Full-time engis; I need your wisdom!

[Empathy]

Hi guys! I'm in the midst of doing a pretty hefty assessment for my second-to-last term of university, which requires me to write up a 'pretend' business plan for a company of our imagining within the entertainment industry. I've uploaded a neat little questionarre to dropbox, if you'd be willing to take a few minutes to answer it I'd be very grateful. I'd also be happy to send anyone that participates a copy of the final paper if they were interested, to share my findings.

.txt with questions is here: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/20404227/Questionarre_20.01.2012.txt

*Edited out the massive wall-of-text original post at smy1's reccomendation.

 

[smy1]

Hi!

I'm not your target audience, but I'd like to say that you are making it almost impossible for anyone to answer your questions. Even if I was interested in participating, I lost interest once you started asking your questions.

You are basically violating the every rule of "how to get people to help me" and the first rule is: make it as easy as possible for people to help you. In your case that means: make a simple .txt file that has all your questions listed with 3-4 lines of space in between each question. Don't ask the questions in a huge-post. I simply don't want to look at your list of questions that are only separated by a comma, then switch over to a word processor and type my answer. Especially if it's something I'm doing for free anyway.

The second rule of "how to get people to help me" is: keep it short! I read the first few paragraphs and the last one and then wasn't interested anymore. Because of the endless words and words and words. Don't get me wrong, I read lots. But you really should have said something like

"Hai guise! I need some help for my university paper on topic xyz! Who of you would be willing to answer a number of questions for me? Here's a text file with the questions and space to answer them! If you participate I'll send you my finished paper so you can gain insight into my findings!".

The last part actually gives people an incentive to help you - and the post would have been much shorter and more easy to digest.

Last but not least: don't apologise for not making sense. At that point I think that you really don't care much for your stuff because otherwise you'd work on it UNTIL IT MAKES SENSE. And the hour of day is no excuse. Don't post it at midnight if you fear that it won't make sense. Sleep on it and give us the courtesy of a proper post (you would have totally circumvented this by using my "short post"-idea, btw!).

Don't take any of what I wrote personally, but basically everything with your post is wrong if you are trying to get anyone to help you, so maybe my reply can help you a bit

 

[Headof75]

The problem with starting a recording studio from scratch is - don't.
Most people on here will tell you that they didn't go pro until they had enough work to sustain them in the absence of a day job, and the only way to do that is building a reputation steadily using time when you're not working. Traditional business plans will only apply to people starting a studio who already have a customer base. Unfortunately that seems to be something that many colleges avoid telling people.

 

[Empathy]

wall o' text

Huh, guess I didn't really think to put a TL;DR section in it. I'll write up a neat little text file and upload it in a few minutes, thanks for the input. I normally find that people on this forum don't mind sitting down and reading small essay-sized posts, so didn't bother beforehand.

The problem with starting a recording studio from scratch is - don't.
Most people on here will tell you that they didn't go pro until they had enough work to sustain them in the absence of a day job, and the only way to do that is building a reputation steadily using time when you're not working. Traditional business plans will only apply to people starting a studio who already have a customer base. Unfortunately that seems to be something that many colleges avoid telling people.

Well, thanks for replying, but maybe what was mentioned above comes in to play here. I'm aware that breaking in to the audio recording scene is difficult, but the point of this assessment is to be writing up a business proposal based on numerous assumptions that bypass the 'reality' of the whole situation. For example, we're assigned a personal capital contribution of $50,000 to start up; the business plan is meant to be marketed toward potential investors so that we can increase the necessary funds for start-up.

 

[Headof75]

^^^ I understand what you're saying about bypassing reality, but in that case why come to people in real world situations seeking real world solutions/information. I could only have dreamed of having that kind of money available to me when I started my studio business in 2001, and as for attracting investors how can you hope to do that without having some major success as collateral, unless the source of investment is from family, friends or genuine benefactors (and how many of these have you met?). Let's say that in fantasy land you attract match-funding from an investor so you have a $100000 budget, which you split evenly between promotion and premises/equipment. You won't be able to pay yourself anything out of that as most genuine investors aren't into just paying your wages. You've got a $50000 studio and the main part of your business is going to be reamping at an average rate of say $25 or less per hour (you wouldn't be able to charge more than this without having a name to trade on). How much work do you think you'll get? How long would it take you to make a profit?
The reality is that even the top guys in the business have peaks and troughs in their work. Averaged out it becomes a full time job (but then the top guys get a much better average per hour rate too!) but you work when you've got it for as long and as hard as your customer wants/needs/pays for, and when you don't have a customer you make the most of the time to learn, develop, upgrade, repair and do all your admin.
I'm not deliberately trying to be difficult, but it's not easy to objectively answer your questions having been in this situation in reality.
Btw - usual practice in 'market research' for this kind of thing is to ring up all your competitors locally, pose as a customer and get quotes

 

[Empathy]

I really appreciate you pointing all this out man, and I agree that the circumstances they're giving us with the whole 'fantasy land' shit is downright ridiculous. Luckily I am aware that it is a BITCH of a business to get in to - part of the assessment guideline states that you are to assume you are entering the market with a decent reputation to call on. I could be a total git and write a massive essay instead on how the circumstances they have given us are absolutely impossble and absurd, and that it would have absolutely no chance of getting anywhere in the real world, but then I'd be called a smart-ass and fail my unit

Btw - usual practice in 'market research' for this kind of thing is to ring up all your competitors locally, pose as a customer and get quotes

Way ahead of you - spent about 3 hours doing that today. Sure, I hate duping people and getting their hopes up like that, but it's gotta be done and I can hide behind the "I'M A STUDENT DON'T HURT ME" act.

 

[Headof75]

Way ahead of you - spent about 3 hours doing that today. Sure, I hate duping people and getting their hopes up like that, but it's gotta be done and I can hide behind the "I'M A STUDENT DON'T HURT ME" act.

If you do end up running your own studio in the future that won't be the last shitty thing you have to do to keep your head above water believe me!

Anyway I realise I haven't been very helpful up to now with your assignment, so I'm going to pm you some ideas.