This weekend I watched the Joan Rivers documentary, “A Piece of Work.” In the film, Rivers’ agent talks about one of the first times he met with Richard Pryor. The agent sat down with the comedian and laid out a master plan for his career, explaining projects that were six and 12 months down the road. Pryor looked at the agent and said, “That’s all great but what the f--- are we gonna do Monday?”
That’s how I feel. It’s great to have big visions and ideas, to think about how I’ll achieve something and plan it all to death. But, you still have to get up in the morning and make it happen.
With that in mind, I have a whirlwind trip to Los Angeles on deck for Aug. 10th to the 13th. I had been thinking for some time that it would be useful to go out to L.A. as part of my independent study then, all of the sudden, I looked at the calendar and realized that the quarter is quickly coming to an end. So, off to Los Angeles I go.
The purpose of the trip is to talk to journalists, professors and political types about political and governmental reporting in the city. What gaps do they see in coverage? What types of stories are poorly or inconsistently reported? My adviser pointed out to me that if I’m going after an audience that already reads the Los Angeles Times, then I have to find the stories The Times doesn’t have. I have 10 interviews lined up so far, with another three in the works. I’m sure it will be exhausting.
The trip is added motivation to get this project done. The various elements I have written up for the business plan – a positioning statement, a market and competitive analysis, the financials – are being compiled into one final document. My sketches for the website are getting photoshopped and coded. The Twitter and Facebook pages will, I expect, be public in another week or two.
In between my interviews, I want to photograph iconic images of Los Angeles that can be used on the Project Goldfish website. “Iconic” images being a little bit of what tourists would expect to see – the Hollywood sign, City Hall, the LAX sign – and a lot of what Angelenos would expect to see. I want to capture what makes Los Angeles home to more than 3 million people. [Update: As I was writing this, Kevin Roderick posted a link to news photographer Bryan Frank’s photographs of the city: http://coolshots.blogspot.com/.]
I also added The City at Stake to my reading list. Raphael Sonenshein’s book on Los Angeles’ charter reform is one that should probably be in my library of L.A. books regardless, but I expect it will be particularly helpful as I navigate the political-governmental divide of stories.
Spending a few days in California will make this project feel “real,” as will finding investors. Last week I contacted the L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce, which pointed me toward the Los Angeles County Economic Development Corp. The group’s very helpful website includes a section on financing and within that, there is an even better list of Southern California venture capitalist firms. I spent time Friday researching every firm on the list. I found four that specialize in financing media and online start-ups.
I briefly thought about just knocking on the firms’ doors and asking for a suitcase full of cash. I have a winning personality and that’s all it takes, right? Hmm … well, maybe it takes an actual proposal. With that in mind, I’ve reached out to venture capitalists I know here in Chicago to ask them how I approach investors and what they will expect to see from me in a start-up proposal.
The greatest challenge in the next two weeks is finding an answer to the question everyone asks me: How are you going to make money? Sigh. I’m meeting with another professor on Wednesday for help on estimating impressions and contracting with an ad network. Another small step toward the greater vision.
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