Week Four: The Lessons Are In There Somewhere!
See all the weekly standups here.
This week:
- Two Tutorials
- Collaborations [Vivid Limbo & Luke Metzler]
- One Month Thoughts; What Did Sharing Fiction Achieve?
- Where to Next Month?
Two-torials
They say the best way to learn is through teaching. I don’t know if I fully agree with that sentiment, but it is nice to revisit concepts at least.
Choosing what’s worth teaching is such a personal decision. You want to teach something that is interesting to a reader. Interesting !== trivial, but it doesn’t mean choosing an overly complex topic either. In the end, I chose to make the tutorials about two filters that I had fun making and learned something new while doing.
You can read the tutorial on the Breathe Filter here and the Infinity Stones filter here.
Wanna Collab, Bro?
I took a hint from the music production industry and decided it would be a good idea for the agency to do some collabs. I wanted to get testimonials and get people aware of what Sharing Fiction offers, and gain some “on the field” experience. I decided to reach out to artists/entrepreneurs and ask them if I could make filters that represent their personalities. Fortunately I have two very talented friends who fit that bill perfectly: Luke Metzler and Dan Hargrove who make cool stuff worth celebrating.
For Dan, I made a filter that takes the layers of one of his Procreate paintings and splits it into 3D space. I’m really excited to continue working with Dan and turn his art into a more interactive experience. He also wants to sell prints so hopefully this type of work incentivizes people to buy his work.
For Luke, I made a filter that relates to his relationship with Marvel. Last year, Luke made a video that parodied Old Town Road and Avengers called Old Town Road. As of April 2020, the video has 30 million views. I’m also a big fan of Avengers as well so it was fun to come up with a filter idea that could represent the series.
One Month Down
A month ago, I started Sharing Fiction with a simple dream: run a creative marketing agency.
A month later; I bought a domain, a Hugo site, and I did some stuff on Netlify to bring this site to life. I made a few filters and wrote some words. I had a few meetings with potential customers, sent some cold outreach emails, and did collaborations with inspiring people.
I wonder if this month would’ve gone differently if coronavirus wasn’t ravaging society, but it’s really impossible to know how things would have played out differently. I made a lot of mistakes, but I’m glad that I was able to commit to a business plan and trial it.
Business is a science and I still stand by what I said during the first week:
“You don’t need to be the best when just getting started. Learning is a part of business.”
Where To Next Month?
For month two, I gave myself the goal to close a client, learn what trends are popular (in order to make filters that have a better chance of spreading), and to nail the habit of a “workday” even though I work for myself.
Iman Gadzhi has mentioned that the main challenge of running a business is the routines that one has to implement to grow the business. These challenges are internal: waking up at the same time, eating healthy foods, avoiding social media and procrastination, etc.
“People think they need the information…they think that once I just get this secret hack…everything will be good…It doesn’t matter what you learn…if you don’t get past your own mental blocks.” -Iman Gadzhi
AR Learnings
- The 3D space can give 2D work a new, and very cool, angle. Use the
3D Animated Postertemplate to bring your projects to life! - When using the Native UI Picker make sure to put all the assets you plan on using in the
Promise.all(). This will guarantee that they will be ready when a user clicks a button. - Spotlights can generate really cool effects when attached to “virtual dollies”. Use an
animationto make them move across the user’s face.
Projects Completed
A-Ha Business Moments
- You will be remembered for your contributions, not your person.
- What gaps in your thinking can you address? What cognitive biases are most prevalent in your life?
- You have to want something to achieve it. That’s not want with a lower case “w” (imitative wants are what you want because other people have them; ex. New car, new house, etc.). You need the capital “W” want; something you’ll pursue past the point of rationality, something you desire so bad the pain is merely a tradeoff.
See y’all in month two. Thanks for reading.