1) San Luis Obispo is a great place to live; but what makes it great is also what makes doing business here difficult. As an example our city has some very limiting sign requirements, 49 pages of limitations to be exact. As a business owner that is 49 pages of added difficulty. However, as a local resident, that is 49 pages that helps keep our downtown beautiful, free of clutter and visual pollution.

2) The cost of housing here is insane and supplying enough housing to make it affordable won’t happen in my lifetime. Again, as a business owner this is bad -- as a local this is good. San Luis will never be congested, overcrowded or polluted.

3) San Luis Obispo’s limited customer base is, by nature, a difficulty we face as business owners. Fewer people equals fewer sales...

The list of oppositions facing  business owners are numerous. But time and again what I find difficult is also what helps make SLO such an enjoyable place to live.

So how do we at BIG Images overcome these obstacles?

We realized that in-order to succeed here we needed to reach outside the area. We needed to build a global business to achieve local success. 

Let’s face it. It costs a lot to live here. So if you want to be here you have to fight for it, you have to innovate. They say necessity is the mother of invention, and San Luis has a long list of businesses and inventions that she has mothered. Ziatec, Jamba Juice, The Grid…

So for the past two years BIG Images has been working hard developing the delicious:suite™ — a set of web-based tools for creating, sharing, and producing creative content for the personal publishing market. In fact earlier this year we launched the beta of our delicious:designer the world’s first web based graphic design application that empowers creativity in common man.

Innovating is how we at BIG Images are overcoming the local difficulties presented to us as business owners. The delicious:suite is our success story we want to add to the long list of success stories birthed from San Luis Obispo.

Bottom line — In-order to thrive locally you need to think globally.