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Another One Bites the Dust #2
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[Neil Hurwitz] “So Hold Off on your move until you can buy
the Building, It will be your retirement account.
Once again Best of Luck”We will own the land and the building. We’re taking advantage of this down market and picking up almost 2 acres of land that we would never have been able to afford even two years ago. It has never made sense for us to lease, even with equipment. We own every piece of equipment in our shop outright and the company is completely debt free. So we’ve been very good at building very slowly and when this down market came along, it was the perfect opportunity to move forward with the next phase. The entire build will be up to 50% lower than it would have been even 3 years ago.
There will be much more about this entire build on my blog as soon as we start moving dirt. Let’s just say I followed my own advice about “Starting and Running a Business” 🙂
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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Walter,
You are well positioned then, Good Luck
I agree with all of your plan, However I do
believe there is a good argument for leasing equipment
(dollar buy-out only)
as it spreads the cost of ownership over the projected use of the
equipment. In this industry financing should never go longer than 3
years. Just curious here, But the last time I did a build
(Leasehold Improvement)I was informed that I could only
deduct 1/39 a year as Federal Income Tax depreciation.
Is this still the case?Neil Hurwitz
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[Neil Hurwitz] “But the last time I did a build
(Leasehold Improvement)I was informed that I could only
deduct 1/39 a year as Federal Income Tax depreciation.
Is this still the case?”Don’t know. We’re a commercial company in a business park.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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By “dinosaur” I meant in size and thus the amount of capital investment, personnel/operating costs and debt tied up in it. A post company doing very high-dollar high-profile work may not look as good in the accounting books as it does in industry magazines. The high-profile work is often done at a loss or break-even just for the PR value of it. And don’t think agencies don’t know this.
As far as New York, Chicago, or any large major city, often a particular business is not worth as much as the real estate they occupy. I think most of the major post houses I knew in my college days are now condos off Michigan ave. If the building owner can make more per square foot without you, he’ll drive you out. A fast and nimble little mammal of a business, with an eye for operating on high margin and low debt, can survive where a dinosaur can’t afford to keep the lights on. Biscardi may be getting around this by owning his property.
I think the trend over the next few years is a repeat of the boutique post movement of the late 80’s/early 90’s. Small, purpose-built, niche operations designed to run hyper-lean, with most non-essentials rented on demand or leased, populated by a small staffing core, bolstered on a per-job basis by hungry freelancers.
Or using another metaphor, switching from a aircraft carrier strike group of an organization, to a single submarine.
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[Mark Suszko] “Biscardi may be getting around this by owning his property.”
We’re very fortunate to get around this by being in a position to buy land at a time when the market is down. Also, the metal building company, contractors, everything is marked down now due to the economy.
[Mark Suszko] “I think the trend over the next few years is a repeat of the boutique post movement of the late 80’s/early 90’s. Small, purpose-built, niche operations designed to run hyper-lean, with most non-essentials rented on demand or leased, populated by a small staffing core, bolstered on a per-job basis by hungry freelancers.”
Absolutely on target. This is precisely how we’ve built ourselves from a spare bedroom in my house to the operation we are now and will be shortly. Except we’ve purchased the essentials, and instead of focusing on a niche operation, we are a very broad operation that can complete all aspects of post production and delivery. Even though we’re moving into a larger space, we’re still going to be a very lean operation with the ability to scale up and down the production team as required for a project.
The big key in this major move we’re going to be doing is the ability to maintain all our rates status quo. In fact our rates haven’t changed for years and I really don’t foresee a need to change them anytime soon.
In a nutshell you’ve described the development and future of our company.
Walter Biscardi, Jr.
Editor, Colorist, Director, Writer, Consultant, Author, Chef.
HD Post and Production
Biscardi Creative Media“Foul Water, Fiery Serpent” featuring Sigourney Weaver coming soon.
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You’re not just now realizing we are in a depression are you?
This, of course, is why so many of us are evolving how we do business. Things change. If your company doesn’t evolve with it, it’s temporary. I don’t see big old school post houses shuttin’ down shop as a bad thing.
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[walter biscardi] “[Mark Suszko] “I think the trend over the next few years is a repeat of the boutique post movement of the late 80’s/early 90’s. Small, purpose-built, niche operations designed to run hyper-lean, with most non-essentials rented on demand or leased, populated by a small staffing core, bolstered on a per-job basis by hungry freelancers.” “
This is how i built my company, Its a two person operation and as i need more people I hire them freelance. I pay them good wages and they always want to return. The company was built on cash, we only buy things cash or if a job requires it and will pay for it.
2010 is a tough year. This years revenue will be a little more than half of the years before. I’m mostly feature based, and we are feeling the effects of writers/actors strikes of years before. And the effects of this economy. If I had actual over head, I’d be out of biz. The only overheard we have is Rent and in L.A. it’s much cheaper to rent than buy. I’m sure atlanta is a different beast.
Everyone has different challenges for the niche they are in, as well as the market they are in. I hope we all are here in 2014, making money, enjoying life.
Kudos to Walter! You will never have to ask “What if”. Thats the way life is meant to be lived. No one every got anywhere by playing it safe all the time!
Nick Hasson
Smoke/Color
http://www.niceedits.com -
“I don’t see big old school post houses shuttin’ down shop as a bad thing.”
Why would you say this? Those shops have People with Families
working in them. Where is your humanity?
It’s a bad thing when an Industry shrinks.
I am very happy for those here who are doing well and have
wished them luck. But no matter what their business plan is
they have to ask themselves Just how many heart attacks (clients)
are they away from the dust heap?You want to see the best if humanity but 10 people in a Box
with enough food for 8.Neil Hurwitz
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You ever move on to another job that didn’t result in a five figure raise? Everyone but the management will move on to bigger better things. I’m happy for em. Are you not?
Where is your humanity? 😉 -
There isn’t enough jobs available for the amount of trained post professionals out there.
What will this idle 60,000+ jobless post pros worldwide do? Create their own companies.
They’ll all drive each other out of business.
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