The second in our series of monthly STAR Company ‘Client Snapshots’…a chance to share, learn, explore and find creative and business inspiration from our STAR Company client roster.

Cheryl Bouzide-McKee, from the STAR Company team,  sits down for a virtual chat with STAR Company client  John Calabro from Quattro Books to learn more about this literary creative business.

Tell us about who you are and what you do?

Who is the Quattro team?

Clockwise from top left,  John Calabro, Alan Briesmaster, Luciano Iacobelli and Beatriz Hausner.

How did Quattro Books come to be?

Four of us are partners in WordStage – a a very successful reading series.  We saw the publishing business as a logical extension of that partnership and  came together to create Quattro Books.

What are your greatest joys in running your creative business?

Finding new authors that merit publishing.  Seeing the joy on their faces when we launch their first books. Taking a fine manuscript and making it better.

What about your biggest challenge as a creative entrepreneur?

The greatest challenge is to balance our financial books at the end of every publishing season.

A Quattro Books publication - Romancing the Buzzard, by Leah Murray

Any big lessons learned along the way?

What’s next for Quattro Books?

A Quattro Books publication - Nevermore: A Book of Hours by David Day

What business tool can you not live without in your day to day life?

 What do you wish you had more of?

What made you take the leap and turn your creative passion into a business?

Anything else you’d like to share?

One thing is for certain, all entrepreneurs and self-employed creatives face the same challenge:  how to be creative and keep your business wits about you.

What’s your style?

photo courtesy of Bergen Health & Life

Are you…

Well-done  – you’ve got the financial know-how, but you don’t have the time?

Medium - you know your finances are important, you just need some guidance?

Rare - you haven’t had the a-ha moment, yet…the one that makes you understand that the creative side and the money side are equally important, if you want to succeed in your creative business.

1. Well-done

Many of our clients are very proficient at managing their finances.  Are they able to do their own bookkeeping?  Of course.  Do they have the time?  No.  They have a comprehensive understanding of double entry bookkeeping, know how to use their software and  how to analyze a set of financial statements.  They are incredibly busy building capacity, following sales leads, etc.  All the while thinking, “I can manage my own books, I don’t need to pay someone”’  This is when books fall months, or years, behind and suddenly, the very capable business owner no longer has the financial information they need to make solid decision about their business.

STAR Company Tip:  Acknowledge your skills, identify when your time is better spent elsewhere, and then quickly bring in skilled help to maintain your books before they fall behind.

2.   Medium

We often meet with people who understand the importance of bookkeeping, really want to keep things on track, but are lacking the understanding of how to manage financial information.  How do I use this software?  What is a revenue stream? How do I integrate my online sales with my accounting program?  Is it important to pay sales tax quarterly?  Unfortunately, the intention and desire to track their finances leads people to keep forging ahead, even when they don’t quite understand.  The result?  Bad bookkeeping, incomplete information and lots of wasted time…and money.

STAR Company Tip:  Get help!  Have an experienced bookkeeper set  up your process right…from the beginning.  If you want to maintain your books ongoing, then get the training but have someone “check your work” periodically to make sure you are on track.  Things done right the first time save an enormous amount of time and money in the long run.

3.    Rare

Sometimes when we are talking with business owners, we hear them utter phrases like:

“Money just isn’t important to the kind of work I’m doing”

“I’ve never been into money”

“I just don’t have time for all the fussy work”

“I’m more interested in helping people than focussing on money”

These kinds of attitudes require what a colleague calls, “an intervention”.  These entrepreneurs are lacking important information about the role of money in their business  – and someone needs to let them know!  Very few of us start creative ventures or social enterprise because of the money.  We are passionate about what we do.  But just as you would never start out on a big journey without checking your gas tank, so you should never undertake an enterprise without knowing what it is going to take in terms of money, time, and commitment.  It is an almost complete guarantee that you will run into serious trouble, if you don’t take your finances into account.

 STAR Company Tip:  Sit down and make a budget, all while keeping the focus of your work in mind.  What do you want to do and what resources do you need to manifest your vision?  And make sure you have someone with financial experience look at the information with you.  Friends don’t let friends plan alone!

The key in all these scenarios is to know yourself!

Know your financial style and figure out what kind of support you need.

Get the right kind of help so that you can continue to do the work you love to do.

Contact us at info@starcompany.ca and we’ll help you determine your style, and best practices for your creative and business success!

The first in our series of monthly STAR Company ‘Client Snapshots’…a chance to share, learn, explore and find creative and business inspiration from our STAR Company client roster.

Cheryl Bouzide-McKee, from the STAR Company team,  sits down for a virtual chat with STAR Company client  Olivier Berger to learn more about Olivier’s work with Wondereur, a truly 21^st century creative business.

Wondereur Preview Spring 2012 from Wondereur on Vimeo.

What is Wondereur?  Wondereur is a weekly iPad magazine. But there’s more to us than that… Photojournalism: each week, we unveil a photo essay on a new contemporary artist and give you three weeks to discover the artist’s life and work.  Mobile Shopping: Along with the artist’s story, we unveil a storefront. When you’re captivated by what you see, click “buy” to bring a piece of art home.

How did the idea for your business develop?  It started by a kind of frustration with how art is sold online and offline. So we thought there was something else that could be done, something that would bring a simple way of exploring what is behind contemporary art. To us, artists are adventurers, so we were excited to find a way to show the adventurous ‘journey’ involved in the creation process.

Olivier, 3rd from left, and the wonderful Wondereur team.

Tell us a bit about the Wondereur team.  We are a small collective of journalists, designers, creative entrepreneurs and art lovers, with a special love for contemporary art. We are from Paris and Toronto.  We are bearded and beardless, glasses and no glasses, but with a shared passion to make things beautiful and simple.

How do you find the artists you showcase?  It starts with our talent spotters. Then our editorial team takes over.  Leading figures in local art scenes around the world agree to be Wondereur’s talent spotters, finding and endorsing artists who are under the radar. Wondereur invites the artists to submit work for display in our storefront and autobiographical material to feature in our story.  From there, it’s up to Wondereur’s journalists and designers. They shape the artist’s autobiographical material, the talent spotter’s insights, an in-depth artist interview and documentary-style photography into photo essays in the classic style.

Can you talk about some of the challenges of bringing Wondereur to life?  The concept went through a lot of iterations, even through big changes in the Wondereur team. It felt sometimes, often actually, like we were hitting the wall with our head… but at some point the wall broke.  For us, this is just the start. The development of the Wondereur concept will continue, and even go faster, after we launch…thanks to response from users.

What was the break-through in the creation of Wondereur?  The wall breaks when suddenly you find a way to bring big value to each of your key stakeholders. In our case, the artist, the art community,  art galleries, the photojournalist and the reader.

What are your greatest joys and greatest challenges with Wondereur?  The joy comes from working with people who are not like minded, but share a common passion for the project, and a group dynamic where ego can be left out… where stress is kept at bay.

Where are you headed?  Launch! After quite a few months of hard, hard work, we will finally see if what we’ve built is meaningful or not.

What has been the most important lesson so far?  That surprises are always around the corner, even if you are very well organized.  So just be prepared for the unexpected.

What business tools can you not live without in your day to day life?  Basecamp.  Email on ipad.  Skype.  Home-made organic 1k calorie chocolate cakes…yes it is a business tool!

What do you wish you had?  More time.

How does STAR Company help with your life/work?  The backbone of any business, whether it’s for-profit or not-for-profit, is money and compliance toward government agencies and various other stakeholders. Without it nothing can become real or sustain itself. STAR Company is key in making this manageable and ensuring that things are done right.

Was there something/someone/a moment that propelled you to take the leap and turn your creative passion into a business?
Yes, finding the people who accepted to take the risk along with us and join our Wondereur team.

Bookkeeping and house concerts….odd bedfellows you say? 

Maybe so, but we are top-notch culture-soaked number geeks!  We do both pretty darn well.  Don’t take our word for it…come out and join us for some house-spun culture, and be on the lookout for any flying numbers, at our last STARRY Nights House Concert of the spring season.

Our April show with singer/songrwiter Soozi Schlanger  and our May show with writer/actor Alison Wearing were both sell outs;  fun, moving and intimate live performances.

Join us Saturday June 23, 8-10pm for ‘Home is Where the Heart Lives’.  A live theatrical performance by actor/writer/director Judy Marcellline.

For more info, and to buy tickets…click here.