The Small Business Revolution documentary

I watched (OK, mostly listened) to this a few days ago.  It's a really good, and inspiring, in my opinion, look at small business in America today. 

Three years ago, I was living in a toxic environment, not getting calls back for any "real jobs" I applied for, and need to find some way to start earning a living again.  I started with literally no money, just a few art supplies and a really crappy, refurbished, laptop.  It was still running Windows XP in late 2015, that's how ancient my computer was.  I think Fred Flintstone had traded it in. 

Back then, I started focusing on making money with my unusual and unique Sharpie artwork, the only thing that made me a little money now and then.  It's been a wild ride, and I never started making a decent living off my artwork.  But I did sell around 100 original drawings in three years, starting at like $20 each, and I used Facebook, my blog, and other social media to promote myself.  I created a ton of content, anyone can see nearly all of my drawings on the internet and about 4 other platforms.  I got really good at a thing called "content creation."  Other than people adding outside drama to my life, my main issue was that my artwork isn't profitable enough to make a drawing that takes a week to draw, and then sell it, and have the money to pay everything I need to.

So after surviving a really rough, crazy winter, in a new city, I did some soul searching.  I realized that very few small businesses do much in the way of content creation, even though it's free.  It just takes some time to create.  Many things don't take that much time.  You can snap a quick, cool pic in your business, and upload it to 3 or 4 places, in a couple of minutes or so.  So I realized I can keep drawing, but on a less intense level, and take my internet and social media ideas and skills and help small businesses implement them.  So that's where I'm headed, again starting a really low financial level.  But I now have a body of work, both my artwork, and the online content I've created, to show that I know what I'm doing in these areas.

With this pivot in my work, I'll be blogging a lot more about small business ideas I have, stories of small businesses I've worked at, and creative things we did at those, and I'll be sharing things I find along these lines.  This is a good one to start with.  At 27 minutes, it's along watch for most of your busy lives, but easy to listen to while doing other tasks.  Plus the last blog post took me two days to write, and I've got an offline project taking most of my time at the moment.  I need a quick post today.  So enjoy this documentary for now.