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“I don’t think this project will ever officially be finished,” Brandy Shea said.
Shea was referring to her current endeavor: a glimpse into the entrepreneurial experience entitled Quality Thrives. The idea is to film a series of 250 interviews, each with the founder (or founders) of a different business in the United States.
Official development and planning began in March, Shea said, and has only accelerated since. She and her project consort, Bryndan Thomas, began to interview Austin-based freelancers, new business owners, and other people of modest means who had started to make their “passion projects” tangible.
They then embarked on a cross-country road trip, looking to diversify their interview subjects and topics. (The interviews are currently in progress; Shea and Thomas are on the road as you read this.)
But how did such a time-consuming, high-risk undertaking start?
“I started doing graphic [and] Web design as a freelancer about five years ago, and officially launched my business, Mile One Creative, about one-and-a-half years ago. This process...gave me an entirely new perspective of the online world and the entrepreneur community, and to be honest, it was frustrating to see,” said Shea.
“There seemed to be so much focus on monetary gain and quantity output, but very little focus on producing actual, authentic, quality,” she continued. “After digging a bit deeper, I realized this growing lack of quality wasn't just in the online space; it was in corporate America as well. And I really felt compelled to speak up about it.”
Shea partnered with Thomas and channeled this disillusionment and inspiration into a newfound mission: "creating something that visually shows the meaning of quality and...documenting passionate, average people who not only work their tails off, but who really work to provide value for society."
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Each interview varies, but most of Shea and Thomas’s segments include a few fundamental questions: how a business owner got her start, what challenges he or she faced and the progress he or she envisions for the next five years. The series, which is funded by approximately $3,200 via an IndieGoGo campaign, explores a healthy array of industries – including public relations, art gallery management, cosmetics, and music instruction – and examines different angles of business expertise (topics include “The Five Year Rule for Entrepreneurs,” “Building a Solid, Trustworthy Team,” and “Connecting with Clients”; recordings are available on YouTube).
Now 23 interviews in, Shea’s begun to realize the recipe for her interview subjects’ success, as well as the effect Quality Thrives has had on her so far.
“I think the biggest thing we've learned is the value of actually getting out there and physically taking action. I think a lot of people get stuck in the idea/planning stages which prevents them from ever actually pursuing anything,” she said. “On top of that, being willing to ask for what you want without letting the fear of rejection stop you...because we've been willing to ask, we've gotten these really incredible opportunities that will be a huge asset to us in the long run.”
Shea and Thomas plan to release a podcast next month and, eventually, to publish a book. Even with finite funding and a numerical goal, Shea's suggestion that the project won't end (at least not any time soon) makes quite a bit of sense.
“We're ultimately in this thing for the long-haul. We have no idea where we'll be a year from now, or five years from now, and that allows us to stay completely open for opportunities. I guess you could say that we're just going where the path takes us.”
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