“Education is not the answer to the question. Education is the means to the answer to all questions.”

Guy Kawasaki, author of The Art of the Start says:

“…the wisest course of action is to take your best shot with a prototype, immediately get to market, and iterate quickly. If you wait for ideal circumstances in which you have all the information you need (which is impossible) the market will pass you by”

I’d like to replace ‘information’ with ‘money, advertising, readers, and finance.’ Not only is nobody able to start a publication these days, many of them are folding—even staid, urban newspapers like the Seattle P.I.And so this thing is rough. We took Guy Kawasaki’s advice and brought this ‘bookgazine’ to fruition as quickly as we could. This meant going against the heart and soul of our designer ethos; make it perfect, make it cool, make it stand-out. Instead we wrote everything as quickly as we could, banged out an InDesign file, and slapped this badboy up on Lulu, knowing that there was a thirst for this information and knowing that we could grow-as-we-go.

This simply isn’t information you’ll find anywhere else. Your professors won’t tell you about P-E ratios, they won’t tell you about compounded interest or your rights as a worker. They simply don’t know—it wasn’t part of their curriculum either.  Instead we’ve gone to both business leaders and successful designers to find out how they’re doing it, and we’re packaging up their lessons for you. Throughout this and upcoming issues of DBR you’ll find little morsels you can apply to your own practice; how Joe Duffy first started getting clients, explanation of how their partnership with a larger ad firm helped them piggy-back themselves into existence and success, and how you can do that too, by forming your own strategic partnerships and friendships.

Please enjoy our bootstrapped publication, and buy a copy for a friend. If you are a writer or have an idea for an article, please let us know by emailing info@designbusinessreview.com. Thanks for your faith; give us a few issues and we’ll be your go-to source for the business of creativity.

Good luck out there!
Chris Papasadero

What about *our* industry? [I am saying "our" while working for a trader? yes, I do, I belong here, I guess]. I mean basically everyone, who is in touch with intangible goods, creative services like advertising, photography, video production/editing/FX, copy writing, etc. What is the business model of BBDO/JWT/Ogilvy? Or maybe someone can trace down the thinking of the people, who started these companies? What was the plan of the founders of YouWorkForThem, Pentagram, MK12, Brand New School? Is it “draw, sell for 3$, draw more”? Is it “do a project for a client, get paid, do another project”? Or maybe “get a client with big budget, get another client with big budget, get three more clients with small budgets”? How do all the supppliers fit in this model, i.e. an ad agency commissioning a commercial video to a creative boutique, which in turn hires video FX company, production company, model agency and cattering service on location?

Read more HERE. We will be presenting some possible solutions to the business-model-f0r-creatives problem in DBR Issue 2 and beyond.

“Anyone could have run a business in the 90s. My dog could have run a business! Heck! I was a kid doctor. Operating on adults! Seriously!”