How I Did It: From a Corporate Career to a Creative Corporation
In August of 2008 I was a recent college graduate and almost broke. Struggling as independent musician, I ran a recording studio out of my apartment charging musicians by the hour.
I worked with local artists in South Florida looking to make demo recordings of their music, but unfortunately the rising cost of living and declining economy forced me back into the job market. After several weeks of networking with my previous entrepreneurship professors, I used my limited small business skills to land a consulting job at The University of Miami’s entrepreneurship department, The Launch Pad.
Life on the Launch Pad
The job paid well, and The Launch Pad was an ideal position to gain entrepreneurial experience, make contacts and learn. It immediately satisfied my financial needs, but the daily structure, paperwork, and bureaucracy was a constant challenge. It was hard to keep enthusiasm for tasks when departmental creativity and momentum were stifled by the larger organization. I preferred the unstructured fast-paced creativity of being self-employed and was determined to keep the recording studio open.
It was difficult to find the time to work with recording artists while spending the first eight hours of the day at a traditional job. Left with only the time after work, I would return home to run the recording studio and work on developing my own clients.
Between recording sessions, however, I was refining an entirely new concept combining my passion for music and knowledge gleaned from experiences at The Launch Pad. This new concept became my focus and began to take priority over both the 9-to-5 and the recording studio responsibilities.
Working eight hours at my day job and eight hours a night on my new concept made it difficult to maintain a healthy lifestyle and routine. Dinner, friends, and social life were sacrificed for overseas conference calls, emails, and Red Bull. Battling this conflict required scheduling everyone and everything from breakfast in the morning to brushing my teeth at night.
Living life by the calendar, I tried to accomplish as much as possible each day, until I found myself unable to produce quality work. That's when I knew it was time to call it quits and get some rest. Even with an optimized schedule, this approach meant long hours, little rest, and strained relationships.
Pursuing the Big Idea
The Launch Pad and the recording studio were great and paid the bills, but I longed for the chance to build a bigger, scalable business in the rapidly changing online music industry. Throughout my experience consulting at The Launch Pad and working with fellow musicians I solidified this big idea. I felt it was time, but a down economy made it difficult to find investors and talented team members to start a successful online business.
Locating the people I needed would require being on call for conferences, meetings, and emails while still maintaining my day job. It was difficult being mostly unavailable during businesses hours. I used sick days and my smartphone to stay in contact with attorneys, web developers, and potential board members. Without the ability to constantly communicate, it would have been almost impossible to make progress on a new business while working full-time.
The more conversations I had with other entrepreneurs the more I realized that everyone was moonlighting, networking, and using technology to try to get the most out of their time. Knowing that the majority of other developing entrepreneurs were in this position provided a sense of assurance when working on the business all hours of the night.
I was saving money and setting the table for my new business. Soon the question became when to leave my job and pursue this new business concept full-time. Foregoing structured income, retirement investments, and health insurance for an unproven pre-revenue concept was a difficult decision. I questioned whether the new business would generate enough money to sustain itself and provide enough salary to cover my expenses.
Taking the Plunge Pays Off
In March 2010 a business plan competition called WeMedia Pitch It Challenge came to Miami to award one new business $25,000 to get launch their business. The University of Miami was hosting the competition and employees of The University were excluded from participating. I decided that this was the moment, quit my full time job March 1st and entered the WeMedia competition that same day.
The decision to take the plunge paid off when I took home the $25,000 prize to start Audimated.com, my online music business. After receiving the money, I had enough short term cash to feel better about surviving on credit and savings until revenue from the new business could sustain itself. It was also a huge validation to have a strict set of judges and a room full of entrepreneurs support and nominate me as a winner.
Now I had the cash, time, investors, validation and team in place to comfortably pursue entrepreneurship and my own business. Although free from the challenges of a corporate career, now I faced the even greater challenges of being a full-time entrepreneur.
Lucas Sommer started three successful music business companies which he continues to own and operate profitably. His newest venture is Audimated.com, a game-changing site that is revolutionizing the independent music scene. Currently, Lucas is a full time entrepreneur and won a $25,000 Pitch It contest from WeMedia to apply towards Audimated.
The Young Entrepreneur Council (YEC) is an invite-only nonprofit organization comprised of the country's most promising young entrepreneurs. The YEC promotes entrepreneurship as a solution to youth unemployment and underemployment and provides its members with access to tools, mentoring, and resources that support each stage of a business's development and growth.
