AriKoinuma.com

2009 was an eventful year.  Every year is, but this one had its share of some amazing stuff.

Here are some of my highlights of the year:

Developing a Business Plan and Then Going off Without It

I spent the second half of 2008 developing an elaborate business plan that detailed my online blog ventures, with the hopes of landing a small business loan.  When I learned about small business financing, I was like, that’s great — I can take that out and have it support myself while I develop my own music/online business.  Because I felt that the only thing separating me from where I was and where I want to be is time.  If I had an abundance of time to invest in my own thing, then I can build it up.  (I still feel that way.)

Well, but in reality, it doesn’t quite work out nicely like that.  My vision was basically a borderline self-employment/micro-business and an online one at that, and so banks didn’t want to deal with such a nebulous entity, and a complete start-up with no track record, too.  Venture capitalists may be more open to something like that, but again, my business vision was too small in scale to be on their radar.  I was just trying to set up a business where I can make money off of music I create and blogs.  I wasn’t trying to start the next Netflix or eBay.

So I abandoned my business plan, but still took some time to explore my options, when I ran out of my previous web development contract.  I called it “intuitive entrepreneurship.”  I rented a rehearsal space and set up my music equipment, so I had a place dedicated to make music.   I also stopped updating the personal development blog I was building in 2008, so I can focus more on my original love of musicmaking.

Producing Marc Gunn’s Happy Songs of Death and Scoring America’s Next Felon

And some work did come in.  I spent a month producing my frequent collaborator Marc Gunn‘s Celtic folk record, and then spent another few weeks making the score for Ron Johnson’s almost-feature (56 minutes) mockumentary.  Both were great projects with great clients, though not enough money to really sustain our household.  We’re one-income family, so when I’m not making money the income stops.  I networked a lot and explored the options of getting myself going as a freelance producer and film composer, but really couldn’t get traction.  A saving of $11k quickly turned into $9k in debt, and I had to go back to doing web work.

Landing a Great Web Gig and Embracing My Demands

Well, the web contract I landed initially looked like just another boring web job, and I felt somewhat discouraged.  I vowed to stay a contractor, so that I can just hop from job to job, finding time to make music in-between.  But my job grew on me and when they said that I could telecommute 80% of time (because my employer was located farther than I’d like to commute to and the bus to get there was getting discontinued) I really saw that this actually could be a solution and not a problem.

Re-Discovering My Passion and Developing a New Vision

After several months of being immersed back in the web work, I felt very lost and wasn’t sure what or why I wanted to be a musician.  But then, one day I listened to my own album and it all came back to me.  I want to make music.  I love realizing my songs’ potential.

And from there, things started flowing inside me again.  Although my time is extremely limited, I now have a situation where my family has a steady income and I have a setup where I can create music.   This is a sustainable situation in which I can build my own artistry.  Of course, I realize that things can change on a dime — I’m still just a contractor (though my employer wants to hire me full-time, so we’re negotiating that as I write this).  But working a telecommuting job and finding little pockets of time to make music is, actually, remarkably similar to the situation I sought to create by taking on a small business loan.  It’s just that the time I can devote to music is much less than what I had originally hoped for, but everything else is in the picture, from a stable income to a place in which I can make music.

I sure wish if I didn’t have to go from savings to debt in the process — but I also don’t regret what I’ve done, either, because I feel like by reaffirming and continuing to pursue/explore my own visions, I am now on the way, headed for somewhere that I don’t even know.  I started with a vision, I got lost, and now I’m back with a refined form of the original vision.

Now I’m really excited about 2010, which I will discuss in my next post.