Perspective is a funny thing. On one hand, a really straightforward word with a definition as simple as I’ve ever seen. Broken down to mean “a point of view”. But as a concept, perspective is something people often forget to think about.
Our company consists of 3 partners. 3 is a nice number because we always have a tie-breaker. My favorite physical example of perspective happened last week on our way to a shoot in Newport, RI. Sitting in the car trying to figure out where to stop for lunch, we all saw the same food truck in front of us. Howard (drivers seat) saw a truck selling pizza, Bruce (back seat) saw a truck selling Italian Ice, and I (passenger seat) was able to see that this one truck sold both of those things. This incredibly simple example illustrates just how easy it is to miss things that seem so obvious to others, a lesson that we struggle with as a startup in a creative space.
Through the months of January to March we were doing well as a company, as a young start-up we live together, work together, and have been friends for the last 14 years of our lives — meaning often we hangout with each other as well. In the middle of March, we were forced to stop operating in a traditional way and each moved to be with family during the early stages of the Covid-19 pandemic in the United States. Although we were fortunate enough to be able to have a few ongoing projects with lose ends that we could focus on tying up, the majority of our work throughout the months of April and May was spent struggling to figure out what we were supposed to be doing.
We spent time learning how to operate without being physically together, and decided to spend time learning new skills that we knew would be beneficial to our company when we returned to some normalcy, and on June 1st we moved back in together and normalcy came at us like a wave.
While we struggled with frustration of knowing that our last 2 months had been our worst financial months ever, and neither the small business protection or personal stimulus checks would be coming for any of us, we were lucky enough to have an old client reach out with a big ask.
Throughout the month of June we worked with 2 different clients, and produced a total of 17 deliverables (with one larger project to be completed later this summer). This was great, we were thrilled, the work was fun and our clients were happy. But we found ourselves frustrated, down, and struggling to feel like we were doing enough work. Our best financial month ever, spent pumping out content, and all 3 of us were feeling like we weren’t working hard enough, doing enough, doing the right things, and were generally frustrated.
This leads us to here and now, the first week of July and our case study on perspective. We had to do something that’s often difficult in the midst of the “start-up grind” — take a step back and look at the big picture.
We spent one frustrating afternoon, a full 4 hours, discussing things that we felt we needed to be doing as a company and things that we wanted to be doing as a company. Trying to get these 2 lists to align was able to set us on a path of what we should be doing as a company. We were able to realize that we don’t need to accomplish every goal we have right now, goals aren’t tasks that can be checked off at the end of each day. And we landed at the conclusion that starting a company isn’t a race even though it often feels it. We spend so much time talking about our competitors, and feeling inferior, trying to rank ourselves or compare our work but there’s one common factor whenever we realize they’re doing better than us. That factor? They should be, they have decades of experience and we’re in our first full year as a company.
A sentiment that’s stuck with me through my life is that often the sooner you realize that you’ll be okay, the easier it is put the things that feel overwhelming at the time into perspective. We’re just starting to learn why people say starting a company is hard, and we’re excited to face this challenge. Perspective is a beautiful thing and allows for all of us to pause for a moment and think about the things that we’re seeing, and the things that others are seeing, and find the truth of the situation. We’re doing fine.
