 Hello everybody and thank you for joining the adventures of commercialization today we have our topic of art in entrepreneurship so as I said in not of entrepreneurship and today we have I am Todd Kimball. Hi Todd. Hello, how are you doing today Zoe. I'm great. How are you. I am fantastic. Wonderful. Well, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and what intrigued you to come on to our show art in entrepreneurship today. Absolutely so I'm Todd Kimball. My day job is working in technology, but I have also done a number of things over the years, a couple decades of burning man. I've worked and helped run a number of big art projects. I have also had a number of startups myself and including my current project, which is entertainment company. And today, I just I really wanted to I like what you're doing wanted to discuss the concept of where like art and entrepreneurship and like those pieces collide when it comes down to building things and funding things and kind of making passions happen. Wonderful. Thank you for being here. And what an awesome array of serial entrepreneurship that you have worked on. Thanks for sharing. So let's start at the beginning. So something that really intrigued me to take this topic on today was over the holidays. We heard a lot this year about, you know, shop local homemade, a lot of small businesses. And I found that really intriguing because a lot of people over the pandemic, you know, have lost their jobs or went furloughed. So I was trying to see if there was a correlation between this increase in, you know, small businesses and and home businesses, and the decrease of time in the office. What do you think about that? Possibly and honestly, I just something popped into my head thinking about like what's happened with COVID and the past decade with Uber and lift and door dash and kind of the gig economy exploding. I'm wondering if now Etsy is already out there. Maybe it's time for sort of like an equivalent of the gig economy, but not at that same service based level, but more of a, like a content, a providing like more than just kind of where things have been going. You know, that service based of oh I'm just like bringing you something or taking you somewhere versus providing actual products or things, you know, tends to be better for, for everyone, you know, for like yourself and kind of emotionally for like being fulfilled, as well as economically. And so it's kind of popped into my head thinking about, you know, that might be a direction to go. And, you know, I don't know that there's a whole lot out there to help build that currently. This is true. I've heard about some great new startup companies, one that I'm actually currently working with that is trying to bridge that barrier between you know the service and providing that service but also bringing some sort of, you know, home home usage and and welfare, you know, bringing that back in I know that a lot of people could really use that, since we've been stuck at home or working from home on screens all day like how do we build that, that wellness factor back in there. But back on the subject of, you know, these small businesses and entrepreneurs and art in general, we see a lot of these, these hobbies and skills, you know, really arts being turned into full time jobs and and how. How do you think the companies go about starting something like that. Um, for me personally, it's the, the old concept of, you know, probably from a bumper sticker real musicians have day jobs. And personally for a lot of the art that I've done while I work with people who've done a big art at Burning Man who got funded for it. My art has always been smaller and you know I funded it myself so it kind of dealt with my day job or kind of collaborated with a few people. Um, but you know there's a bit of a hurdle there, you know getting from that. I'm kind of the garage musician or this garage like just sort of a garage artist doing something small into getting the funding and that seal. When it comes to Burning Man you go and you can talk to Burning Man and you can get funding from them that still covers about a third of what they expect. And kind of getting out from the entrepreneurship side there are some things out there you have your kind of your angel investors in your VCs but kind of bridging that gap. There's a lot going on there. You know, it takes a little bit and kind of getting to that growth stage is weird and interesting too, especially with promotion and stuff because on one hand, we have social networking and all these ways to get out and reach people but on the other it's very difficult from like the standpoint of, you know, both they're trying to make money and they have some algorithms that are favoring certain bigger audience stuff already. But there's also a lot going on that people don't realize when it comes down to kind of like dealing with fraud and things and when you've got people who are trying to build a business and people who are trying to build an illegitimate or you know a fake business, those things can be very similar. In a prior life I worked, like I managed the risk and security of a large social network so I have a lot of experience both with kind of meeting like how people are meeting new people online as well as kind of the darker elements and it's a it's a hard place to navigate especially when you don't know all those pieces and now you have these big corporations that are sort of faceless trying to point things a certain way. And so, going about, you know, to get your art funded for example, if you had, how do you think that they would start if you're talking about getting funding off the internet you said if you collabed with some friends you know cost money to make money with that concept you kind of understand that but if we were going to go say to a go fund me or some more other types of, you know, seed investing how how does that work. So, you know, right now if I was going to, you know, my company I already have kind of a built in. So this is a new company that I'm actually just starting an incorporate, I have kind of a built in clientele so I'm not worried about it at that level. But I'm also working with some friends who are probably going to be doing a big art project of Burning Man this year and they, they make their living off art but they're still, you know, they kind of they get the contracts from time to time and I am talking to them there are things like Patreon, which I think are fantastic. You know, I've taken the, like the old concept of tithing of, you know, you set aside 10% of your income, theoretically that would go to the church and I try and do the same, where I take that and because I'm lucky enough to have a day job that covers my expenses and so I try and make those sorts of ties with things like Patreon, where I have artist friends who you don't have the day job they don't have that. But then using things like that to help sort of build an audience, and that is it's a really good option these days from the smaller level from the art or kind of from the craft entrepreneurship level when it comes down to like maybe more tech things. I haven't dug into that space in a while. But it's still, it's also it's a lot easier with some of the stuff now. Amazon makes it easy and relatively inexpensive to at least get a proof of concept working so you can go and either start shopping it around or, you know, maybe get something viral happening where people see it and people come to you versus 15 years ago where you needed half a million dollars just to kind of get something off the ground because you were paying for all the infrastructure to make this stuff work. And so if you were going to go about getting an organization or an event to fund, for example, Burning Man, does that money come out of ticket sales or where are they getting that money from. Oh, yes, Burning Man, they have, oh, I believe it's the Ember report. They've even before they became a nonprofit, they've been very open about their money and they like they rarely actually take any money out of the event. But it's, they, the ticket sales go primarily towards the BLM and like leasing the land. And then at this point it's been a couple years the last time I remember it was something like, I don't even remember the event numbers but they were doing something like $150,000 a year in art grants year round. So outside of the event for art grants, but then Burning Man itself, it's like most grant processes there, you know, a nonprofit, a lot of nonprofits do grants and so you, you know, you write your pits to them and you contact them. And so if you want to get funding from Burning Man for the event, you know, they've got a process you go through and from what I've heard it tends to do better if you can tie in the art that you're doing with the theme of the year. But it's also there's still they will only pay about a third of what they expect the budget to be. So it's still a lot comes down to the artist to make sure they can make up the rest and it's also a lot easier now you have go fund me you have patreon. Other options when I was, you know, the last time I was involved with a really big art piece these things weren't available yet and the primary artists would, you know, all their income for a year would go towards doing these big pieces. Yeah, and so on that note, how, what about the, you know, you were talking about a little bit the security on the internet, you know, giving out your concept or idea if we look at a little bit further, you know, of proof of concept for, let's say an invention or, you know, an experience, something innovative but also a little a little bit away from, you know, sculptures and paintings but how, how do you think that that is so secure putting it up on a website like go find me or patrons and and where, where does the line draw between your creative state and you know being in the hot, you know, hot zone for for somebody stealing your ideas like how does. And that's a tough one and like part of it is kind of the 80 20 rule where kind of like share 80%, but keep the 20% of the magic to yourself. And it also a lot depends on what you're doing if it's something that you can trademark or copyright. And I like a lot of my experience at burning man has been like, volunteering with a legal team and actually with attorneys out there and kind of seeing how those things go. And while, you know, a lot of attorneys get a bad rap there are some that I feel like didn't do so well in the consuming their own young classes at school but they're like having good legal representation at different levels is important for some of these things. Like I would always advocate you know if you have the ability to go talk to someone who's done this before or ideally kind of get involved with someone. You can trust, but yeah that's a risk if you were dealing products, a lot of like the Kickstarter stuff where they're building products and they get that money ahead of time. So now you're going to have like groups in China, and like even Amazon will take those things and kind of run with it. And from that standpoint from the product standpoint if it's something you get out like mass produce and sell. You know I would take the kind of the concept of right I'm going to make some money off of this, but kind of, once again that serial entrepreneurship, you know have some other things lined up. And, like, kind of that long tail that my personally I kind of like the fail fast concept where kind of you do the smaller things, and you know maybe you get some success off of them, but then roll with it but you know my personal they personally it's also been you know I've been lucky enough to have a good day job and so I use that to take care of myself. Yeah, it's not rambling but yeah it's a very real sort of like an issue and a concept so especially in the early stages be careful who you share it with. And you know honestly how you share it. I think the statistic is what two out of three little startups will will not succeed within several months I think it's within the first year will will not see. We'll kind of see that it's not going to be going anywhere, which is kind of a scary fact, you know, I, I, but I do think that some of these smaller businesses and these these websites and opportunities are creating entrepreneurs out of every day especially with this extra time that they have on their hands, and people that were stay at home mom sewing or becoming serial entrepreneurs and they don't even know how to market themselves a lot of females that are doing I want to say fashion, which I definitely think is an art of sewing and they're creating these at seas and these instagrams that are just blowing up and getting so so much interest. How do you think about marketing yourself and something like that so is is Instagram and Facebook is that are there paid in the background that really promote those small businesses is that needed what kind of a presence does a small person have to have. You know that's a lot of the like on one hand my day job I work for a travel advertising company, but like I don't deal with that directly but that's one of those things if you know you kind of need to be a jack or Jill of all trades and kind of look into both okay I'm creating this thing, or maybe partner with someone and take a look at kind of the different platforms think about who might want your product what platforms would they be on and start looking at me maybe throwing a little bit of money at some of the targeted advertising there. And I actually I want to go back I thought of something in regards to kind of the growth and like providing some of the tools for these things for people who are in the United States. The SBA so the Small Business Association has this thing I forget what the acronym is an acronym is an acronym is. It's the SBDC which goes through a lot of community colleges and stuff. My father actually worked did consulting work with them for a number of years, and they provide. It's an hour a week or an hour a month from people with different disciplines my father has his MBA and would come out and help these small businesses with their, their financials and so they understand their profit loss statement those sorts of things, but these are free resources that the government provides where you can go, and you have these professionals that it would be a trusted source where you can go and you can get help with financial stuff help with marketing stuff. And maybe even to the point of, you know, they can advise you and do the government the SBA still does provide a lot of loans for small businesses. And I think it's something like 80% of small businesses fail within the first five years. Yeah. And yeah there's a big but that's a that is a like I had totally forgotten about it but there's a big resource that's available people, and it's free, where you can go and you know you can go. Everything. You know you can have this and you know they can help bring some other people in. That's wonderful. That is such a great resource that I did not know about so yes for small businesses I will keep that in mind you got to tell a couple people. Lovely. Yeah but circling back to a little bit more of just like art and and and I guess the legality around art like what is. I mean art is in the eye of the beholder so the, the cost of art can can vary depending on you know who's selling it, you know how long they've been in the business if they're alive if they're dead. So art is an intellectual property of art. Is there is there a definition or is that just really vague is its own account. You know, I know people who, who say low glass and have a specific type, you know, truly in Washington has a very specific way that they do things but is that is that ownable. It kind of depends like with your standard art you've kind of traditional things where you've got say paintings or photography or like music or writing, you can copyright all of that. And so, you know, I haven't looked into this in years I used to be a professional photographer, but most of those wedding photography so we would have signed over the copyright that was one of the things that we weren't trying to nickel and dime the brides like okay you paid us for this we want you to and so you can copyright those things and get it out there so if people take it it gives you some recourse recourse once again, it's still going to require attorneys. Then you have the option of trademarks which is normally just kind of like your your business your logos and things. You can also patent processes so with things like the glass blowing if they're doing it in a certain way. They know if it's it's a new and innovative, they can probably document that and once again I'm not an attorney. I have to call in some people who I know who do this, but they might be able to patent some of those processes. You know, and manufacturing processes if you are, you know, maybe it's fashion or something like that you can copyright it you can might be able to patent some of those processes if you're doing it in a new and different way. And like as far as like what's going on with art, the NFT stuff exploding these days to which I see some ways that it can be used for like some digital content that might work like across games and things like that but there's also just a whole whole lot of speculation which people are making loads of money and can but I tend to be a bit too conservative to get in at that level. But you know there's a lot with that, especially if you're doing digital creations where that theoretically could give you some protections where you create an NFT of this art piece and even if it gets copied. What I haven't looked into is tying that into actual physical items, which might be an option as well. So, you know, the concept of the scarcity or like verifying that this like amazing dress or piece of art or blown glass, you know, actually came from this artist. You know might be a way of handling some of those things. And you do production and music as well don't you. Perfect. And how, how does that work so for example, DJs nowadays they're they're mixing other people's music and calling it their own. I had there's copyrights out there for that but how, how does that work. So, like, I don't actually do I'm a DJ I don't do any production right now, but if I were going to, and this goes back and it goes a lot into it. Hulu has a really good series on Wu Tang clan. And so you've got kind of the early 90s hip hop like the like the beginning of hip hop until the early 90s. It was the Wild West because a lot of this was new and so the there was a lot of litigation but back then you could take pretty much anything and sample it and and run with it and when hip hop was new nobody was looking at it. The corporations like the music industry, like, didn't really care but then they started making money off of it and they came back and oh, we own these things so if you wanted to remix something. You know you have to go and you know you need to get permission you need to license it. There are some liensies if it comes to satire like weird owl technically doesn't need to. He doesn't need to license or get permission for this I don't believe he does it's there's some weirdness with lyrics versus music, but because that's parody. He doesn't need to get permission to do what he does but to the best of my knowledge like everything that he has parodied, he has gotten permission from the original artist. Awesome. That's great that the original artist is getting, you know, recognized because I think as, as we, you know, more and more art comes out there and you know we share ideas of different designs for fashion or, you know, different ways of blowing the past. It's, it continues to evolve with each person but but who own you know where's the original and like how, where did that idea really come from and, and we know that with patents and copyrights and things like that there's there's a tangible hold on on the ownership of it, but when it comes to a lot of other art. I just wondering how these entrepreneurs are keeping it you know keeping it there is which is just and and the art is definitely the beginning it's the core this passion, the drives for these entrepreneurs to, you know when they had a little bit of extra free time or some extra free space that they made up in their house over coven by rearranging some rooms, sparked that, you know, ignition, ignition inside of them to, to follow their passions and to really become a little bit more in tune with one of their skills or hobbies and, and find out that they could make a profit off of it and, and with everybody on their computers and all this accessibility to the internet and all of these, you know, websites that we are able to be on it and everything you can do by yourself for free on social media, it just creates entrepreneurs out of every single, you know, household, anybody like it's, it's amazing how wide the range has, has become with this amount of people and this amount of accessibility, and you know this extra time and space so I'm excited to see about you know just more businesses that pop up but I also worry about them just keeping, you know, in, in to be their own, if that makes sense so we talked a little bit about you know patents and, and copyrights and I'm thinking just a little bit more about because we're running out of time here just what other you know art art that an entrepreneur in entrepreneurship we can think of so like when it comes to the building you a lot of this for me a lot of the like I didn't ever think I could be an artist, but burning man changed me. And a lot of these things like if you're building it like community is important. If you can get out there and you know you have like whatever this is that you're passionate about that you're creating that you can get people involved with and if there are you put together like symbiotic relationships where you know maybe somebody is doing these great hats and you're doing maybe skirts or you know the end of the cool like ruffle belts for festivals and you can kind of like work together and like build communities together. Then you've got that word of mouth and even if stuff is taken, you know you still have kind of that base level of, you know, you're doing your passion you're doing something you love you're providing something, and you know that in my mind goes a long way towards you know people coming back to like an example of that is my friend Autumn has built this huge company now but Dark Garden Corsetry, and you know I know her from like 30 years ago. She would go to these small little like I met her at this World War Two festival, and we ended up like taking a swing dance class together, and she started this business and now like Eda volunteers his friends with her because she's gotten to know she's done custom courses. And other stuff like that but just because she's been very passionate about it and stuff with it there are lots of companies that do corsets and other things, but no she does this amazing work and has been able to grow this company and build a community around it as well as you know provide I don't know she probably has at least a dozen people working for. Similar sort of thing. I feel so much of that networking is a very big part of this you know we and and although we have social media and we have all of these resources, as you mentioned collaboration and networking and passion behind that type you know about what you do and that really showing through your work and and the people that you meet to to move forward with I think that's definitely where you get the next stage of your funding. We, as we were going to talk in future episodes about angel investment funding VC funding, and a lot of the other ways that you can receive, you know, more money for your business without actually spending more money yourself because you're kind of, you know, start trying to quit your day job so that you can actually pursue this as an actual, you know, full time position for yourself. I think the networking aspect is really that next step. You know you've got you've you've harnessed the idea into spark of spirit and passion to take you to this, you know, just taking you in the right direction away from maybe sitting in a cubicle which you weren't always that happy with taking COVID as a or being locked down as a blessing in disguise and more using it to your advantage and using the internet to help network and push your ideas out to the world. I think that that is really the next, the next step and the next episodes that are coming up so I'm excited to see where these companies go and how how they move forward even further from this. I'm excited to and I'll say you know it kind of starts at home support your friends and you know they'll come back and support you to. I do believe that and that is again bringing us back to what I said at the beginning of this show I just think that it is so valuable and inspiring that this year, we have really, I just saw on any person that I met you know shop local you know shop handmade shop small businesses and I think that we should continue to do that for each other let's continue no rally behind our friends and families and and local businesses. The ones who you know made it through the pandemic, you know kudos to them I'm so proud of them I supported as many little restaurants that were shut down with as I could because I wanted to see them come back after, after COVID and I and I continue to try and do that as much as I can. Thank you so much for having me Zoe this has been a pleasure. Thank you to thank you so much for coming on this show. That was our in entrepreneurship, and we'll see you next time for adventures and commercialization in two weeks.