend who first approached me with the proposition stared at me in disbelief when I told him no.  To this day he thinks I’m crazy.  Who in their right mind would turn down an additional $550 when they didn’t have to do anything more to make it?  Well, …me.  Profit takes a back seat to ethics.  People who let profit ride shotgun are laughing at me right now… and  I’m cool with that.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver

Why do you do this?  By ‘this’ I mean breed reptiles, of course.   Is it a hobby?  Do you do it for a living?  Somewhere in-between?  If you aren’t doing so already, do you aspire to one day breed snakes for a living?

Regardless of where you are in the reptile husbandry game, do you have a plan?  Does it look a little like this?:

1. Buy snakes
2. Breed snakes
3. Sell snakes
4. Count crazy amounts of cash
5. Repeat

What is the last snake you bought?  Why did you buy it?  Was it a smart buy or did you buy it on impulse?  Did it fit into any current breeding project?  How about the snake before that one?  Did you buy it because of its price or because of what it was?  How many times have you let your reptile purchases guide the direction of your reptile collection?  Shouldn’t it be the other way around?  Shouldn’t your collection guide your purchases?  Shouldn’t you have a plan; an honest-to-goodness business plan?

I’m not good at rationalizing things.  I am flat-out awesome at it!  In the game of rationalization, I’m a rockstar!  When I set my mind to it I have yet to come across something I couldn’t talk myself into.  My decisions are good.  The are solid and they are just.  I have rationalized my way into many, many snake purchases, each of them a brilliant, strategic and soon-to-be-profitable decision.  With a punnet square, an Excel spreadsheet and available credit I can design a plan for world domination and financial nirvana within a matter of minutes.  On paper I am well on my way to living the dream.

The reality?  I have lived in the same house and driven the same truck for the past eleven years.  Neither are impressive (but I’m not complaining).  Year after year I’m a year away from making good money.  More than once I have run up to the precipice of profitability, stared longingly and lovingly at it, and then turned and walked back down the trail.  By my definitions I am not yet successful.  Some people who know me would argue otherwise.  If three years ago I had the reptile collection I have today I would have said that I am very successful.  But today I want the collection I will have three years from now.  I just can’t seem to get my reptile collection and my timeline to sync up.  I wonder if it’s because I don’t really have a plan any better than the one above.  Who am I kidding?  Step #4 doesn’t exist for me.   After step #3 I jump straight back to #1.  That’s me:  buy, breed, sell.  Repeat.  Snake rich, cash poor.

Because ball pythons are so diverse there is an underlying and [perhaps] unconscious drive to have all of them.  Your collection must have pastels, spiders, pinstripes, black pastels, albinos, mojaves, clowns, piebalds, ghosts, lessers, butters, yellow bellys, fires, axanthics and cinnamons.  Right?  But that’s just to start.  With all the ingedients you can make all of the magic!  But is that really the most profitable way to go about it?  Maybe for some.  I’m not sure it’s right for all of us, though.  I think you need to explore your motivations before you buy any more critters.

Why do you breed ball pythons?  You probably fall into one or more of these categories:

• For the love. Making money isn’t that important to you.  You just like to breed snakes.  You love the whole process and derive joy from successful husbandry.
  • If this is you, congratulations!  Your desires are pure.  Please collect your group of normal ball pythons and make your way to the back of the room.  From there you can listen at a distance, safe from getting any of my capitalism on you.
• To be the first to produce a new morph, to be a recognizable name.  A pioneer in the ever-emerging ball python genetics/morph game.
  • Bring your wallet.  You will need it.  If your wallet is mighty and equipped with sufficient stamina, we will all one day know your name.
  • Fame in the ball python world is real but small.  While I know the names of the big breeders, my parents do not.  Nor do my friends and neighbors.  Being a big name breeder makes you look cool in only the smallest of circles.  Keep your ego in check when you get there.
• To produce a diverse and eclectic array of ball python morphs while making a profit.
  • While the profit part may be elusive these days I suspect that many of us fall into this category.  As your collection expands it becomes more diverse.
• To produce the animals that will make you the most profit, regardless of how you feel about them.
  • You are a pure capitalist.  Whatever sells is what you are selling.  Some may call you a heartless, money-hungry bastard.  Me?  I admire your motivations and envy your lack of  personal attachment.
• Some other motivation. There may be some other category into which you fall so put yourself here if that’s true.

So who among this list is in the worst position?  It’s the people who want to ‘produce a diverse and eclectic array of ball python morphs while making a profit’.  Why?  Your motivations are at odds with each other.  A diverse ball python collection of 100 animals (or 50, or 25, whatever) will allow you to produce a good number of morphs.  It’s exciting and cool when you open the cages and see all the colors and patterns.  But stop for a moment and really think about what’s happening with your collection.  For ease of discussion I will talk about Clown Ball Pythons.  Clowns are not cheap but they are within reach of many breeders.  The most common gateway into breeding clowns is to buy a male clown and some female het clowns.  So let’s say you buy 1.2 (one male, two females).  Chances are good that you buy them as babies.  In about 2-3 years you will have raised your females and are now producing clown babies for the first time.  What are you going to do when they come out of the egg?  Sell them?  Really?  Don’t you remember what you just went through to produce these?  You just spent almost 3 years of your life raising these things up and now, there they are:  baby clown ball pythons produced by YOU!!!  If you sell them you still only have your breeders.  How are you going to grow AND refine your ball python collection if you sell them?  You gotta’ keep some.  And as soon as you decide to do that, you’re screwed.  The cycle has you.  But if you do sell them you’ll still only be producing a few clowns the following year (you are breeding het females after all).  You will never get any bigger and your collection will never get any better than it is today.  That’s the rub.  Keep your production and you’re screwed.  Sell your production and you’re screwed.  Neither is the end of the world but neither is getting you to the world you worked up on your Excel spreadsheet a few years earlier, either.  What to do?

I know it’s easy to write this and not have to talk about the money behind it but  if you are going to breed clowns, BREED CLOWNS.  Don’t buy 1.2 clowns and 1.2 albinos and 1.2 ghosts and 1.2 mojaves and 1.2 spiders.  Buy 2.8 clowns instead.  No, it’s not as exciting but when you do produce clowns you are more likely to produce a bunch of them.  When you have 25 clown babies to sell it is A LOT easier to sell them without emotion AND keep a few back to raise up.  When you are only producing a few clowns you often can’t bear to part with them.  Because they are few they are precious to you; a cherished commodity.  And they are the source of your problems.

So into your business plan you need to integrate VOLUME when it comes to a particular morph.  Resist the desire to expand both size and diversity.  If you are expanding the size of your collection do it with a morph you already have.  Don’t add new morphs to the collection until you have a sufficiently large production capacity with one of your other morphs.

This philosophy holds true when you start producing multiple-gene animals.  How are you ever going to bring yourself to sell that silver streak when you only produced one of them?  If you want to produce silver streaks, go all in.  Produce them by the dozens.  Two black pewter males and a slew of pastel females is a very affordable project (relatively speaking, of course).  Don’t even get me started on white snakes.  I’m sick of hearing people refer to them as being “just another white snake”.  You know the one thing that is always 100% true of white snakes?  They sell like you wouldn’t believe.

If you continue to insist on building a diverse collection of animals without focusing on building a larger production capacity for specific morphs then you are acknowledging that making money is secondary to your love of ball python diversity.  And that’s a tough thing to realize about yourself; what is more important?

In summary, if making money in this business is important to you:  Have a plan.  Produce any particluar morph in sufficient quantity that you can sell them and keep some without being conflicted.  Focus less on diversity, more on quantity.

Cheers,

Colin Weaver