Digital Hitchhiker

It looks like its time I stop flying solo and make the leap to hire someone at LooseKeys. As I’m moving forward with LooseKeys, after just celebrating my one year anniversary, it seems like this is the logical next step if I want to grow. Business has been great and I’m working with some amazing people and businesses. Right now I can only handle so much of the work and although working with freelancers has proven to be wonderful, it is now time to look into bringing someone on that can help with more than just what a freelancer can do. Someone who is there to bounce ideas off of and help take on some of that spillover work that I can’t handle by myself. Hiring someone full-time is no small decision.

I’m now going to take on the responsibility for someone else’s income and future. That’s not something to be taken lightly. Which makes choosing the right person so important. I’m going to be working with them day in and day out and they are going to be helping to build and define LooseKeys. That’s why although I have a style and market that LooseKeys focuses on, I’m going to hire for attitude first rather then skill. Oh they need to be talented, otherwise I’d still be doing all the work like I am now. I believe I need to find the right fit skill wise but most importantly someone I’ll enjoy spending a lot of time with while working hard together. It’s hard to find the right fit when currently it’s just been a two-person team. Although Maeve isn’t full-time yet she is as much a part of LooseKeys as I am. So finding someone that we both feel comfortable working with is important.

It’s been great that I’ve had the chance to work with so many freelancers and that the projects I do lend themselves for this sort of talent. I’m able to work with people and see if they’re a good fit before making that uncertain financial commitment.

No matter who it is that ends up working with LooseKeys, I’m excited for what that new dynamic will bring to the business. I have no doubt that LooseKeys will create even better work when the right people are involved.

It’s hard to believe that its already been a year since I left Daily Planet Productions ltd. and started my own business, LooseKeys. Going from a secure job with benefits and a guaranteed paycheck each week to… well, no job security, no benefits and if we don’t get enough work, there’s no paycheck at all. Its been crazy but at the same time exciting. I have no regrets for making this change and starting this venture. This year has flown by and has been one of the most exciting times of my life. Every day has proven to be a new adventure and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. You can only be prepared so much for starting your own business. Having Maeve there with me along the way has proven to be an extra benefit, without her by my side, everything would have been twice as challenging. Over the last year I’ve had the chance to work on some amazing projects for LooseKeys with some great clients.

Its been a crazy ride these last twelve months, but we’re only getting started. I’ve built some solid relationships already and I’m looking forward to strengthening them even further. So get ready for some big things from the LooseKeys team.

Thank you all for your support in helping to make LooseKeys a success!

As many of you know, I co-host a video podcast about craft beer called Hop Cast. Its a side project that I’ve been doing for several years now. Its just me and my buddy drinking and talking about beer. Overall its been a lot of fun to do and it doesn’t take too much time to put out an episode every week or so. About a year ago we got an idea to shoot another side project that would explore the cellars of craft beer geeks. We wanted to make it fun and also poke fun a little at how obsessive beer geeks can get about cellaring. Our inspiration for our new project Cellarz was the MTV show Cribs. Once we were finally able to shoot it we had to find the time to edit it and do the graphics for it. Well, it took us a while. It’s hard to believe it took a year for us to get the first episode of Cellarz online. When we first started the project we were pretty excited about it and started telling everyone about what we were working on. You know I’m all about sharing what I’m working on. The response was great and people loved the idea. That’s exactly the response you want to hear. How could this back fire; we had a fun idea and the response was outstanding. You hear from a lot of startups and businesses about the importance of building buzz early. But they never really tell you how early you should build the buzz. Well I think I learned what’s too early with Cellarz. It is easy to get excited about a new product, but if you generate excitement before you can deliver, everyone might not be there when you finally show up. With Cellarz, we had a teaser and a logo done for the show and it seemed like we were in good shape. Since this was a side project, it kept getting pushed to the back burner. Every month it just kept getting pushed to the side and it almost seemed like it was dead. But knowing that we had some of that interest for the idea out there we still wanted to deliver… no matter how late it was. Really we should have waited until we had some sort of rough cut or product together before we started telling people what we were working. There has been a couple projects over the last couple years where I’ve seen how revealing too much about your company, product, or service too soon can really back fire.

This was a fun project and we got a pretty good response when we finally uploaded the finished product. I think if we could have uploaded it within the first couple months of us teasing it, we could have had even more people excited to see it.

This past week I spent most of my time working away from the home office. I know I’ve talked about the value of getting out of your home office and working from coworking spaces but this was something totally different. Two of the days this week were spent working in the air on an airplane. You have limited space and most of the time no access to the internet. The limited space on the plane was the number one reason I picked up a MacBook Air late last year. I knew I was going to be traveling more, not only around my home city but out of town as well. The MacBook Air doesn’t have the power of the MacBook Pro, but for space available on the plane, it killed it. I’m rocking the 11 inch and it fits perfectly on your tray table with room for a drink or notebook. On the flight I was able to tweak some animation and get renders ready for once I landed; as well as having a chance to finish up some blog posts. I could’ve used the flight for down time but when you’re used to working during the day, it’s difficult to shut that off just because you’re trapped on a 757. All the work this week wasn’t done in the air, it was done wherever and whenever. I think Maeve and I sat and worked in six different coffee shops over the course of two days. We would rock out an hour or two of work here and there and then move onto the next location. Either in search of better coffee, better chairs, food or just a location with enough power outlets. There was something about this constant movement the really kept me on my toes. You’re working somewhere new all the time and it’s fun but at the same time exhausting. Since I was on the move so much I didn’t find myself getting sucked into hours of web browsing. Anyone who works at a computer all day knows how hard it is to stay productive when the allure of a funny YouTube video or news article is just a click away. I knew when I sat down at one of these coffee shops I only had a fixed amount of time and I needed to use that time to get the most I could accomplished. Kudos to all the people that travel for business every week because doing this one week really pushed me and at times made me glad I have an office to work in back in Chicago. But I did find some value in not knowing where I was working at that day or in trying to figure out what I could accomplish in a short amount of time before my laptop battery died. It forced me to get out of my typical routine and made me have to work smarter. By getting out of my comfort zone it gave me a good idea of how I work and how I can work more efficiently once I’m back in the home office. I’d love to do more work traveling in the future; the constant movement and the energy of a new location really helps breed some creative ideas.