Truth or Dare？

Man, when he does not grieve, hardly exist.

——Antonio Porchia

When I am in a party playing the “Truth or Dare” game. I always choose “Dare”. Cause when I choose the “Truth”, I have to consider about the fierce question with dare, and telling the truth bravely. Therefore, choosing “dare” will be much easier.

In my post diary “Finally, Lost in reality” in February, I talked that you would talk with me how great your scuba diving was, while I was talking about the ocean that I saw from the documentary. Finally, I got the Scuba Diving License on March. Yes, the ocean is as beautiful as you have described. In this semester, I have changed a lot. From someone who believes in institutional hierarchy to the one who would like to hear more from multiple artists. From someone who would learn from books to someone who would listen to others.

One day when I was in Sweden, I have met an artist in an art material store. I was new there, and I was choosing the best paint material for my model in a filmmaking project. The shop assistant tried every material from water color till propene. Then, we had a short talk to appreciate her help. Her name is Lotta, a watercolor artist in Sweden. Then, we had a meeting in a cafe. I created a “100 artists” project in Art Map, aiming at helping emerging artists to public their own lives to public.

From Lotta

The day when we were meeting, I brought up all of my setups to record her her talking, and ready for publish. When I questioned her that “Oh, you must be a fan of Wassily Kandinsky so that you can combine his theory about construction well in your painting”. She asked me “Who is Wassily Kandinsky?”. It was my first time doubting the institutional knowledge. We are always using our so-called magnificent knowledge to apply to other’s expression. When the dialogue came to the end, she picked up the phone that her husband was calling her. I said to her “Oh, thank you for your interview. I don’t trust in relationship. But from your case that you and your husband is so close to each other so that I may start to believe it again”. She told me that her husband was calling her to be in the bank to talk about the divorce. The last sentence she left was that “Don’t trust in marriage”.

Thousands of artists have their thousands if mournings and happiness. I am glad that I have written down my feelings that day, and thanks to Art Entrepreneurship which turned me back to put artists on the center.

Goodnight

Dong

Doing the right thing or doing things right?

When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.——Nietzsche

pic from internet

Entrepreneurship Philosophy

This class, art entrepreneurship, is like an alarm, warning me every single day that doing the right thing is the most important thing. As my former posts notes, when we are building the website which puts artists on the center, aiming at curating connections for artists. Every time when we make changes, we think back our value propositions.

I am from Shanghai, a place full of plastic dreams. In one night, hundreds of startups get their venture capital, and hundreds of companies announce that they are bankrupted. When I was in Shanghai running my little app, several investors and corporations came to me to discuss possibilities. At that time, I was one of the pioneers who focused on art social media in Chinese market. But I was young dumb and didn’t care much about the app’s possibilities. Now, I appreciate the younger and dumber me that I just happened to catch the right timing in the market, but I didn’t have a clear values about the app at that time. 

Think about that, a young curator who is planning an exhibition, and her key value for this exhibition are 1)social practice, 2) putting artists on the center, 3)engagement. Then, she went to a corporation foundation to seek the financial support. She got feedbacks about 1)what was the gain for their branding? 2)if it was about social practice, they might take the risk of the government side. It is not a good deal overall unless she changes the value propositions, and also puts their social benefit but not the exhibition on the first place. Yes, this is the conversation happened between me and a former corporation partner. Following their rules can help me financially, but following my values can help me do the right thing..

The website progress 

This week, we worked together for our revenues and set up our three year projection. We have researched every number in our projection. I appreciate to our class’s knowledge that 1) every number should be realistic, 2) it’s usual that the first year might not benefit financially. The process is tough, but it helps us control the uncertainties and risks. When we are building the website, the problem is that if we charge more from artists or focus on buyers, honestly, we can have better revenues. But it is against our value propositions, so, “doing the right thing” is one of the main power which helps the website to be what it is today…

Finally, Lost in Reality

“Life is a dream, realize it”

— Mother Teresa

Photo from film 舟を編む

A pessimistic poet, Hai Zi, who is also a believer of Friedrich Nietzsche, ruins my teenage hood. Hai Zi’s most well-know poem is experiencing the world from tomorrow on. However, he committed suicide before his so-called “tomorrow” coming. I used to believe in the power of absolute perception/cognition/concept. Experience in reality? No, I am good, I would like to spend my time reading and thinking, maybe, experience the beautiful world physically from tomorrow on.

You describe the crazy people that you have met in Fashion Weeks, my understanding of Fashion Weeks is from numbers of runway reviews from vogue.com; You describe how beautiful the ocean after you underwater diving trip, my view of ocean aesthetics is from the documentary, Planet Ocean. You are experiencing failures and successes in reality, I am experiencing the world on paper, screen, and mind. You enjoy life and love in the moment, I am living in the kingdom in my mind, surrounded by fantasies. Most of your ideas, that you have shared with me, come from your thousands of tries, most of my ideas basically come from representations of reality, such as, theory, literature, film, art, and all kinds of forms which can deliver concepts. We seem to be in a dialogue, but we are, actually, alone together.

Same tragedy happens in entrepreneurship. Before class, we have watched the video of traditional startups, which start from operating plan and financial model.

“Well, all I need to do is spending a lot of time writing this plan, and all I need to do is execute it. And somehow, magically, if I thought hard enough, and I was smart enough, to do all the great market research in the library, and looking up all the data, and then, put together, and out together a forecast, the magic five years plan in the back of the business plan. Somehow, magically, all I need to do is hire people to execute that plan.” Steve Blank

Seems super magical, and also surreal. However, the plan is theoretical/unrealistic, because the base of the magic is customers hypothesis.

“No business plan survives first contact with customers. And the first year startup is completely unpredictable.” Steve Blank

Moreover,

“More startups fail from a lack of customers than from a failure of product development.” Steve Blank

The truth is, the failure is neither you are not smart enough nor you don’t think hard enough, the problem exists from the beginning of traditional startup, costumer base assumption cannot provide enough real customers to pay for the product/service.

Lesson for business: from the beginning till the mature business, we should always put the customer development in the center. Now, leave the room, get to know your customer base in reality.

Lesson for life: the world is more than beautiful, we should experience it. You cannot understand how beautiful the ocean is unless you really see it.

Seize the day. Realize your dream in reality before it’s too late.

Dong

https://www.udacity.com/

Customer Driven

How do you balance a dream with reality?

This week, our class began watching Steve Blank’s online course How to Build a Start Up. I personally get a lot out of video lectures, so this media is very effective for me. Blank lectures in an informative yet informal style with a spritz of humor to keep it interesting.

If you haven’t checked out this free class through Udacity, please do! All you have to do is sign up!

https://classroom.udacity.com/courses/ep245

One of the main concepts reiterated throughout both lessons we watched was the difference between the traditional start up method and the one prescribed by Blank. Blank is famous for his start up process dubbed customer development, a spin on the classic process product development. This methodology puts the startup’s focus entirely on the end users rather than the product itself. An incorrect product-market fit is a huge start up killer that customer development aims to fix. This goes hand in hand with Alexander Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas, which emphasizes the customer’s role in the firm.

I personally love this customer-based approach, as it couldn’t make more sense to me. From a musician’s perspective, why would I perform a concert for an audience that doesn’t want to hear my music? But it is here where I reach a stumbling block.

An entrepreneur must be a visionary; they must have some sort of a plan or a target, goal or dream. The way Blank talks about startups is almost as though they need to be an amorphous, undefined entity, ready to do backflips for the proposed customer base. I understand that finding your audience’s wants and needs is crucial to your business, but where do you draw the line between what you want to make and what your market wants? How far do we stretch the original dream to meet the consumer? Making a dream come true is where I find the passion of a startup comes from. You have to care deeply about what you’re designing, or else it will fall flat as a malnourished mess.

Finding that balance between something the world needs and something I want to be a part will be an interesting challenge. It sounds silly to me to place such value on whether I’ll like the venture or not, but I have to remember that if I was ok with doing something I didn’t like, I’d just get a 9 to 5 at an office. At least I’d be making guaranteed money.

I must find passion for something there is an audience for.

This is the only way.

 

…and as always, thanks for reading! 

Will VI