Don't be a Gelatinous Cube

Does your thing deserve to exist?

I think its fair to say that 95% of meetings I’ve ever been to at any brand have basically been various ways of asking “how can we make number go up?”

I caught myself in the middle of having that conversation in an Earth\Studies meeting a couple weeks ago and I realized how insidious the biz brain really is. I mean this honestly - our goals have nothing to do with how many dollars we can shove through this thing. Naturally there are externalities which make that a factor, but I consider it my job to find a more useful reframe.

New E\S Lookbook LET’S GO

The Reframe

I go back to some version of this every time I hit a blockage somewhere, whether that’s budget, talent, market forces, whatever: Are we able to do everything we need to do to make this business what we want it to be? What resources are we allocating to which projects/challenges, and are they the right ones? Ultimately there are a few currencies you can spend inside of your company. Everyone works with these in various proportions at different times.

• $$$

• Humanity

• Creativity

• Time

• Quality

Spending quality is not an option for me, nor one I recommend. This is basically the “fast, cheap, good. Pick two” phenomenon. you can absolutely always get a shitty product/campaign/communication out the door quickly.

Spending humanity has to happen sometimes. This can mean founders working crazy hours, learning new skills, etc. Should never be staff outside of leadership working off the clock or missing important life stuff to make the business work. Period. Sometimes spending humanity means courting favors and getting guidance. Its not always a bad thing.

Spending time is the approach I see a lot. By this I mean letting the clock run on you while you try to figure out how to make something happen. I find this to be expensive. Ideas are like produce and it's important to use the freshest ones immediately.

Spending money is a magic trick if you can afford it. I argue for more budget every chance I get because 1000% of the time, the web project will be better with my friend who is an amazing web designer. The shoot is always going to be better if you hire a stylist instead of trying to do it yourself as the creative director. The trick here is these things are only true if you have someone honest and smart telling you what to spend your money on. If not - Spending money kills you in two ways at once: Draining your cash for shit results.

My favorite currency to spend is creativity. To me this means you look at what you want to do, and you try to get your mind outside of all your prior experience or projection about how you might do it. You can shoot your campaign on a phone for sure if the concept is super dialed and you nail all the other pieces. You can make a geocities site and lean into that as a direction rather than seeing your empty budget as a constraint. We spend creativity at Earth\Studies the way bigger brands spend $$$, which is why everyone who sees us thinks we’re bigger than we are.

Gelatinous Cube Strategy

Aka The Blob aka Cancer. I’d wager most people who start a brand do it because they have an idea they find irresistible. I’d also wager that for lots of people that Irresistible Idea is “people would like me if I did this”, or “this could make a lot of money”. Those are not the types of businesses that deserve to exist, IMO. I have seen these motivations manifest as businesses that spend all their humanity and quality most readily. Working for these brands can be fun for a couple months if they are of the subtype to also spend a lot of money, which seems to be a rapidly extincting species. These are the psychos who fly everyone to Iceland for a lookbook while the warehouse staff makes minimum wage. Where the CEO drives a Range Rover but the paychecks bounce. These businesses just absorb and dissolve everything they touch.

Know before you grow

You can tell when someone’s Irresistible Idea is something greater than all that. They can see unborn realities and have decided they’re the ones to bring them into being. Maybe it’s something so clear and simple as “women should have hiking clothes that look and feel good”. Maybe it's “farmers should own the profits from the coffee they grow”. These are ideas that deserve to exist. These are business that should grow - Because when they do, some small or large part of the world gets better, fairer, more beautiful. These kinds of businesses want to grow because they know they can serve that idea better with a bigger footprint.

Hikerkind SS25.

When to make number go up

Looking back at my growth questions: Are we able to do everything we need to do to make this business what we want it to be? What resources are we allocating to which projects/challenges, and are they the right ones?

Now for my second Buckminster Fuller quote in a newsletter this month:

Thanks for the wisdom, Gnuhr sweater.

Sometimes the answer is just that you need more money. Lords knows its hard to do anything interesting with no money, but making something was always going to be hard! The externalities are always going to nag. The thing is, going back to your business to get the money to make your business happen is kind of an ouroboros, no?

The moments when you are tempted to lapse into “make number go up” thinking are opportunities to return to your Irresistible Idea, and consider what other resources you can spend in its service. Serving that idea is what you're here to do, remember? You have some creativity to spend on that, don’t you?

I promise that if you remain devoted to your idea and you serve that idea well and honestly, it will become what it is meant to become.

Which brings me to my next newsletter’s concept: Maybe you don’t get to do what you thought you could. That can be a gift. Working on it now…