In the 70's, my life long friend, Patrick Hasburgh and I decided that a cool thing to do would be to own a "tattoos on wheels" business. We'd ride around town and every once in awhile, park in some lot somewhere and tattoo people. Problem was, we were only like 18 or something. Didn't have a plan, a clue or any dollars to do this. Oh well... we needed to do something to keep us looking ahead and feeling positive--good God, we lived in Buffalo, NY!
I'm an artist, so I decided in the 80's that along with my present job as an Art Director in a Philly ad agency, I'd start a business doing dog portraits. Computers were creeping into my life-- I had a MAC with a 14 MG hard drive...OMG!! That was just too cool. Didn't have a clue as to what a computer was going to do to help my life or make me oodles of money. So--back to the portrait idea...
I would take some photos of some ladies dog, pet the dog and make nice , then make a print, tape it to a window and trace the damn dog. I was an Art Director, not some lame purist who decided that it was better to capture the dog's spirit on paper. Screw that. I knew that if I could knock out two portraits a day x 5 days tracing and rendering these pooches, I could make a shitload of money. I didn't. I made a total of $350 for one portrait, which the lady just loved. She cried when I delivered it. I knew I had a hit idea! I was going to be rich and the "cry-o-meter" would be my secret weapon!
Her dog died. I moved. Then my portrait business died, too.
Back to just slaving away in some ad agency... idea # 2 had come and gone.
My next idea was destined to be a huge hit, though.
The 90's rolled into my life and it was all about motorcycles. Harleys. Forget those imported rice burning crotch rockets. No way. I was a tough, red blooded liberal biker! I had a friend that always joked at my liberal views saying I could, "only make left turns". He could only make right ones...
So I had a huge idea. this was it. the big mutha of money making strategies that was sure to put me over the top. Sell bike shit! Like bandanas, helmet covers with horns and spikes and all that scary, tough dumb shit that bikers are into. Would I wear this stuff? Never. Would the rest of America's leather-clad bikers wear this crap? You bet. Did my friggin brainstorm work?
I'll let you know. I will also tell you about all those lessons learned from selling "unique" biker shit.
“Her dog died. I moved. Then my portrait business died, too.
ReplyDeleteBack to just slaving away in some ad agency... idea # 2 had come and gone.”
Classic! Just made my whole day. Good luck on the new biz! Appears I am not the only one with brainstorms that don't fly!