Jonathan Gibson — Tue, 12 Jun 2007 15:21:48 GMT

I would like to see this article explored and believe the topic large enough to rate a small theme series.

I started interactive multimedia production in 1988 and tried establishing a CD-ROM barony in the early 1990’s so I have some practical thoughts about this industry I love. It’s hands-on, yet deeply intellectual. There’s great wealth and recognition at the high-end and personal satisfaction with the tasks we perform daily has it’s own rewards for many of us – in cubicle group, or flying solo home-office. There has always been a trade-off between professional drive and personal freedom with the largest dilemma to remember when striking out on your own is you’ll never stop working again: you either work all the time {certainly the first few years} or not enough and you fail. When taking on products everything from internal roles for those on your team to accounting procedures and tax deadlines changes as you shift from service roles.

I love it. I enjoy the challenge and always strive to make a bigger and better mark on the world and driving new and revolutionary goods to market can be very engaging and worthwhile – but again, it’s not for everyone and sometimes it’s fun just hitching ones’ wagon to a funky new train swinging by that has a nice beat. If you can, try to join a startup and see what that is like, it may not suit your needs and wants, but you’ll definitely walk away knowing more than when you entered.

We found our experience in the field informed us and expanded our professional toolsets. As we developed a number of resources and a body of knowledge, it was clear we could provide a desirable product to others in ours and related industries. I had experience growing up at my mother’s knee as she did newspaper ad-layout with beeswax and exact-o blades piling up around huge books of B+W art to be “clipped”. So, I embraced the DTP revolution and saw a ready + new market for professional images. We bought one of the first Apple CD-ROM drives and mastered Wraptures One on a CD burner the size of an industrial washing machine. I reminisce…
The point I’ll leave with is that the single greatest myth a budding entrepreneur can make is to NOT accept VC when it is offered – assuming the deal is reasonable. So convinced was I in the garage-to-megacorp myth one reads in the business pages that I crippled the long term success of my product by limiting my growth to self-funding “pioneer style”. To be fair there were life-style choices as well where my partner and I would decide things that we felt better doing, but limited the business deals – the price of a moral conscience. Long and short, I allowed plenty of time for the slower moving Image Bank, PhotoDisc, Corbis, etc to gather their monster marketing budgets and clobber the fledgling independent publishers.

Yes, there are multiple phases of this topic worth exploring – especially in light of the current economy.
I look forward to seeing what comes of this.

Boxes and Arrows: Comments by Jonathan Gibson