01-02-10 – Let’s get down to business / The End of the Beginning

Phew! So! What’s the haps then?

- Posting the new boyinaband update (a nice summary of January and an explanation of Feb)
- Getting some seriously good work from G66.eu + Primeloops
- Working hard on the business plan for boyinaband and cash-flow-forecasting it up!
- Recording the guitar and some vocals for YAWA’s new EP
- Getting a tonne of gigs booked for YAWA!

Boyinaband January recap!

This video pretty much sums up everything:

You can read the text version here.

Incidentally, it was very hard to record this with a small girl saying in a mocking tone “Hi, I’m Dave from boyinaband.com!” Though the crunkness of a nearby audience member calmed me considerably.

G66.eu + Primeloops.com

As I mentioned in the video, I’m now working with G66! It’s awesome, I’ve had a few phone calls back and forth and they’re interested in my Englishness – the guy I spoke with even mentioned how distinct the English sense of humour is; I never thought that’d ever be a factor in my employment.

But yeah, everyone there seems really nice and hard-working, which suits me fine. I might have even got Scratch some work out of this as well!

Primeloops have also given me a new type of work as well – I’ll show you when it’s all finished (nothing major, but it should be fun! )

Bidness Plan

So, after making about a quarter of the business plan this week, I decided to search for some sample plans so I could get an idea of what I needed. I discovered every other business plan in the world was shorter than the quarter of a plan I’d already written. Crap.

This is partly because the template that my B.E.S. appointed Business Advisor (How businessy and posh does that sound?!) gave me has 4 times as many headings as all the other ones seem to have. I’ve whittled it down now so a lot of the text is now in the appendix, meaning it’s a quicker read, but the info is all still there.

Scratch has started helping me write it. Not entirely out of the goodness of his heart (Though Scratch does have a crunktastic heart) – he is now joining me in the business venture! We have begun planning the whole thing from the perspective of two people starting the business – with boyinaband.com keeping the income flowing in while we build up dudeinadrama.com to the point where it can also sustain an income.

In order to do it right, I made a cash flow forecast – which is pretty exciting. Apparently, in year 4 after the initial funding (and we need a LOT of funding) we will be dealing in hundreds of thousands of pounds monthly profit. Gosh. It’ll be cool to see if 4 years from now I’m writing this from a private jet, or from the same desk, realising that I messed up my excel calculations.

The End of the Beginning

So there it is – the title for EP numero 2. I think it reflects what we hope to accomplish nicely. We’ve moved on from the YAWA of old – we are now a more mature, intelligent and all-in-all more Jaw-boned You and What Army now.

All the guitar is now recorded for the EP and Kieran and I recorded some vocal ideas for a new track (Still need to hear Zak and Jamie’s opinions on those). I mixed down the intro as well. My god – it actually sounds professional to me. I have heard it over 100 times now, I just can’t get enough of how powerful the guitars are. FINALLY, I’m happy with a mix! How long before I change my mind?

Also on a YAWA note, Kieran has been in touch with a woman who is in with a pretty big record label and is going for an informal meeting with her this week. I’m not sure if I’m going along or not, but if I am then expect either full disclosure or cryptic ramblings of what went on next week!

Zak has also just called me and informed me that YAWA may have a bunch of gigs in the pipeline, including one that might mean a coach trip from the west mids down to London! Who’s up for that?

Next week on Dave’s Blog…

This is a very busy week for me, including

- Making Tutorial Video for G66
- Writing articles for G66 and Primeloops (4 articles a week now – I’m pretty much becoming a journalist!)
- The other secret(y) primeloops work
- Working on the Business Plan with Scratch
- Recording some drums with Zak for the EP (testing out his double kick that should arrive on Wednesday!)