Tuesday, March 3, 2015

"Hmm... You had me at restrictions."

   The farther down this path I walk the faster things seem to happen, or rather, the more things that need my attention seem to present themselves.
   I knew that starting a business is difficult. I'm not going to act surprised. All I really wanted was to start a podcast, but the pull of ideas left and right, forward and back, left almost nothing productive to work with. The reorganization was required. 
   Fine. Then I started to build the foundations of a business. I created divisions, posts and descriptions of what all of those would do. Then what happens? I realize, that I'm going to run all of them. I'm the one. Someone has to do it, and it's not going to be anyone else. 
   Okay, I've accepted this. Once I start getting these posts down I can hand them off to others. It's the same as the job I currently have. I need to master my post, so I can create the book that explains everything I do, then train a person to follow that book and do my job, that way I can move up to another post and learn that one. The corporate ladder exists in a small business as well. 
   Basically what I've learned is that unless an idea smacks the person in the face they aren't going to want to put in too much effort until they see it 'taking off'. Why would they? My wife actually said "I don't really see it as a business..." If my wife can't even see it that way why would I expect anyone else to?
   Then last weekend happened. I had set up a time for us to Skype our friend Danny down in the lower 48 who has been running a music/clothing company that he started. Who better to ask for advice than someone who is already running a small business. The three hour conversation taught me 2 things. 1, one of my "co-founders", Ike, is thinking about the business and his podcast, just not explicitly to me/out loud. He showed interest in not only the content we create but the creative control we had to maintain. How did he show that latter part? Well, 2, Danny showed extreme interest in this idea. At one point he even talked about using his company/brand to release our podcasts, thus eliminating a need to form a company to begin with. My newly intrigued partner Ike put the kibosh on that idea with the simplest of statements; "Hmmm... You had me at restrictions." It was brilliant. Of course we wouldn't want to do that because then his company would have a way it wanted things done. 
   I know Danny didn't want to take over and make this project his. He has a lot going on in life as it is and he just gets excited. I'm glad! I welcome his involvement! Not only is he a great musician, businessman and friend, but he also has the drive to add to our momentum and make things happen. 
   Overall I see only positives from all of this. Now I just have to organize a time to sit down, 1 on 1, with Ike and get him positioned in my company as an executive in charge of business meetings and give him some executive producer jobs and we'll be set. But first I need to find the right title for him in the company. Obviously Co-founder, Executive, CFO, are all things I need to clearly define. By the next post, I had better have sat down with him already... 

"Just because something doesn't do what you planned it to do doesn't mean it's useless." - Thomas A. Edison

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