It is a continuing education working on a food & beverage company, Pop Culture Coffee.
Having come from soundtrack collectibles, one of the first things I’ve learned is that food is not collectable. It is disposable!
So you can’t easily create value like with a collectible—but on the other hand, everybody needs food. So the potential audience is everybody!
Another thing I’ve learned is about company culture. Every business in the world learns the hard lesson that all distributors will screw you on payment, unless ONE THING.
Do you know what that one thing is? If they need your next product!
The movie business is a nightmare because once you give the movie to a distributor, they don’t need you and you’re screwed. That’s why it’s all about the MG (minimum guarantee) or up-front payment. Good luck getting paid afterwards!
But it also reminds me of the two traditions in food creation: farming and herding. They have led to very different cultures.
Farming is stable. You have your land, you farm it. Everybody knows where your land is. It is not very efficient for thieves to come in and steal your carrots. You work out partnerships and relationships to cultivate your crops and bring them to market. People are incentivized to behave because they have to work together all the time.
Herding is the opposite. You are out there with your herd, and it is very easy for thieves to come and steal your livestock. So herding culture evolved to be tough and fierce: you had to make sure thieves knew not to mess with you.
The film business leads to the latter, herding mentality: paranoia, treachery, posturing and retribution. Frankly, it sucks and I don’t like it. But there’s such rampant bad behavior over limited resources that you have to be guarded against it all the time.
I prefer the farming culture!
Comments