'Benefit from the real life experience of three businesses & the ongoing commentary of the expert advisers so you don't have to learn the 'hard way'!'
'Benefit from the real life experience of three businesses & the ongoing commentary of the expert advisers so you don't have to learn the 'hard way'!'
Matt Stockman of Sharabang Music shares his thoughts of his journey inafishbowl.com.
This is a real tricky issue for me and any advice from the Expert Panel or readers would be greatly appreciated. I'm PRETTY sure I'm not sacking the whole business off. But, one of the biggest problems with the tour was the actual Sharabangs...
As I've discussed previously, I had purchased 2 double-decker buses. One was to take the bands on tour and was open-topped so we could do guerrilla gigs on the top deck. The other was to take fans, friends etc along with us (where there would be a charge). I was having difficulties sorting out the insurance for the buses as I do not own an operators license. I had researched this heavily before buying the buses, and had been told by numerous companies that the best way round this was to employ a company with an operators licence to drive the buses on my behalf. So, this is what I did and was told almost a month before the tour began that everything was sorted. Phew!
Been a while since I've done one of these! As you've probably read from my last post, I've been wiped out with exhaustion since Sharabang's first tour. Almost back on track now, so tome for a re-cap and a quick update.
Long story short, Sharabang bit off far too much then one man alone could chew! When I look back, it was madness really! I was a new business with limited funds. As a result, I was trying to do about 10 people's jobs all at once. It can be hard to admit that you need help, especially when this help needs to be paid for! But I would have been far better off forking out for extra hands.
So...the Sharabang Music launch tour! How was it? Had one fantastic day in London to kick it all off. Went really well, sold it out, everyone had a great time and made a little profit from it too! The rest of the dates, not so good. In fact, I ended up losing a LOT of money, made loads of mistakes, had to cancel a couple of dates and it all ended with me in hospital with nervous exhaustion!
Learning from mistakes is something our Fish 1 entrepreneur is going to have to do to keep his business going. Matt's launch tour has taken its toll on him, but though he's very tired, he's still loving it. However, he admits he's made mistakes along the way.
