Slave Labour (in American that's spelled "Slave Labor")

The great empires of the world have all been been built on the backs of slaves. I'm not going to argue the morality of that, but rather speak about how it applies to business, because large corporations are the empires of the modern age. In order to build one you need to find a way to get things done at a fraction of the cost that larger competitors can. The primary cost in early online ventures is labor. It's critically imperative to keep this cost down by getting people to work for free, for stock, or for deferred payment.

Problem: Most people can't see the forest through the trees. It's hard to find those special people who believe. It's hard to find anyone that will give up even a few hours a month for anything other than cash. Occasionally you can find someone who's interested... at least for a little while. Take for example the comic strip we did for a while over at Miss Video Game (I've inserted it below). We looked a long time for a person who had talent and was looking to build a fan base and I thought that we had found the guy. His art work was a perfect fit for the site - the comics were popular and we had a good dynamic between my story lines and his illustration.

(Story by Mark Donovan, Illustrations by KevRoche)

We got Kevin on board by offering to insert Google Adwords into the comic strip pages on MVG, and giving him 100% of the revenue from these ads. Our concern was driving traffic and building community within our sites, so having the comic was much more important to us than fighting over ad revenue. After a couple of months it became harder and harder to get a hold of Kev, then we didn't hear from him at all. I think he was disappointed that he had accumulated a modest balance in the adwords account after a month. This is where the forest from the trees reference comes into play - the comic was popular, it was growing and receiving great feedback, but most people want success right now. They look at other successful companies and expect to be at that level within a few weeks; unfortunately for us all that's not how it works. Getting to the top requires patience, fortitude and hard work. When he didn't get instant success he fell off the radar.

Lesson learned: Never create a similar relationship until I'm positive that person has the vision to see project out to the end.

If you're starting a project, whether it's a large business or a comic strip, make sure the people you take into the trenches with you are there for the long haul. Make sure they're passionate and love what they do so much that they would do it for free, because at the end of the day they'll probably have to. If they're worried about getting cash, send 'em packing.