Did you have a business plan when you started your business?

V: As of now we have a plan to create a Powerpoint outline and a financial plan that will help us present our cost structure, teaching kids about the financials.

Do you think business plans are necessary for entrepreneurship?
Back when I and other dinosaurs walked the earth, everyone had a word document with thousands of words and spreadsheets that outlined your plan—Pretty rare to do it that way now. Now it’s about having high level visuals (ppt) with detailed plans and analysis in excel, as necessary. Depending upon the stage of the business, the amount of detail is going to vary. How you present your information is obviously dependent on the type of business you have.

What three pieces of advice can you offer developing arts entrepreneurs? 

(1) Think really hard about who you get in bed with.

(2) Do something you can get excited and passionate about because it takes forever.

(3) Make sure you have a nice mix of skills on your team.

Can you talk a little bit about what you’re working with your kids on?

The problem is that the kids initial inclination is to be heavy on the creativity and design of it, and there’s a certain beauty to that, but it makes it far harder to scale. Don’t just play around, that’s not entrepreneurship. Projects aren’t entrepreneurship. You have to buckle down without losing your creative edge.

Interview by Andrew Burgess, student in Developing an Arts Venture Plan, Arts Entrepreneurship at Meadows School of the Arts, SMU.