22643271 I went to the movies last night* and I was surprised by how long I had to wait to get overpriced popcorn.  If you’ve been to a movie lately, you know that the snacks are pricey.  $12 or so where I live for pop and popcorn.  The snack counter is staffed by teenagers.  They probably make $8 to $12 an hour.  So one sale covers the cost of an employee (let’s conveniently ignore the overhead costs for a moment - although the power, facilities, etc. cost real money, the raw food materials cost them pennies).

This is basic business school stuff I realize, but if you’re a tech entrepreneur like me, you may not have gone to business school:

It follows that for a given crowd size, there is an optimal number of staff to have behind the counter to maximize revenue.  If you are not serving popcorn fast enough, some potential customers will not wait.  If an extra employee can speed things up enough to keep just two customers in line per hour, you come out ahead.  This is especially important for high margin discretionary purchases like movie popcorn.  Don’t give me time to rethink my purchase.

30892398 What’s the magic number for staffing a popcorn counter?  I don’t know but the theater owner can certainly find out.  If you run a business with any waiting times, you had better find out what it is for your business.  Measure everything.  Experiment with 20% more staff for a couple of comparable days and compare revenue and profits.  If profit goes up, try 50% more staff.  Keep going until you find the sweet spot.  This perpetual cycle of adjusting, measuring, and analyzing is the heart and soul of good business planning.

My wife and I recently went to Universal Studios (California) and I was shocked at how long the lines were there.  You drop a lot of money to take your family to Universal Studios for the day.  The difference at Universal is that once you’ve parked and made it to the front gate, you’re not leaving.  They can make you wait**.

Seth Godin notes that Apple needs to work on this in its stores:

Next project: hiring more people to work the registers! When you have a gross margin as high as they do, it’s a sin to make someone wait even one minute to hand you money. 

* Saw the Bourne Ultimatum, in case you were wondering.  And it was great.

** Two tips if you go to Universal on a sunny Saturday and don’t want to pay for the Front of the Line passes:  1) Buy tickets online.  2) Use the single rider lines.  We waited an hour in the normal line for Jurassic Park.  In the single rider line, I wrote Revenge of the Mummy twice in 15 minutes.