Never Get a ”Real„ Job by Scott Gerber Read Free Book Online Page A

now known among friends and colleagues as the company that shalt not be named . What started as a small, scalable, and simple service business quickly became a complex mess. Between rookie mistakes and unforeseen obstacles, my first company forever changed my perspective on business, and set me on a course to be a smarter, well-rounded entrepreneur.
     
    The year was 2005. I had just graduated from NYU and formed a small entertainment production company. As I produced more and more projects I began to notice a trend: Big brands weren’t just producing 30-second commercials, they were also integrating those commercials into multimedia campaigns that included Web sites, radio spots, Internet ads, and viral videos.
     
    I remember thinking that it would be a great idea to get in on the action and add multimedia services to my company. I was already referring my clients to other service providers; I would just do it myself instead.
     
    So I teamed up with a few media production pals to launch a one-stop-shop multimedia agency. It seemed like a logical progression for my entertainment production company to morph into a media production business. I would produce the video projects and my partners would manage the online media and audio projects. I’d now be able to sell my current clients on new media opportunities as well as benefit from my partners’ existing client rosters.
     
    It seemed like a no-brainer to me.
     
    Had I known then what I know now, I’d have stopped myself from transforming my perfectly simple and profitable company into an overcomplicated money pit. But the sexiness of owning a media firm put twinkles in my eyes and blinded me from seeing the real problems that would lead to the company’s eventual unraveling.
     
    The day before our launch, my partners toasted to what a home run our start-up would be. After all, who wouldn’t want low-cost media services?
     
    Well, as it turned out, almost no one.
     
    To put it mildly, the company that shalt not be named was far from a dream come true. On the good days it was a full-out nightmare that woke me up with cold sweats and the desire to find high ledges. On the bad days, I felt like I was strapped into the cockpit of a flaming jet plane taking a nosedive toward a mountain. The company folded in a little more than a year; it’s unbelievable how many things went wrong in such a short amount of time:
     
 
No one could pronounce the company’s name properly.
     
     
No one could read the contact information on our poor-quality, expensive business cards—and we couldn’t afford new ones.
     
     
Our failure to seek out new clients led to terrible sales cycles.
     
     
I lost existing clients because they thought the new company lacked focus and core competency.
     
     
We hired and fired a four-person workforce in a matter of two weeks because we couldn’t afford them.
     
     
Our first big client never paid us in full and actually left us in debt.
     
     
Advisors threatened us with legal actions forcing us to incur a legal bill that was higher than our combined salaries.
     
     
We invested six figures’ worth of free services into a start-up in exchange for equity that never materialized.
     
     
We lost a client project to a bigger competitor who then turned around and sub-contracted us to do the same work for less money than our original bid.
     
     
We negotiated for months with a potential fourth partner who made big promises and never delivered.
     
     
We nearly went broke pitching for investment money we didn’t need.
     
     
We acted on advice that nearly crippled the company on multiple occasions.
     
     
Our best advisor died of a heart attack the day before he was going to begin introducing us to all of his clients and investor contacts.
     
     
     
    Although my partners and I had the best intentions, we were far from innocent sheep when it came to running the company that shalt not be named . However, the major reason we also crashed and