Back in 01957, Walt Disney created this flow chart to sell his idea to investors.
You can see how this flow chart shows directs various products into each other. It is a good reminder that there are some parts of the company that might in themselves loose money, but because they are promoting other parts they are still vital to the whole.
We should also remember that this diagram is only a snapshot in time. Which of these company divisions are ephemeral and which evolved (or disappeared) over time? 16mm films probably became 35mm films, which became DVDs, which became Disney+ streaming. Sure the “noun” might have changed but the role remained the same.
Then there are some divisions that have all but disappeared and/or their importance in this graph have shifted. The newspaper comic strip was probably an institution in the 01950s, but less so in 02025. How do you plan for a changing business model?
Finally, which divisions are the main actors and which play a supporting role? Not everything has to be two-way traffic, some can be there to only serve and others only to be served.
This got us thinking about (optional.is). What is our flow diagram? And how would/could we improve on it? Knowing a bit more about our resources we can see which are not playing a strong enough roll in the larger flow diagram.
If we look at our major actors, some of these have dwindled. Analog.is exists and we are still selling our notebook stock, but given that every package that leaves Iceland needs to be tracked it makes the cost very prohibitive for small orders. We’re looking for alternatives, but it isn’t a high priority given the profit on a notebook order versus our hourly rate. For our Adventure Mazes project, we tried to outsource all that to Amazon’s Kindle Print On Demand service. It works, they take a big chunk and all the promotion falls on us.
The Material Conference is also another product that we would love to promote more. The first three events improved over time. The first, a kickstarter event never happened. The second was off to a good start and the third grew the audience further. Our fourth was set for March 02020, but was canceled due to COVID and we’ve never managed to get the momentum to start it up again. We’re back to square one.
Working Smarter not Harder
Most of our work is hourly or retainer-based rather than product related. At the turn of the century, 25+ years ago, Web 2.0 was the hot topic and many companies were moving from a client run business to product run. We saw 37signals launch Basecamp and stop taking client work. Coudal Partners started Field Notes and other crazy ideas. We’ve watched with envy and even tried a few things of our own.
Making the transition between selling your time to selling ‘things’ isn’t always an easy one. There are new and different problems. Making a flow diagram like Walt Disney did nearly 70 years ago might help.
No [product] is an island.
Everything exists in a larger system. The sooner you map out and understand the relationships, the better chance you have of success. Not only understanding what contributes where, but also how much. The flow chart indicates three sources of revenue: Client Work, Products and Conferences, but they bring in vastly different amounts!