The problem we are currently running into is that everything we are invested in is affected by the times. And the only product we have that may be immune, the party pass, was never even built out. Right now we have no decent prospects with our current businesses. If we couldn’t figure out how to grow it when things were good we’re never going to figure out how to do it when things are bad. What we have now as a business is a product of bootstrapping an operation between 3 people who have different priorities 90% of the time, the only common one is probably to make a little money. as a group, we are not risk takers. Individually, maybe. but without that tendency a small biz/startup/whatever will never get legs. We all know what we know and only are interested in what we’re interested in. take yang for example. Yang never adds to the discussion when we talk big ideas and instead looks for little pieces to nitpick and argue about. But, the other night when he was talking about how to handle clients and talk on the phone and whatever else, he was on fire. He was probably out all night last night talking the talk with club people, hitting on chicks, etc. only to fuck up at work today. Why aren’t we taking advantage of his priorities to advance the business?
Yet, throughout the few years we’ve been working together I don’t think we’ve ever taken the time to determine what we’re all good at, and how we fit together properly. With that, we’d probably be able to all take individual responsibility for things and get further, faster. For example, if we had all determined that yang added little to the strategy conversation, we could have empowered him with 5 goals for the year that had little to do with the overall next steps of the operation and instead were very tactical things… like get a party pass venue for each night, determine pricing, contacts, and availability, train the freshmen team, etc. These are things we don’t all need to do as a team. The problem has always been that although there is a very limited understanding of what role each of us plays here, we have very little in terms of roles and responsibilities aside from the very obvious tasks. We all believe that when we’re working hard the others are probably watching tv or whatever and just riding on our coattails - look at all the pent up anger that comes out from time to time about what you’re doing and what he’s not doing and so on. I don’t know why this has come to be but I don’t think we’ll ever get anywhere like that. It’s like having meetings about meetings like the other night. Maybe it’s just the nature of our business that contacts are flakes and we have to try to do something 3 or 4 times before it actually happens. That’s fine and that’s how life is sometimes. New Year’s season every year is our high point. We all come together and do our parts. We should be studying why this works and build it into our operation. I just feel like though we have been successful in certain areas at certain times, we have never had individual initiative to advance the business since we started because we’re too worried about what everyone else is doing.
And when all this is figured out we have to ask ourselves… do I want this company to be something special or am I just playing businessman? It’s all about execution and motivating yourself. No one is going to tell you to do it over and over and no one is going to check your work. We’re 3 people here. We all need to own our roles and strive to add value every day.
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