Love this Andy. I've been thinking a lot about the career path of artist vs. entrepreneur (w/ people managing component) or some combination. Once you begin to taste living from creating from divine spontaneity, it really is how you want to spend majority of your time. It's so wondrous and magical. It seems to come alive in artistic things vs. people things for me. Wondering if that's unique to me or just a more practical charecteristic of the different forms of creation. It seems like many founders I know are having similar realizations and running a big company with constant fires is less appealing relative to living in artistic flow. Interesting stuff! Thanks for writing this
Same here. It's the first time in my life where I'm starting to feel artistic. And, the first time where I'm able to do that as a profession (even though I don't make money from my writing yet haha). It's been fun to explore my emerging artistic preferences, which was a big part of how I came to this conclusion about the customer coming last as an artist. At this point, I would rather make $100,000 a year being 50% business and 50% artistic than make $1M a year being all about business.
Hey Andy - Thank you for sharing this! It rings true for my personal experience, particularly around writing: I've recently realized that my skills in functional, business writing (where the goal is efficacy) made it more difficult for me to produce creative, artistic writing (where the goal is expression). Through many years of honing my skills as a marketer, I learned to anchor everything on the interests and needs of potential customers. But my fixation on identifying a specific audience and and optimizing for them actually stifled my personal creativity. It's still hard for me to answer the question, "What do I want to say?" without immediately reverting to "What do they want to hear?"
The irony I've found is that expressing something that is deeply true or meaningful to you often forges a profound connection with others, even though that's not the intention.
For what it's worth, reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron was an eye-opener for me, in figuring this out.
Hey Andy! Love what you do, and I hope you won't take this the wrong way —
I liked what you wrote about balancing the intuitive with the analytical, but as someone who spent most of my life making art and is now a software engineer / founder, I have a bit of a bone to pick with the assumption that all artists create from a void, through intuition, and without an end viewer in mind.
Some might, but if you look throughout art history you will find work with clear goals and a clear audience (e.g. The Sistine Chapel and other religious works, Picasso's Guernica, most of Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work). Both artists and founders do work with goals in mind, often for known viewers (although most artists don't do a market analysis), and with those viewers' feedback (e.g. in critique and showings or in through user interviews and testing).
I would argue that creating art and founding a company are more similar that you might think, just with different goals in mind. Mirroring your ABCs of making a business, for some artists the problem often looks more like:
(1) identify a source of inspiration or subject you want to draw attention to, or get a requested commission (which may come with it's own goals of what the art should convey)
(2) create work that inspires awe, highlights the issue at hand, or satisfies the person who requested the commission
(3) find a way to exhibit the work (galleries, on the street, online, to the person who requested the commission)
(4) make income off of this work either through sale, commissions, donations, etc
Which looks pretty similar to the ABCs of business. In other words, while businesses are customer-first, art is more viewer-first (who might not always be your customers). And while artists may not always be creating to resolve some customer problem, they are often making work for an audience, with the goal of affecting or swaying them in some way.
Great context. Thank you for sharing your perspective on it. I agree with you that it's more nuanced than "art solely comes a mysterious place." I kept the juxtaposition stark to demonstrate the comparison, yet realize that these things aren't mutually exclusive. Thank you for your feedback and for your support.
Hi Amy! I was on the phone with Andy when he talked to me about this analogy and I encouraged him to write about it. I was professionally trained in theater (BFA, and 2 years towards MFA). We were schooled in absolutely NOT writing to please an audience, but to find something we wanted to say, had to say, needed to say. The training was for figuring out HOW to express it. Maybe in fine arts it's different. And you are correct that there's a long history of "patreons" subsidizing the work the work they wanted to pay for. But were taught that if we wanted to create the best art, focusing first on being successful would all but guarantee that the work would be banal. It was that lens with which I listened to his idea and frankly, was so excited about it, I almost ordered him off the phone to go write it.
Andy's point is not that art is never commercial. I didn't see that. What I think he's trying to say is that people who are feeling lost in terms of career direction are well served, especially in mid career, to consider what inspires and motivates them most, and moving towards that FIRST.
The internet flattens things into binaries that usually are not intentional (for creators or consumers). Those binaries get in the way sometimes, I think it's the nature of 2 dimensional mediums like writing on the internet. I thought you might appreciate my putting some context around the post. I love finding fellow artists who are also business people, I think we are rare!
I agree wholeheartedly. I think art is a spiritual process, the allowing of something to emerge from within. For me and my writing, nothing is planned. I prompt it with a question and wait for the answer to start flooding out from behind it.
The way you juxtapose the differences between business and art is also really interesting timing.
Everywhere I look right now I'm seeing two, essentially contradictory concepts coming together to catalyze and create new, higher orders or states of being. Through our species evolution I see this through what I call the "concurrency" of an awakening spiritual transcendence as well as the technological one; together I think it is only a matter of time before we ascend over all limitation.
Again, I think society is shifting in consciousness, becoming less either-or, black-and-white, to both-and. From that understanding, I think everything you said is spot-on. Thanks for sharing.
Love this Andy. I've been thinking a lot about the career path of artist vs. entrepreneur (w/ people managing component) or some combination. Once you begin to taste living from creating from divine spontaneity, it really is how you want to spend majority of your time. It's so wondrous and magical. It seems to come alive in artistic things vs. people things for me. Wondering if that's unique to me or just a more practical charecteristic of the different forms of creation. It seems like many founders I know are having similar realizations and running a big company with constant fires is less appealing relative to living in artistic flow. Interesting stuff! Thanks for writing this
Same here. It's the first time in my life where I'm starting to feel artistic. And, the first time where I'm able to do that as a profession (even though I don't make money from my writing yet haha). It's been fun to explore my emerging artistic preferences, which was a big part of how I came to this conclusion about the customer coming last as an artist. At this point, I would rather make $100,000 a year being 50% business and 50% artistic than make $1M a year being all about business.
I'm with you man!
Hey Andy - Thank you for sharing this! It rings true for my personal experience, particularly around writing: I've recently realized that my skills in functional, business writing (where the goal is efficacy) made it more difficult for me to produce creative, artistic writing (where the goal is expression). Through many years of honing my skills as a marketer, I learned to anchor everything on the interests and needs of potential customers. But my fixation on identifying a specific audience and and optimizing for them actually stifled my personal creativity. It's still hard for me to answer the question, "What do I want to say?" without immediately reverting to "What do they want to hear?"
The irony I've found is that expressing something that is deeply true or meaningful to you often forges a profound connection with others, even though that's not the intention.
For what it's worth, reading "The Artist's Way" by Julia Cameron was an eye-opener for me, in figuring this out.
Thanks, again!
I’ll check that book out. Thanks!
Hey Andy! Love what you do, and I hope you won't take this the wrong way —
I liked what you wrote about balancing the intuitive with the analytical, but as someone who spent most of my life making art and is now a software engineer / founder, I have a bit of a bone to pick with the assumption that all artists create from a void, through intuition, and without an end viewer in mind.
Some might, but if you look throughout art history you will find work with clear goals and a clear audience (e.g. The Sistine Chapel and other religious works, Picasso's Guernica, most of Felix Gonzalez-Torres's work). Both artists and founders do work with goals in mind, often for known viewers (although most artists don't do a market analysis), and with those viewers' feedback (e.g. in critique and showings or in through user interviews and testing).
I would argue that creating art and founding a company are more similar that you might think, just with different goals in mind. Mirroring your ABCs of making a business, for some artists the problem often looks more like:
(1) identify a source of inspiration or subject you want to draw attention to, or get a requested commission (which may come with it's own goals of what the art should convey)
(2) create work that inspires awe, highlights the issue at hand, or satisfies the person who requested the commission
(3) find a way to exhibit the work (galleries, on the street, online, to the person who requested the commission)
(4) make income off of this work either through sale, commissions, donations, etc
Which looks pretty similar to the ABCs of business. In other words, while businesses are customer-first, art is more viewer-first (who might not always be your customers). And while artists may not always be creating to resolve some customer problem, they are often making work for an audience, with the goal of affecting or swaying them in some way.
Great context. Thank you for sharing your perspective on it. I agree with you that it's more nuanced than "art solely comes a mysterious place." I kept the juxtaposition stark to demonstrate the comparison, yet realize that these things aren't mutually exclusive. Thank you for your feedback and for your support.
Hi Amy! I was on the phone with Andy when he talked to me about this analogy and I encouraged him to write about it. I was professionally trained in theater (BFA, and 2 years towards MFA). We were schooled in absolutely NOT writing to please an audience, but to find something we wanted to say, had to say, needed to say. The training was for figuring out HOW to express it. Maybe in fine arts it's different. And you are correct that there's a long history of "patreons" subsidizing the work the work they wanted to pay for. But were taught that if we wanted to create the best art, focusing first on being successful would all but guarantee that the work would be banal. It was that lens with which I listened to his idea and frankly, was so excited about it, I almost ordered him off the phone to go write it.
Andy's point is not that art is never commercial. I didn't see that. What I think he's trying to say is that people who are feeling lost in terms of career direction are well served, especially in mid career, to consider what inspires and motivates them most, and moving towards that FIRST.
The internet flattens things into binaries that usually are not intentional (for creators or consumers). Those binaries get in the way sometimes, I think it's the nature of 2 dimensional mediums like writing on the internet. I thought you might appreciate my putting some context around the post. I love finding fellow artists who are also business people, I think we are rare!
I agree wholeheartedly. I think art is a spiritual process, the allowing of something to emerge from within. For me and my writing, nothing is planned. I prompt it with a question and wait for the answer to start flooding out from behind it.
The way you juxtapose the differences between business and art is also really interesting timing.
Everywhere I look right now I'm seeing two, essentially contradictory concepts coming together to catalyze and create new, higher orders or states of being. Through our species evolution I see this through what I call the "concurrency" of an awakening spiritual transcendence as well as the technological one; together I think it is only a matter of time before we ascend over all limitation.
Again, I think society is shifting in consciousness, becoming less either-or, black-and-white, to both-and. From that understanding, I think everything you said is spot-on. Thanks for sharing.
Aaron
Agreed! It’s the combinatorics of seemingly unrelated subjects where powerful forms of creation take place. Thanks for your support.
I'm so glad you got this written down. It's a super inspiring connection I've already been using!