by Doug Coulter » Tue Oct 19, 2010 11:16 am
Yikes indeed! Don't drop one!
Yeah, it's nice to be in a team of all good guys, particularly when there's decent diversity in the skill sets -- that's what I'm trying to set up here, after all. Partly because that's what I used to do as a business owner and it was both very successful (retired at age 50) and one heck of a lot of fun, besides. It seems to make each person more valuable, more than the sum of the parts when there's always someone to fill in the other guy's weak spots -- carries the group vision forward much better, not to mention quicker.
Or even rock and roll -- I was primarily a drummer when I was a pro. Doesn't sound that great alone, but then the other guys don't sound that great without a drummer interacting and providing punctuation & emphasis. Together, we really rocked -- and actually made enough dough for it to be our "real jobs" for some years. But that was also a case of "overnight success after only a decade or two of practice" -- and finding the right other guys so we all meshed well -- that part was very much the key.
The best times I've ever had have been in situations like that, just about any way you want to measure "best". Since those situations usually resulted in a burst of productivity, and what goes around comes around....generally made good money too, though often from unexpected quarters.
Dumb example:
I was kinda broke, bored, working with a college kid I was mentoring, while homesteading this place. No sales of anything in sight, but we wanted to be doing "something". So we decide we want to make a digital recording studio, at a time when most PC's were 386 based, or maybe the hot rods were 486, and the best sound cards were 8 bit. So we design a DSP based sound card that has some serious on-board computing power, and real good a/d, d/a on it. It was expensive for the time, about a grand in those dollars, and musicians, well, aren't the rich crowd usually. We didn't sell too many (but one of the customers happened to be a good programmer and he joined up too). So, a lot of "labor of love" but near zero bucks, but we became quite good at signal processing, and the guys we got our DSP chips from (texas instruments) knew it.
At some point, a major electronics manufacturer (Valcom) became aware that pushing opamps was the way of the past in telecom kinds of stuff, and really needed some help getting into the new world. He asks the TI rep who in the area knows this stuff. He mentions us. They call me, we go in, and bring the super soundcard and system in for a demo. They are duly impressed (it was very cool for the time) and they started asking questions like "who did the board design": I did. "how long did it take": Couple months. "who wrote the drivers for windows" I did. "How long" two weeks. Who wrote the nifty multi-tracking non linear editing software" We did. "how long" about 3 months (much of it was also used in the CoolEdit program later on which was pretty successful itself). OK, name your price!
5 years later, we'd netted 10 million dollars from jobs for that guy (three of us split that). And it was fun the entire time! They took all the risks, and made most of the money -- fair all around, and their CEO (also owner) was heard chortling down the hall that C-Lab (my outfit) was essentially "free" and the best deal they'd ever made, after a product we'd designed for them (based on the same soundcard, for crying out loud) for a couple hundred K$ billed had made them 10's of millions in the first 6 months on the market...and saved their ailing company.
So not only did we all get rich, it was a real love fest along with that -- perfect. Some would be complaining that we only made what we made while they made much more, but I think it was fair -- we took no risk, we got paid on time and up front always. They took all the risk (and with 500 guys running expensive robots, it was substantial), and made most of the dough.
But had I stuck to my first business model, selling digital recording studios, I'd be in sad shape now. That business really took off once we showed the way, and when the big boys got in, and PC's improved, we'd have been left in the dust, utterly. So sometimes it works out that you do a favor to guy A, and guy B is the one that pays it off. Funny old world, but the golden rule IS a rule.
Needless to say, during the .com boom, we also did a lot of less fun work for desperate startups and their VC's, and even turned a lot down, as it was obvious they were going to fail, they needed more than design, they needed a good business plan (and does anyone actually want this mousetrap you want us to design?), and we didn't want the inevitable bad karma associated with all that. A key there was them wanting to pay us in stock or options instead of cash. When we said we'd take like 1/3 of it, but cash only, the looks in their eyes told the story, and we would just bail right off. Turned out to be wise (luck? maybe, but I'll take luck).
But I'll never forget what all that taught me, and the power of a diverse team of good people, and how much plain old good clean fun it can be, which is why I'm here doing this now.
Call it trolling for talent, if you want to use the lowest words for that. And I'm overwhelmed how well it seems to be working out so far. It's early days to be sure, but it sure feels "right".
The only thing new about this, really, is that this is international, and there's little likelihood we'll all wind up working F-F, or even on the same thing(s). Balance that with the much larger potential talent pool we can tap, and I think it's still a winning plan that will benefit all of us, probably in unexpected ways, like always.
So who knows, maybe my fusion efforts are a similar "labor of love" that will net me diddly by themselves (other than large amounts of pure fun). Could be, won't stop me. But what a setup if the skills acquired in it turn out to be hyper valuable to someone doing something else cool....like last time. High risk, kind of, high payoff in the currency that really matters -- fun and good people to hang with and do good things together.
Posting as just me, not as the forum owner. Everything I say is "in my opinion" and YMMV -- which should go for everyone without saying.