Snappy figured out a clever way to collect nuts faster than searching for them on the ground. He put little buckets on the ground under the oak trees and let the acorns fall into them from the tree. Then he simply emptied the buckets to collect the nuts.
Snappy decided that this system would be valuable to other squirrels so he arranged to sell the buckets to his friends. He called his business “Snappy Bucket Solutions” (SBS).
Since his business had a high ‘overhead’ cost - Snappy must buy the buckets from Duck’s Bucketworks and he must pay for advertising by the Jay News Service, the service was sold at a relatively high price.
In addition, Snappy had to buy a business license from Bear and pay tax on his profits. This was part of the cost of doing business in the forest.
Furthermore, Snappy found that raccoon thieves tried to steal the buckets if he wasn’t watching, so he had to hire armed porcupines as guards.
All these precautions cost money. Snappy was glad that he saved so many acorns and invested them wisely. Still, he realized that he needed to take out a loan, or borrow, from Owl’s Bank to fund the first purchase of buckets for resale.
Snappy calculated that his business’s profits would justify the cost of the loan from Owl, who charged fees for the ability to borrow from the bank.
No sooner had Snappy signed the papers to get the loan, he learned that the chipmunk clan had opened a business very similar to SBS. The Chipmunk’s Bag Solution system, or CBS, was made of paper sacks and cost less than SBS’s sturdy buckets.
Snappy was very upset by this competition. He released an ad that explained how his solution was better than the Chipmunks’ and lowered his prices a little, but his sales began to decline. What to do?
Finally, Snappy sat down with the Chipmunks. After long talks with the greedy clan, the two parties came to a good solution: Snappy would buy the Chipmunks’ business. Everyone was happy - the Chipmunks were wealthy and Snappy owned the entire nut collection sector of business in the forest.