Coudal Partners: The Three Question Test

I receive Infrequent Mailings from Coudal Partners, and there’s always great contests and tidbits of advice contained within. Their latest mailing describes their process for evaluating whether or not to pursue a project, and I thought it was just too great to let waste away in my Inbox:

Dear Reader,

This doesn’t really fit on the site anywhere, so I’m publishing it here.

In a number of talks and panels, I have described the three questions we ask when evaluating whether or not to pursue a project. It could be a project from a client or a partner, or more likely, some idea we came up with internally or at the tavern. This three-part test has generated a lot of feedback, so I thought I’d apply it to one of our current projects as a way to see how we’re doing and also to demonstrate how we think about things here at 400 North May. Maybe you’ll find it useful too.

Here are the questions, all equally important:

1. Will we be able to make money? We’re a business. We have mortgages and tuitions to pay. Plus, if we don’t make some cash once in a while, how will we feed our habit of continually screwing around?

2. When we’re done, will we be proud of the work we’ve done? Slaving for months on a project only to not want to show it to anyone when you’re finished just plain sucks. No amount of money can make that feel better.

3. Can we learn a little something new along the way? Executing the project has to make us smarter and help satisfy our curiosity, which we think is our greatest asset.

Let’s take a look at Field Notes Brand as it relates to the questions. Field Notes originally came from our friend and partner Aaron Draplin of the DDC in Portland. Aaron was messing around with the idea for the brand, we started talking about it, and ultimately we found that we were pretty much right in synch with what the brand could mean and how we would approach it as a partnership.

This was one year ago. Ideas usually take the path of least resistance and more often than not that path is paved, curb-to-curb, with doubt. It’s very easy, early in a project, to talk it right to death. We’ve done that plenty of times, so instead we try to force the issue and jump right in. We can always fix stuff or even bail out later.

We worked hard to get all the details of the initial product just exactly right and then placed a small order with a printer. The initial memo books were expensive to produce, but we knew that if things worked out, we could drive the cost down significantly. At the same time, we built a super simple site that described the product in very general terms and offered it for pre-order. Then we launched it and blogged about it.

On the very first day, we processed a load of orders and we’ve been running and expanding the business ever since. Now for the questions:

1. Can we make money at this? Although we have made thousand of sales during this first year, we have done nothing but put all that revenue right back into the business. A spreadsheet outlining costs-versus-revenue doesn’t look too great yet — even if we don’t include all the hours we have put into the project. But the business is virtually self-funding now and if all goes well, we’ll be in a position to create a much more pleasing spreadsheet soon.

And if it all goes down in flames, no one gets hurt.

2. Are we proud of the work? Hell yes. Our mighty little notebooks have made a real impact on tons of real people. We know because they write about them, they blog about them, and they post photos of them. Plus, lots of stores and shops want to carry them, including places like The Design Museum Shop in London and lots of other retail outlets whose inventories are chosen with care by discriminating proprietors.

3. Have we learned something new along the way? We already knew quite a bit about printing, we knew a little about retailing online from Jewelboxing and The Show, and we knew virtually nothing about placing products with retailers. Now we’re learning more and more about all those things. Michele is managing the wholesale and vendors, Dawson and Jen are running the online sales, Bryan is running the site.

Field Notes will be better and more successful from what we’ve learned so far and especially from the mistakes we have made. But the real bonus is this: we have the expertise now to launch another crazy idea faster, more efficiently, and more economically then ever before.

Of course none of this would matter if we weren’t having fun and for that we have to thank everyone who has been following all the various things that make up our ongoing experiment in web design, publishing, and commerce. That’s you. Thanks.

Jim