I think the reason ADHD-ers make for good creatives (fucking hate that term) and in turn entrepreneurs is we take risks. Not that we ACTUALLY consciously KNOW they’re risks. Our enthusiasm for the “new” means we’re quite happy to put something down in favour of something new. Even if the new thing is not as good, or certainly has no promise of being as good as the thing you already have. What infuriates successful BUSINESS people is an entrepreneur’s desire to venture forth, not buckle down.
Successful business people are like really good stamp collectors. They keep them safely tucked away and never lick them and stick them on an envelope. Thats what conservatively minded people do. If something works, do it again, make it better, more efficient and see if you can slice any cost off in favour of making more of a profit. The “new” thing is problematic for them it introduces the unexpected where they have finely honed systems to iron out just that, whilst starching in certainty.
For us life is like lego. We love building it, we love buying it. But actually play with the things we make? Fuck that. For anyone who has ever done any public speaking you will have found (the hard way) that the most sure fire way of guaranteeing no one laughs is preparing something funny to say. Having played in dozens of wedding bands I have seen this time and time again. Usually by the father of the bride who thinks that (despite never having done it in his life before) he’ll have a go at a self penned comedy set in front of an audience of people who are there for the bride and would rather he sat down. Time and time again I would see months of effort and practicing in front of the mirror like a provincial Rupert Pupkin whilst a howling laughter track plays in their heads going down the bog whilst an entire audience sits there with rapidly whitening knuckles. The reason I labour this point is its not the bewilderment at the tumble weed rolling across the dance floor as you deliver another “zinger”. But the danger of putting too much time into something that is likely to fail. Simply put, the degree of sense-of-failure you will endure will be wholly attributable to the amount of investment you put into the certainty of its success.
This is when business people should really go with the spirit of entrepreneurialism. The number of times I’ve come up with a hot-diggity-dog idea at the big company I built. Only to be met with managers running up costing plans for that idea whilst emailing recruitment consultants to “up-team” for it. Whereas us idea-farters just wanna have a go. “Well in order for this to be a success Christian we need to do this properly”. No… In order for it to be a success its got to be a good idea that people want to buy in on. It doesn’t matter how you dress it up, if it sucks as an idea then its impact on you all will be the amount of “properly” you invested into it.
Business is striking a balance between the the security of certainty along with the risks of opportunity. The trick is to entertain something that feels like a good idea. But to do it in as lean a manner as possible. Make it a side-project or hustle. Something that happens over a weekend. Something that doesn’t eat into your certainty which will eat into future opportunity.
So with hindsight this next entry makes me smile. There’s me writing a joke which isn’t funny, being sure about something being the answer not because the idea is great. Its just new…. well new to me anyway.
“19th August – So I think that is merch done. Phew! Feels like one part of the process is complete. This has provided me with a much needed lift. At the very least we are probably about a day away from being able to pull some cash in. Even if it will be tiny. Income, any income will come at a great relief”.
Needless to say it wasn’t the buoy I had hoped for. We weren’t out of the woods yet. Indeed we were just in a thicket compared to what was about to come.
Then later in the same entry…
“soundinks turns schools into music hub with a huge injection of cash!!”/. I reckon we could pull in 250k EASY!”
This was in reference to me trying to persuade about two dozen students to create mini sample companies of their own and raise 250k by selling them on pianobook. I didn’t factor in that they were students. Would, like most people, not just young people… find creating samples EXCRUCIATINGLY boring. Especially when they could be gaming, or shagging, or drinking, or doing just about anything but what had been proposed to them by old people.
From the latter, the enterprise brought in a total of £0. The former? To-date with merch we have made less than 5k. In two years.
For me the best test of a good idea is time. Try it out, test it some how. Not by explaining something abstract to friends. No new ideas sound like good ideas to people who didn’t have them. This is where I employ MVP. Its a software term for minimum viable product. What is the best way we can deliver something, in its best possible form, in order to check that there is an audience for it and it is a good idea. Even just a sense of “we’re onto something here”.
So where the sample factory manned by students is concerned. Looking back, hindsight and all that. Bad idea. I accept that, no damage to the ego. Just another fart that floated away. But the merchandise? I don’t know. I want to keep plugging on with that because I feel in my heart of hearts that we can offer something there. A physical connection. Which I think is important. I guess we just need to do it properly.