The Fuckup Files Series - Episode One: "I Thought I Was Really Good"
I got my first computer when I was 25. It was a Pentium at 90Mhz, with probably 128MB RAM and a HDD of no more than 20Gb. The RAM and the HDD are wild guesses, by the way, I don't remember them correctly, but the CPU clock is exact. I remember that because my brother in law made me a birthday present a few months later by overclocking it at 120Mhz. Boy, that felt good!
Back then, the operating system was still a pack of 15 floppy disks and Windows 95 was for exceptionally meritorious people. You had to struggle a bit to get your hands on that.
The Context
The software you could run on such a machine wasn't spectacular, as you can imagine. But at that time it felt like absolutely amazing. I clearly remember that I didn't sleep for 24 hours in a row, skipping work, because I played incessantly Civilization 1. Which was just a matrix of squares with random messages telling you you just discovered the wheel or horseback riding. And yet, it kept me glued to the screen for hours.
One of those pieces of software was actually very cool. The name was clearly supporting this claim, since the software was called Cool Edit. It was a sound editor. For the first time I was able to see the sound waves graphically represented on a screen and cut micro-micro seconds of material, and do noise reduction and compression. I could also record bits and pieces with a microphone and mix them together or even add musical notes through a MIDI interface, provided that my soundboard had a MIDI controller on it (which was a feat in and by itself).
Oh, I think I'm getting ahead of myself.
You see, the reason I was so familiar with all those sound operations was that I was working in an FM radio. It was the FM radio spring, in the nineties and I was lucky enough to work in a few of the radio stations that were popping out like popcorns in Bucharest. As a reporter, I had to record my own news, transfer them on magnetic band, edit them (like actually cutting the band with a scissors). It was tedious and very risky - if you cut more than you had to, then your only chance was to glue the tape together again. It was pretty much a mess. I think at least 60% of the time I was spending making my stories was spent in the editing room.
So when I had my first computer, I searched (on this small website called Google, which was giving, surprisingly, more relevant results than giants like Altavista or Lycos) for anything related to sound processing. In a few months I also bought a much better soundboard, a microphone and a pair of headphones. I felt like I was building my own sound editing studio. None of the equipment I was buying was professional, because I couldn't afford it.
The Business
Spending in radio my entire day I also connected with some of the sales people. Those that were hunting businesses trying to convince them to buy advertising on our radio station. Some of them were also entrepreneurial and they left the radio to start their own advertising agency. Yes, radio advertising was that good those days.
It didn't take long to connect the dots. Computer -> sound processing -> advertising -> sales people -> potential clients.
So, one day I went to the newly launched entrepreneurs (we didn't call them like that, those days, we called them "crazy people") and asked them if there is somebody doing the production for their radio clips. Their answer was that they were doing the production in the radio, which had the only professional equipment on the market. It was the nineties, people, keep remembering that.
Somehow, I ended up convincing them to give me a shot. They got a client which needed production and they were willing to give me $150 for the production. That was insane. My salary for a month was $250, so making $150 just from a side project seemed too good to be true. I got the brief, I made a small script, recorded my own voice, put some background music, and that was that.
The Outcome
I went with the tape (yes, we record those clips on tape) to their studio and put it in the cassette player.
And that's the exact moment I felt completely covered in shame. The sound was absolutely awful. It sounded like a few gnomes were trying to sing an Irish ballad from within a barrel. All from 100 meters away. It was absolutely bad.
But the guys paid me in full, telling me each and every thing I did wrong. And what I did wrong, was, basically, the fact that my equipment was simply not professional. The quality of the recording, the editing, the voice, the mixing, all was sub par. Not good enough.
And yet, I thought I was really good.
That's one of the most frequent mistakes in business. Thinking that you know it all. Thinking that you're good just because you want to be good. Some people call this "wishful thinking" but for me is more than that. It's a bit of greed mixed with a bit of stupidity. And with a bit of an edge, based on the overall market value.
For instance, I could have paid a radio studio to do the voice recording and editing for me, for about $120. I was still able to make $30. And then I could use my computer for the fine touches. With 4 more gigs from those guys I could have reached the $150 target.
But I was overconfident and greedy.
I think this could be very well told about the current state of Steemit as well. There is certainly and edge. Especially on the technological side. But from all the other angles this sounds just as bad as my clip. Disconnected, greedy and overconfident.
I was never asked again to make an advertising clip, in more than 23 years.
This post is part of an experiment I run on Steemit.
Each of the posts related to the entrepreneurial mistakes will be set up as "Decline Payout". But if you like the post, you may contribute directly, by sending me whatever amount of SBD or Steem you consider appropriate. I will keep 20% of the proceedings and the rest will be redistributed equally among all the contributors.
I will publish the reports in the following day, in a separate post, which will NOT be setup as "Decline Payout". The proceedings from that post will be redistributed equally to all the contributors as well (minus what I get as Steem Power, that I will keep).
You can read more details about the methodology and metrics of the experiment here.
Previous posts in the experiment:
So, if you like the experiment, if you think it will bring value, you can start participating in it right now, by sending me Steem or SBD using the following memo: "fuckup files episode one".
image source - Pixabay
I'm a serial entrepreneur, blogger and ultrarunner. You can find me mainly on my blog at Dragos Roua where I write about productivity, business, relationships and running. Here on Steemit you may stay updated by following me @dragosroua.
It was a great time. Floppy drives and computer games - Prince of Persia, Doom, Duke Naken.
I had such a computer.
Thank you for the post.
Super post!
On computers:
But that info is kind-of-off-topic. I do agree, when one want to make business, one shall never overestimate. Always think this: when trying something (without any experience) in a industry that is already an industry in some sort, why would you be better than all the people who do it as a day job already? Of course, there are still opportunities to find, and of course you may oversell yourself a bit, but make sure quality is delivered, and that usually cost money and a lot of effort that in the end will not bring the dreamed profits...But repeating those jobs many times, may bring you an interesting income in the end, but not at day one, or two, or even three; As a rule startups takes years (between 2 and 3 I would say) before getting into black numbers.
Transferred some Steem again to support your project!
Oh yeah. I had a Commodore Vic20 with something that looked like a tape deck to save data. LOL
I was so upset when my mother threw it out because she was cleaning the attic!
She did what?! What a pity!
I know, right?!?! That could have been a museum piece.
Really good core point here. There's a kind of self-delusion that gets fostered too, that if you don't believe in your work unconditionally (that is, without allowing for the possibility it might not be that good!) you will not make it.
I think what you discovered here (if I understand you correctly) is something I discovered some time ago too. When you listen to something you've produced on your own and then with audience, it actually seems to sound different. Some musician and sound producer friends also anecdotally agree with this. I'm not sure if this goes for visual art / work as well.
My best guess for why this happens is that one can no longer make those many small allowances for one's work when you know other people are scrutinising it. What is surprising the perceptual difference is so great!
The greed part I hadn't considered before but I think it makes a lot of sense. In past failing I too have tried to squeeze the life out of the margins and not taken the "hit" to make things work better that taking a bigger slice for myself.
However I'm not sure how this should be applied to Steemit though, your argument is too brief, only a few sentences. Who is greedy, Steem Inc. or the users or both? Who is disconnected, and why and from what?
Good article again, looking forward to the next. 😃 👍
I think the "greed" part is related to the fact that Steemit is not taking responsibility for the entire ecosystem. It lets people build stuff on top of it - which is, to a certain extent, a good thing - without any direction at all. Somebody wrote on Steemit recently that you have to have 4-5 tabs opened to have a proper Steemit experience: one for the site, one for the chat, another one for steemstats, another one for steemd / steemdb and so on.
I talked to the guys from Golos at d10e and @hipster told me they're actually giving money to people who are making open source contributions to the ecosystem, I think they already started to do something with @ontofractal. That's the kind of involvement I don't see on Steemit and that I equal - somehow, not too much, to be honest - to some sort of greed. The leaders in the Steemit Inc should take at least a little bit of responsibility for the direction of the platform and communicate it. Otherwise, they just think they're good - like my poorly edited clip - only to be hit by the market at some point.
Which will be bad for all of us, obviously.
Thanks for the nice words and for supporting this experiment :)
To let others develop stuff is good, but I fully agree with you, this needs to be managed in such a way that whatever is developed and turns out to be good, will become part of the UI, and maybe even better integrated with the core Steemit software. Today too many projects ongoing with people behind them who do not even talk with Steemit Inc, or maybe not even with the witnesses. No plan. Any company and service who wants to have success with working with 3rd parties, is a company/service that has 3rd party programs running, have extensive API's available on the core software (I do not mean the blockchain, but the Steemit core software with the logic in it). But hey, we are talking about a company that does not even have a proper support desk. Too much chaos right now IMHO. It almost looks like a hobby project. It really need to be professionalised operation, way more than it is now.
I also once started with Windows 95. Quickly pass our years.
Excellent story and well thought out analogy. I really appreciate how much time and consideration you are putting into these posts. Definitely well worth my contribution.
20 GB of hard-disk drive space? That was a huge amount!
I don't think you had 20GB of HDD. I started with a 486 which had a whopping 120MB of HDD, later upgraded to a P90, too. Don't remember the HDD size but definitely 20GB was later stuff.
At that time, around 1992-94, I had a 20Mbyte external hard disk (Amiga 500).
we didn't call them like that, those days, we called them "crazy people" ... really made me laugh. thank you very much.
You're welcome :)