Mark Daniels: The pros and cons of running a pub - internet discussion forum style

For more than ten years before I bought in to my little pub I worked in what could generically be termed as the "internet industry".

I understood what FTP and TCP/IP meant, I talked to people daily about 'network monitoring' and, as the 'net became more and more commercial, focused on products that dealt with Employee Internet Management. Towards the end of my Internet Career, before saturation and ultra-competitive pricing, and certainly before everything became owned by Google, I specialised in Web Analytics.

That career afforded me a wonderful life. I had an e-mail address before any of my friends and family and a website that told everybody all my details without me worrying about nefarious people raiding my bank account. I had a Nokia Communicator phone the day they came out and, during the boom times, my company cars were amazing; my favourite was a Lexus and I still, to this day, wish I'd taken the lease company's offer to buy it at the end of the three years.

But while my life revolved around business trips to Boston (Massachusetts), Geneva and Stockton-on-Tees, talking via Instant Messaging, video conferencing and - on one occasion - telling a German woman in a training conference that a firewall is basically a great big condom for the office's network, I never got involved in Internet Forums.

To me, people who spent their life discussing things in online discussion groups probably didn't shave, sustained themselves on Coke Zero and kebabs, and resided in cluttered bedrooms with walls littered in Homebase racking shelves that housed great big pieces of ancient clunky computer equipment it put Mathew Broderick's 'Wargames' character to shame. And, in the midst of it all, they'd create sexy avatars in Second Life and divorce each other when their virtual characters started suffering from online infidelity.

That was until yesterday, when a friend forwarded me a link to a discussion group on a motoring website where, of all things, the members were discussing the pros and cons of buying a pub. What really got my attention, however, was not the fact that discussion group members give themselves names like TheD3st0yer, M4ssive0ne or even PorscheDriver (you just know he'll have a Beetle) but the fact that almost nobody in the group had anything positive to say about getting in to the industry.

I must admit I got a little involved myself, pointing out the long hours, the fact that you'll be raped by every licensable service possible, Christmas Day isn't real anymore and that your wife will spend so much time in the kitchen she'll smell like a deep fat fryer when she eventually gets to bed.

The original enquirer wanted to know about profit levels and hidden costs but, as many on there pointed out, that is so subjective it really depends on what you want your pub to do. It did, however, prompt many who have some knowledge of the industry, either through friends or past history, to point out that you'll never make a penny and end up making yourself ill through all the effort and long hours.

A couple of members of the pub trade seem to have got involved as well - with one member who apparently used to work in the trade saying that you can expect to make between 60 and 90% on your wet stock... it must be quite a while since he worked in the trade, then.

But there was some sensible advice involved too and, it seems, the chap who's interested in buying is looking at purely a freehold and has the finances to buy outright, so no mortgage ties. In that case, I wish him the best of luck, but it really caught my attention when somebody pointed out that there seemed to be a lot of negativity in the threads - were there any upsides to running a pub?

This got me thinking and I had to reply again, which worried me because this probably means that in a few weeks I'll end up buying a virtual wife.

Of course there are upsides to having your own pub, whether it's freehold, leasehold or even the dreaded tenancy. After all, as somebody pointed out recently, a tenancy offers you the chance to buy in to your own business for very little investment and that, at the end of the day, makes you your own boss. Watching people enjoy themselves, having them praise your beer or your food or, if you've put some on, the great entertainment they've just enjoyed. That's a great buzz.

I've got two boys, one eight one five, and I get to pick them up off the school bus every day when other dads are still stuck in the office. They know I'm going to be home every day, something that wasn't a possibility during my glamorous days of the Internet. I know that I'm going to be able to sleep in my own bed every night and not struggle to find a beer near some anonymous Travelodge.

I don't wake up any more thinking I've got a hundred cold calls to make, nor worry about sales targets in the way I used to. If I cock something up the only person I've got to explain it to is me.

I don't make the money I used to make when I was on the road and my car isn't as posh as it used to be, but I'm a happier person and, recession notwithstanding, I've got a roof over my head and food on my table.

There are many upsides to running a pub and I don't regret the change in my lifestyle at all. In fact, I relish in it. If the Government hadn't brought in the smoking ban, if Tesco didn't sell beer at 1980s prices and if the breweries would extend their exciting new contracts to existing members of the trade, I don't think we'd be in half the mess we're in at the moment and I certainly wouldn't have the time to develop a late addiction to Internet Forums.

But should this chap buy in to the pub trade at the moment? I summed it up as succinctly as I could: "it's 6:35pm on a Friday night in what is usually a busy little pub, yet I've got time to sit here browsing Piston Heads forums..." That should tell him all he needs to know about buying in to a pub right now.