Today LooseKeys turns two. It feels like just a couple weeks ago that I left Daily Planet ltd. and ventured out on my own to build this business. There hasn’t been a single day that I’ve looked back and second guessed my decision. 

It’s been an amazing journey with over 70 videos in our portfolio, some awesome clients and support of so many friends and family.  

If one year ago I had felt like I learned a lot, this year proved that I had no idea what I was doing because I was presented with a number of new challenges that I had to overcome. The biggest hurdle was in management of a team. This past year the team grew and Jake Williams came onboard full-time. One step closer to world domination… The team has been building steam and hopefully I’ll be able to add another person to it in the near future.

After two years, I think we’re doing something right over here. I’m slowly making sure that LooseKeys is more than just an animated explainer business. We’re storytellers, artists and with each video we do we’re able to show why clients pick us over the other guy. 

Thank you everyone for the support!

Your business can change fast and there are new tools and software coming out almost everyday; it can be hard to keep up. But guess what that’s part of your job! You have to know what happening, you have to know what coming up so you can adjust and make corrections. Ignorance is bliss but you can’t run your business with blinders on because one wrong turn and you’re in trouble. You have to challenge yourself to stay on top. I work in an industry that is always changing and I have to know what’s happening otherwise it will be difficult to stay competitive.

Test new ideas, try new marketing campaigns or even attempt something crazy. If it doesn’t work out, oh well at least you tried. Maybe you spent a few thousand dollars to build a mobile app and it turned out to be a flop, that’s nothing really… at least you had the opportunity to be wrong. Plus, I’m sure you learned something and now the next time you try to build something you have experience to do it differently. 

I’m always trying to learn new tools and skills; sometimes getting value out of them and some even improve how I work. These new skills can sometimes make jobs easier, but even if they don’t work they give me the chance to look at what I’m doing in a different way. Many of the worlds best inventions and discoveries started out as a mistake. You often have to fail in order to find the right answer. At least people took the chance at something, even with the possibility of failure. Its important to try new things, you never know what can happen. Success or failure, its all part of the surprise that keeps work and life interesting.

Don’t be afraid of being wrong and one of the potentials of being wrong is that it really might end up being right. 

Weekends for me are typically busy, I’m not known to kick back on the couch and just veg out. This weekend seemed a bit more hectic than usual and it’s weekends like this that make me enjoy those slower weekends, even if I am working. 

This weekend I had a shoot scheduled for a product demo video that LooseKeys is working on. We’ve only done a few live action productions at LooseKeys and on every one we seem to learn a little more about what not to do.

With this video we needed to hire “actors.” I say actors loosely here because this was a non-speaking role and we pulled the actors from craigslist  Which I’m not sure I’ll do again. In the past we’ve been able to work with friends or friends of friends and it’s been pretty smooth and low stress. 

I know there are a few other options to find actors but we didn’t have a huge budget to work with. I was also on a bit of a tight turnaround so a casting call wasn’t really an option. Once again from this experience I see how valuable having a producer is on your team. 

So I ended up getting actors from craigslist; I wouldn’t typically hire a designer or get work for myself on craigslist so I’m not really sure what I was expecting. Many of the actors were fantastic and I hope I have another project where I can use them again. They should also be charging more because they were killer and out shined the poor ones. There were a couple actors who really added a lot of stress to the whole project. 

One actor tried to cancel the morning of the shoot but ended up showing up. Another canceled at midnight the day before the shoot. I was asleep so I didn’t see the message till the morning of the shoot. This resulted in a mad dash to find a new talent Sunday morning for the shoot that afternoon. Of course getting a hold of someone on Sunday at 9 AM was not easy. Thankfully we were able to get in contact with a couple of replacements and had a successful shoot. 

Next time I hope to either work with good actors like some of the ones who came through for us on this shoot or at least add some more to the budget so we can get a producer to handle the actors for us. If the budget was a little bigger we may work with a talent agency and do a casting call. Once again, this was another learning experience that will only help us for the next live action project we work on.

The simple answer is because everyday I get to learn, experiment and play just like the day before. What could possibly be better than waking up everyday to a new adventure?

Sometimes it feels like there isn’t enough time to get all your work done during the week. Often you don’t have the time or inclination to explore anything new or different in regards to work because of the amount on your plate. But its important to find time to explore and to be curious. Curiosity is a good thing. It can lead to you gaining information and its a chance to improve your skills. Whenever a new plugin or piece of software comes out everyone wants to know what it is and how it works. Sure sometimes the appeal of that shiny new thing can leave you with just that, a shiny new thing. It might seem like you’re wasting time by exploring this new piece of software but what you’re really doing is improving your skills and knowledge. How are you suppose to learn and grow if you aren’t curious about what’s new? Curiosity won’t kill you, it can give you insight and wisdom to make better work.

One of the many hats you have to wear when you’re running your own business is that of the chief financial officer. Being a freelancer for many years, I didn’t see any issues with taking on this roll. I also manage most of the household finances so it seemed like it wouldn’t be an issue. But over the last year I’ve learned a lot and found that it’s maybe one the hardest and most stressful parts of running your own business.

Knowing your financial status is extremely important, without it you could be in some serious trouble. As a freelancer you mainly have to only worry about money coming in. You do the working, send your invoice and then get paid. Fairly simple, you might have some bumps along the way but it’s all about the money coming in. But then when you are running a business, all of sudden you are hiring people to help with projects and they need to get paid too. Now you have to worry about money coming in and money going out. You have to get money in for your business to pay yourself and keep things moving and you have to pay the people that you hired. The freelancers you hire won’t be paid until after you get paid because you pay them from the money you receive from the client. That doesn’t quite seem fair to the freelancer. Why should a freelancer be at the mercy of the client paying their client before they get paid? I know the feeling, as a freelancer in the industry I typically would not see a check for my work until 30 to 45 days after completion of a project and when the economy got bad it was up to 90 days. I certainly try to be better than that with LooseKeys because I understand the issues and frustrations with not getting paid. I really do try to pay people as soon as possible. I’ve learned the necessity of having extra funds set aside in case I am waiting longer than expected to be paid on many projects, so I’m able to pay the talented people who work for me as soon as I can. Since LooseKeys is small, the margin of error is extremely tight. In most cases it isn’t an issues but when you have too many clients not looking to pay you right away it can become an issue and having to wear the CFO hat becomes a heavy one. I don’t have any magical tricks to make it easier, I just make sure I’m watching what’s happening and be sure to have a little buffer room for those unexpected late payments from clients.

Athletes and musicians practice playing for a reason, it’s silly to think that you shouldn’t practice and learn your own craft to better keep up your skills.  Even if you’re number one now, you need to find time to keep learning to stay on top. You have to continue to challenge yourself and figure out what’s new and how you can stay ahead of the curve. When you keep learning and growing you stay hooked on your craft, it never get’s old. If you love what you do you’re going to get better at it. Learn every aspect of your business, if it’s the book keeping, sales, coding or customer service. If you understand the entire business you’ll know your craft better, you’ll know the issues that can come up before the other guy and you can call bullshit when someone is trying to tell you how it should be done. Keep finding ways to grow and challenge yourself because as soon as you stop growing, your passion for your craft could fade away.

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or the present are certain to miss the future.”
John F. Kennedy

If you’re part of the motion graphics field or any technology driven field you know that change is constantly happening. You have no control over it and it can’t be stopped. New software is released, faster computers become available, new techniques are discovered, and jobs are moved and downsized. One thing that you can always count on is that each day is going to be different and that things are not going to get stale or remain the same. You can try to resist them and ultimately you will fall behind and be tossed aside like yesterday’s leftovers. Once you are no longer innovating and growing you become disposable. The best practice is for you to embrace these changes that are happening with welcome arms. Don’t resist, instead cooperate with change, adapt to change, and benefit from change. Knowing that you can be ready for it and embrace it when it happens.

One of the problems I see occur when doing design work is that you become set in a style or technique. Once this happens it becomes harder to change because it’s easier to just stay the same. There’s a part of the human mind that is often referred to as the “lizard brain,” Seth Godin, talks about this extensively in his books. The lizard brain is concerned with survival; it likes the tried and true, so it’s likely to pipe up when you’re presented with a challenge or change, flooding you with adrenaline warnings of “Danger!” as you veer off course. The lizard brain doesn’t want you to change, it wants to take the easy way out. You must learn how to resist the call of “lizard brain,” and try something new.

But change isn’t all about huge moves it’s also about learning. As I’ve said before it’s important to keep learning. Personally I like to be challenged when working. If it’s too easy then it’s not going to be fun and I’m not learning. The challenge of change drives me.  If you want to stay ahead of your competition you must change. Think about it if you learn one new trick or technique a day or even a week your skill level has changed. You are that much better then the person who hasn’t changed. I recently just finished Tony Hsieh book Delivering Happiness and I really liked Zappos’ second core value: Embrace and Drive Change. The word embrace suggests not only that you are ready for change but you look forward to it.  There is no time like now to explore what it is that you really like or want to do. Change keeps us fresh and energized. Experience change as an opportunity for creative growth and new experiences. The ones that embrace and drive change are the ones that move ahead and become leaders in the field.

Face it this field moves quickly and it’s always pushing you to be creative at every turn. It can be overwhelming and stressful but at the same time exciting and full of possibilities. Seeing your work on television or in magazines is always wonderful and is a nice reward for doing something you love. Hopefully you went into motion graphics or design because you do indeed love doing it. This is something you should try and remember everyday, it isn’t just a job it’s a job you really enjoy. The passion and determination you demonstrate will likely come with success. Just try not to stress yourself along the way. Success will only come if you keep learning, creating and just don’t give up. Just because you run into an issue with a certain job don’t let that freak you out. Each and every project should deliver a range of new challenges that you can learn from. If you want to be the best designer you need to set a goal and then put in the hours to get there. Get knee deep in it and read books and do tutorials. But don’t worry if you are not meeting the goal you have set sooner or later if you put in the time, things will just click and you will be cranking out quality work to the level you had been working towards.