DeMaster Thomas, 10/14/2002
Listening to my favorite Diana Ross
tune put me into a really deep frame of mind.
Asking myself, do I know where I’m going? Do I like the things life is showing me? Where am I going with my future…do I
know? To be honest, I didn’t. I knew that working one job for the rest of
my life was completely out, unless I could work for myself and own a
business. And from that point on, it
became my lifelong dream.
I was so intrigued
by the venture capitalists. They
appeared to me movers, shakers, and big money-makers. It appeared that they only worked as long as
they needed to and they moved on to another venture. But what would it take to get started? Well, I did some research and found out some
very interesting tidbits about venture capitalism. According to Across the Board by Benno
Schmidt, a firm’s mission statement should be
"We
are here to invest in companies that we believe can succeed, companies with
both management teams and purposes that we can wholeheartedly embrace,
companies that it will be fun to work with as we build and companies of which
we will be justly proud when we succeed."
So, I thought of ways to first, start a company, take the revenue and
turn out an investment firm from it, that would do exactly that.
Let the ideas
begin! I started out by drawing up a business
plan that I felt would be successful. It
consisted of a parent company that would house brother and sister companies and
in turn, create revenue to invest in other business and new innovations. I created the layout of the property, the
titles of each store within the property and set up a list of functions for
each store to perform.
I decided on which
products would be sold where and how.
Now of course, great minds think alike.
I incorporated the ideas of my closest friends who shared my goal for
making this business venture successful.
Together, we began to brainstorm many more branches of ideas.
Then, we were faced with the final
task. Investment. We had to find a way get money to make all
these ideas come to life. This is where
my little song was not so inspirational.
It was as if there were ‘no open doors’ anywhere for those who have no
money to get money to make money. I was
right back where I started with a dollar and a dream. So, I decided to put the business plan on
hold and find a way to generate the income that would be needed to give this
plan life.
Get
That Money
So, there we were. Working to find a way to generate the money
we would need to get our business venture off the ground. We put together an independent record label
that would generate income by selling the material produced by the
artists. The artists were of all kinds
of music, including rock and house. But
it was mostly rap and rhythm and blues.
And of course, guess who was right there in the middle of it all,
writing diligently and making songs…yes you guessed it…me. I was doing something I had not done for two
years. I was making music and recording
in the studio again. This fit perfectly
for what we were after. You see, part of
the business venture included a record company.
Another part of the venture included a clothing store that sold clothes,
made and worn by the recording artists as well as other trendy fashions from
other companies and designers. There
would also be a record store that sold all kinds of music and videos. This was a ‘left hand feeds the right hand’
type of business. Each one of the
products that we created, fit in one of the stores in our shopping center. This shopping center was more than just a
flashy, trendy place for people to buy their latest and greatest favorites in
music and clothes. It was also home to a
restaurant and a nightclub.
Now, I’m sure that
sounds like a lot, but hey, our mission was to get the money and make enough of
it to rotate it over and over again.
After all, this was a career. Not
a job.
This was something that was
designed to maintain our lifestyle as well as the lifestyle of our children who
would grow up to take over the family businesses.
Well, two years passed
and nothing had come of the ideas. The
music ventures never took off and I never really worked hard enough in
researching to find an investor or list of investors that would take on such a
venture. So, my final goal of fulfilling
my career interest as a venture capitalist, was far away from any length of
vision I could ever imagine. It was time
to give up. After all the work we put
into our music, hoping it would sell and we would make enough money to start
our businesses, we gave up. The little voice
in our heads saying, "get that money" was now saying, “stop wasting
your time.” So, I did.
Now, all I do is
look back on it and think of the “shoulda” “coulda” “woulda’s”. It is still a dream of mine though. I like the idea of the dream of being a
venture capitalist but I don’t think I’m going to pursue it as a career
interest anymore. I guess I’ll go back
to the drawing board and find another way.
