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One rises from the dust
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[Ron Lindeboom] “Some will think that it always takes money. Oh, it helps. But I hope my friend Walter doesn’t mind me reminding the readers of this forum that I can recall when Walter was on the ropes and it didn’t look good. He was in real trouble and most people in his position would have given up and walked away.
Not Walter.”
You are so correct sir, as usual. When I left my failed three year partnership back in 2001, I still owed that company $50,000 to pay off all the debts. And I had absolutely nothing from that company except my prized possession, a classic Coca Cola machine. It’s super cool, but you certainly can’t edit a television show with it…..
$30,000 lease later…. we’re $80,000 in the hole before I do a single job.
It hasn’t always been a pretty ride, but Rebecca and I have managed to build the business very slowly but steady with the good always offsetting the bad. Honestly the business is not where it is today without her guidance. I can create programming all day, but when it comes to the business management side of things, she offers the steady hand to ensure we spend within our means and not over it.
For two years now we’ve considered expanding but just didn’t know exactly how we would do it so we looked all over. The first obvious choice was leasing and we came very close to leasing a 2400 sq. ft space two years ago. Then one of my clients called with all sorts of extra work and I knew that wouldn’t be big enough.
And then the math showed us that we were better off buying in this economy than leasing. Commercial Property values were dropping off so quickly we could now afford to look at purchasing up to 12,000 sq ft buildings and still be fine. What we ended up with was the perfect situation where our realtor found 2 acres of foreclosed commercial land sitting in an already established light industrial park. The lot backs up to the woods creating a perfect outdoor setting for us to relax and Molly to chase frisbees. Best of all, it’s only 10 minutes from the house.
So we’re moving the Rooks and the Knights out onto the chess board taking our best shot at property and a building we could never have dreamed of even two years ago when we started. We’ve worked hard over the past 9 years and have been fortunate to save enough money to be in a position to take advantage of the market.
As I’ve said in the past, can’t thank you and Kathlyn enough for the advice and friendship over the years and the tremendous amount of advice I’ve received across the entire pasture all these years.
Oh and we start pushing dirt next Monday. Woo hooooo! I wanna ride in the bulldozer!
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 biscardi] “It hasn’t always been a pretty ride, but Rebecca and I have managed to build the business very slowly but steady with the good always offsetting the bad. Honestly the business is not where it is today without her guidance. I can create programming all day, but when it comes to the business management side of things, she offers the steady hand to ensure we spend within our means and not over it. For two years now we’ve considered expanding but just didn’t know exactly how we would do it so we looked all over.”
You bring up an astute point, Walter, one which I learned well from a man named Gary Gatel who once headed a company named Rifle Farings, here in Paso Robles, California. I was the managing editor of Pacific Coast Business Magazine at the time, and I interviewed Gary for an article about getting through the collapse of a business — which had happened to the onetime $22 million dollar a year company that had pioneered and built aerodynamic motorcycle farings, but had dropped to a million dollars or less in annual revenues due to Honda, Kawasaki, Yamaha and others shipping their bikes to America with the farings as part of the bike. Rifle had to change gears quick and they suddenly found themselves in the business of building food-grade fiberglass seed sprouting tanks for raising alfalfa sprouts for sale in health food stores.
Gary taught me a lesson that I will never forget. In our talk, Gary said: “Ron, companies are always being told by the marketplace what the market will accept from that company and at what size. Unfortunately, many business owners don’t like the market’s verdict and want to do something else, something grander, bigger, with more prestige and more money. They try to create ‘their’ vision of what they want and spend a fortune building it — only to launch the company and see that their vision is rejected. But I have always believed that if you are making one more dollar than you spend, you can keep building indefinitely until you find the business equilibrium and the place where your company has established itself within the market’s expectations profitably. It’s more organic than spending a fortune building something only to watching it open to no traffic when it is launched, rejected because it was not what the market wanted. Markets also change and you have to change with them. We did, and now we know that we are no longer a $22 million business, we are much smaller — but it works because we can accept that.”
Here at Creative COW, we have always built with a keen reliance on Gary’s words. We build slowly and refine each step, we do not think in terms of “finished” strategies, merely ones that are in constant development and testing — organically assessing and tweaking each step and refining and building on each one that works.
Rebecca intrinsically understands Gary’s principle, and from the conversations we have have with her over the years, she is clearly a smart woman — one with a keen grasp on what it takes to build something successful.
You are indeed a blessed man to have such a partner in life and business, Walter.
Best regards,
Ron Lindeboom
CEO, CreativeCOW.netCreativity is a type of learning process where the teacher and pupil are located in the same individual.
Graveyards are full of people the world couldn’t do without.
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[Ron Lindeboom] “You are indeed a blessed man to have such a partner in life and business, Walter.”
Amen!
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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“Anyone else buying land? ”
I would if I could find a few partners to share the load. Any suggestions?
Steve Mann
MannMade Digital Video
http://www.mmdv.com -
I have read so many horror stories about “partners” that I’m desperately trying to make this work alone (with my team, of course). Save your pennies!
Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production and Post
Owner/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com -
Same here. Just the wife and I in the realty end of things.
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