Moving where I work!
Good news, next week I'm planning on moving the place I work from home to the working space in the Enterprise Center at my University. Which is actually a really good thing for me right now considering my sudden pitfall of laziness and procrastination! The fact is for the past week now my effort has been minimal, my energy has been absolutely sapped after all the intense full on revision I've had do for the exams I forgot about. It was literally new years and 5 minutes after getting into bed I remembered I had 2 tough exams in just a matter of days. Absolute nightmare! I believe I've done well enough to carry on into the next year but I've just been so exhausted my energy has gone. It's actually more than a week now and I'm still in this sort of state of lethargy, I'm pretty sure if it hasn't come back by now it's not going to come back on it's own.
So hence why I say a new working space is the best thing for me right now, fresh environment with no family distractions, chances for procrastinating low and all sorts of tools at my disposal, such as
- Quiet, calm working space
- Lots of tech with the software and programs I need to work with
- Mentors to speak with virtually at any time
There are other things but these are the three main points and are what's going to get me out of this rut and find myself a new found enthusiasm for starting up this company! (Feeling it just thinking about it already). So yes, much more efficient place to work in comparison to the small, noisy and crowded place I work now which I call home. There are just two problems, three actually (Though the 3rd isn't so bad).
- Food! At home I've got a fridge and an oven and everything, food whenever I want (And I so eat much). In the place I'll be working they have a microwave, I think they have a fridge? I can't remember. The point obviously being here I'll need to bring food with me, probably a lot because I eat all the time and I want to be working for as long as possible
- Buses! It takes me 1 hour 35 minutes on average travelling on buses to get from Uni back home and the bus I get can come from 40 minutes to an hour every time on late hours. So as much as I'd like to work all day I can't because a guy's gotta sleep! Not to mention the place I work will have a closing time, I doubt they leave students to be the last inside!
- Lastly, which isn't such a bad thing, is that I'll be working on the Prince's Trust placement which will take up a lot of time for the 6 weeks it's on. So this is a time constraint but it's going to be good for me to do in regard to personal development and it's looking like I'll be leading the team. Doing this alongside starting up my own company is going to be a lot of pressure but will no doubt be beneficial!
So that's all I have to say on the matter of moving working space, going to start the next time I'm heading into Uni. Every weekday I'm free I'll get up at 6/7am, head straight there and get to working up until maybe 6pm? 8 hours work doesn't sound much actually. I'm still working things out, I'll lay out my plan for working next week when I'll be in.
So moving on, just to quickly write off an update on the web development, they'll be getting back to me tomorrow with a full update on changes. Things have been delayed due to problems with manipulating coding apparently. I'm considering once the update is done to release some sneak peak images at the profile pages for artists and clients, it's got a professional look to it and something a lot of artists have wanted so this content is highly valued. A good idea since it's been so long since I've made an actual public update on the development of the site, my social networking skills are so garbage. Something else I want to release for marketing content is an info-graphic depicting how the different kind of art companies work in comparison to ours, highlighting where the problems are and where we challenge them. It's a good idea definitely but it all lies on how good my image design skills are, I certainly can't afford someone else to do it, the costs are ridiculously too high for me.
On top of this and moving onto my last point of this post. I've been asking artists who are their most common clients and who their ideal clients are, to understand better who my target audience is in regard to the experienced clients section. I say the experienced clients section of my target audience because there's a bit of a conflict in concept and practicality. I designed this project with the concept that it allows everyday people who are new to the art market to easily hire an artist and have their dreams created into art. This is the concept interest however what's practical is that I target experienced clients, people who have the time and money for this kind of thing. Obviously it's better to target these people because that's where the money is (At least from this current perspective in time), but I started this company for everyone and (Here comes the cheesy part) to share art with the world. When it comes down to it what I'm starting is a business and businesses survive on money. I'd absolutely love to make a ton of money with this idea and I honestly believe it can in any direction it goes, clearly the most money seems to come from pre-existing clients, but I also would absolutely love to achieve what I started this company for and focus on everyday people. I'm not a privileged guy, I live in a council house for god's sake, but while I absolutely need money, I don't think it's everything. It seems there's not only a conflict in target audience but also a personal one.
