Regarding The Business End of Production

02-26-2008, 04:18 AM

Seriously - I wish I had known this years ago. Nothing teaches like failure, though! I guess that I would probably say that you have to try to get a sense of whether or not there is enough work to go around. I'll bet that talking to other folks trying to get a foothold (before one starts onesself) would be a good bet. If all the startups are struggling because XYZ gets all the work, then it's probably a bad idea to get into that market. However, if various startups are doing well, each with their own clients, then I would be an advocate of either doing something similar, or trying to fill wherever a gap exists.

That's the planning element. There's also having the good business sense to bail out of something that's not working, instead of throwing money at it in the hopes that it will eventually work. At some point, you chase yourself into a corner. You can also spread your investment too thinly by chasing too many markets, vainly hoping that they will all support each other.

If I had the chance to do everything over again, I would have forgotten about the recording end of things years ago, and put money into more PA and the transport to move it. I would also have put money into aggressive promotion (or partnering with the right people). Having not done that, I can tell you that I am very worried about how things are going to turn out long term...all I ever wanted to do was inconvenience electrons and air molecules - and that's about all I can do in a competent manner.

Well, there was a tangent.

Actually, there's another business plan element. Make sure that there is someone intimately involved with the company who is knock down excellent at PR. The ability of some folks to just be able to shake hands and sell a product to other people dazzles me. It's both skill and talent - and it's critical to a business succeeding.