Working Remotely – Still Small World
By John Moorhead on July 6th, 2009
Free Air Collective started with a concept, Travel and Gather. It was a concept that I had been working on for a couple of years. I had met with potential investors, venture capital groups, and the final answer was: build a prototype. It was not until I read Guy Kawasaki’s book: The Art of the Start that things started to really click, literally and figuratively.
It was there that I connected with Jake Stutzman, a college friend and a business owner himself. I knew that he had worked for some impressive clients designing and helping them with their overall brand image. It was with Jake’s presence and ownership that we were able to take another huge step forward with Travel and Gather. Under Jake’s expertise, we were able to determine that we’ll need someone that knows how to create a Website database application, and we wanted this person to have a shared set of values with us.
It was then that we were introduced to Robert Evans. It was at this point that Travel and Gather took yet another huge step forward. It was through this collaboration on one product that created Free Air Collective as it is known today. (Side note: Travel and Gather is still being developed and no launch date has been set)
Now, let me take you full circle, back to how this is a small world. I was recently contacted by a designer that lives in Central Nebraska, near me. She had seen our interview on Silicon Prairie News, and reached out to Robert via Godbit. After speaking with her, she also mentioned that Jake taught her some design at one point in time. Finally, I am going to be meeting with her for coffee this week. So she went from Kearney, NE (area), to San Diego, CA, to Hastings, NE and now back to Kearney, NE for coffee.
This is what Free Air Collective is to me… A small community of entrepreneurs looking to do some cool things, and at the same time building our network of contacts.
With this growing network, our portfolio of products, applications, clients and partners also grows. Free Air Collective continues to develop new products, and partner with firms like Stage Two Consulting to develop their concepts. Our biggest challenge to date is learning: What is Free Air Collective?
We are not an advertising agency. We are not a Venture Capital Group. We are not an Incubator. Yet, in a way, we are all of these things.
We have worked with traditional clients to redesign their Website. We have taken on equity in projects in lieu of money to assist an entrepreneur finally get to launch. We have met with numerous groups and entrepreneurs to discuss their product idea, concept, business plan or bar napkin. These are the struggles that we face externally, and yet we face struggles internally.
How do we manage the project list that we have building? Do we start to work on projects from clients, our own internal products, or further develop the products that exist today? What role does everyone play?
These are all questions we’ll answer in later posts. Now it is back to work fulfilling our commitments.
I leave you with another Guy Kawasaki-ism. ”The Art of the Start”: In it he basically says, if it takes a partnership to get the product live, do it. Don’t worry about making it perfect, get it live and in people’s hands. Let them find the bugs.
Thus, as we move forward, stay tuned to our Website. We’ll have new product announcements, new partnerships, and much more to announce.