Thursday, July 10, 2008

FTR Studios

I'm pleased to anounce the beginning stages of what we've all been waiting for since "latex and strings" rolled off of James's lips: I'm finally going to open my Studio. FTR Studios (Fantasy To Reality) will be opened in the early months of 2009, working primerily on 4 major projects to be presented to a major company in the month of October. They will be produced under our sub-company EPIC Gear, providing World of Warcraft gamers with the First, Best and ONLY Licenced Sets of elaborate gear and Costumes. Because of the High quality materials and attention to detail, we will only produce 12 to 20 of these a year. They will be priced anywhere from $9,000 to $15,000 a set depending on the customer's prefereces, size, ego, etc.

We've thought this through... a lot. I've spoken to marketing specialists, business owners, and we have each done a lot of personal investigation and research to ensure we don't flop and die. But even if we do, "We come out with some pretty sweet sets of armor!!" according to Brian James, 1 of 2 current business partners. We all feel the same way about it; this is what we want to do, this is what we are passionate about, and we'd work with all our hearts just for the opportunity to do what we love.

This is just a great start to something bigger down the road. Will this change the world? Not likely, but it will empower us with the experience to recognize greater needs, and allow us to start other ventures as we accumulate capital. This is just a vehicle to greater means, to greater ends. (Like buying up all the land in Jackson county and donating it to the church. ...I'd like to see how far we can go anyway before they stop us.) I've got to run, but things are always looking up, and I'm excited to finally start "It all". Don't ever give up guys, this is going to be a great 5 years in front of us!!!

Growing Pains

Wow! Look at all the pretty posts! I must admit, today has been amazing for me. I've spent the last two hours reading up on the blogs, and taking the scenic route throught the links provided. I've never been more honored to be a considered a friend among you.

So, what have I been up to these days? ... I've been growing. A lot! I took a sales team out to Minneapolis for a few months (surly the sharpest guys I've ever hired) and with enthusiasm and guts labored to bring a more enlighting form of media to those families. After two successful summers you'd be sure I'd do well, yet I was presented with possibly the greatest failure of my life. Not only myself, but the three guys on my team. One chose to go home after 4 weeks, and get a low-wage paying job. (No one could blame him; it was the logical thing to do.) The rest of us knew the math, and knew that even 3 or 4 good weeks would earn us more than working a job for the remaining 10 weeks of the summer. So we chose to keep working, earning nothing, and living off of advances from our future earnings. Scary, yes, but we decided we wanted to do something great with our summer. We wanted to use this as an opportuninty to escape our comfort zones and gain the character strength learned from steady adversity. Long story short, we were transfered to Utah to finish our summer. The company was impressed that we hadn't called it quits by now, so they planted us in the most fertile soil in the nation: Northern Utah. So here we are, and we'll finish the summer strong.

Despite the trials, Melanie and I (and the other three guys that have been living with us... and Erin) consider these last 3 or 4 months the most rewarding we've ever had. Erin is our biggest joy-bringer, and we've all grown closer to our Savior. We have also learned much about integrity, and watching out for "our people". Keeping the guys alive has been quite the trick, and anyone who says money isn't important hasn't gone very long without it. (Melanie and I were playing to the tune of 5 months!) But you learn to stay alive, and not be cheap on the things that matter most. We honestly don't know how we're able to get by the way we do sometimes, but we make sure we keep the Lord a big part of it.

Okay, I'm done sharing the difficulties (as educational as they are sometimes,). What I really wanted to share with you is my next post....