Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions

Luminaria Productions LLC owns this blog.

It also owns Homewood Nation, the internet-based community news service headquartered at www.homewoodnation.com. For the first couple of years after its launch in April 2010, I made the mistake of identifying the website as Homewood Nation. But Homewood Nation includes a Facebook page, a YouTube channel, and a Twitter feed (you can use the green bar above to check out all of those elements).

I declared the intent a few years ago to build Luminaria into a company whose April 2017 IPO establishes its value at $1 billion. Not because I personally need the levels of money involved, but because I imagined that it would feel amazing to have the world say that I have created that much value.

I still think that that would feel amazing, but I've misbehaved badly enough so that I now need to either push the timeline back, or shrink the number.

I'll keep the number, because I like it, and shift the timeline as appears needed. Meanwhile, I must learn to work harder AND smarter AND more consistently at building a billion-dollar enterprise.

So what else is cooking in Luminaria's pot, besides ReVisions and Homewood Nation? Multiple projects in various stages of development...

A VIDEO GAME: PeaceBuilder: Homewood

A SCREENPLAY COLLECTION: QuickFlicks - a collection of short screenplays for fledgling filmmakers.

SHORT FILMS to be produced from the QuickFlicks scripts: "coda," "Message, Not In A Bottle," "No Dessert," and "End Run."

FEATURE FILM SCRIPTS: "The Nature of Love" - a dissatisfied wife falls for one of her husband's employees, not knowing that he intends to kill her family; "The Moses Effect" - a small town sheriff's life is turned upside down when a satellite-based system begins enforcing all of the laws on the books, including the most absurd ones.

A REALITY SHOW about the rehab of a building in Homewood - most likely 1015 N. Homewood Ave.

A NEWSLETTER for Homewood.

HNTV - A TELEVISION CHANNEL devoted to Homewood

HOMEWOOD NATION MERCHANDISE - branded apparel and gifts; a tablet computer (which may be manufactured/assembled in Homewood.)

A Homewood Nation hoodie could help you 
make it through the final brutal weeks of winter!

EVENTS:

• Building A 21st Century Journalism Enterprise - a discussion series for writers, editors, designers, photographers, videographers...basically, anyone interested in the possibilities and challenges of doing what the title says, with the tools now available.
• An event honoring writer John Edgar Wideman
• An event honoring Lou Scheimer, founder of Filmation, the animation company that produced "He-Man And The Masters Of The Universe."
• Communicating for Community - a discussion, or series of discussions, on enhancing communication within Homewood and enhancing Homewood's communication with the world (and wow, this is the first time I have said it that way - I like it!).

PUBLISHING, under the Greenhouse Publications banner:

• Book, working title, "Black Man In A Suit" - a collection of posts from "My Homewood"
• Book, "Homewood 2013" - a review of the year.
• Magazine, working title, "Homewood Quarterly Journal," (blech)
• Posters
• Other books

And that's the list of projects, each of which will require work by other people, and all of which together will require the work of lots of other people. The key to Luminaria's outrageous success, is, as I said in December, attracting and retaining great talent. And getting myself out of the way.

Do you see a possible place for yourself in this list? If so, drop a line to luminariaprod@gmail.com, and I will email you updates as they are issued.

***************
Three Priorities: The Complete Series
Three Priorities For 2014 - And Beyond
Three Priorities For 2014: 1 - Encouraging The Body Of Christ
Three Priorities For 2014: 2- Growing Businesses.
Three Priorities For 2014: 2.5 - Why Build Businesses?
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Legal Shield
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Homewood Capital Partners
Three Priorities For 2014: 2 - Growing Businesses - Luminaria Productions
Three Priorities For 2014: 3 - Redeveloping Race Street
Three Priorities For 2014: Closing Thoughts

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 20: refining reporting

So, this work may go better if I have some sort of system for reporting.

First, some clarification - I have created legal entities for at least a dozen businesses through the years, of which I am now focusing my attention on two - Homewood Capital Partners LLC and Luminaria Productions LLC.

Homewood Capital Partners is a for-profit LLC, created to invest in Homewood real estate.

Luminaria Productions LLC, of course, is the media production company behind "Homewood Nation" - and, it occurs to me, would make a perfectly sensible owner for this blog. Duh!

Three other entities relate to Luminaria in some way. I have a long-dormant sole proprietorship, Greenhouse Publications, which I have mentally, but not formally, moved from being an extension of me to being a subsidiary of Luminaria - its arm for print products. I see the first print product being a book derived from four and a half years of the "My Homewood" blog; the working title is "Black Man in a Suit."

There is a real estate partnership, 529 N. Homewood LP, created to purchase and hold the eponymous property. I mention it here because I may place it under Luminaria. As of now, it stands separate.

Finally, there's Capital Synergies, Inc., predating all of the above except Greenhouse Publications. The purpose of Capital Synergies is to own and manage entities that own assets. The original idea was to have it be general partner of real estate limited partnerships, and it is the GP of 529 N. Homewood Ave. It also owns and is Managing Partner of Luminaria Productions. So it will show up in posts about building a billion-dollar enterprise, as a background player; but not much, I think. Most of what I write about BBDE will be about Luminaria.

So, what did I do today (Wed, 6/5) for Luminaria?

1. I promoted Rob Jones' piece on Homewood Nation about coaching Homewood.
2. I scheduled a room at the library for TechShop's presentation on June 18, then wrote, posted and promoted a piece on Homewood Nation about it.
3. I conducted an interview with RaShall Brackney that I think could provide material for at least a couple of stories in Homewood Nation.
4. I promoted last night's BBDE post on both LinkedIn and G+.
5. I created a spreadsheet to decide which venues to use to promote which types of content that I create online. This is a small thing that could have a big impact because I have caught myself wasting time deciding which venues to use to promote which content. I have also wasted time trying to remember which venues I had used and which ones I still needed to use. It is curious how I sometimes simply lose track of what I'm doing, mid-task. As a type of checklist, the spreadsheet should help. Never underestimate the power of a good form.
6. I emailed Eric Brown, president of Hybrid Learning Systems and ImpactGames, about PeaceBuilder
7. I emailed Kilolo Luckett, primarily about Homewood Capital Partners, but also about meeting.

That seems like it. On the one hand, that doesn't look like a full day's work; on the other, I feel as though I kept busy. Except when I was nodding off. Gotta exterminate the night owl.

Tomorrow morning, Pomodoro. Task #1 - update entities and projects list. Going forward, that list will provide the basis for both planning and reporting Luminaria activity.

I've just come up with tweaks on the LinkedIn./G+ experiment:

• share these posts twice: upon completion, then about 12 hours later, or between 12 - 1 pm,
• early in each post, link back to the preceding one.
• always link to new Homewood Nation content (don't just say, " I wrote/posted so-and-so.") 

Building a billion-dollar enterprise, 10

Today I did not do anything specifically to make money. But I did work on building a billion-dollar enterprise, by talking with my wife about it.

I described to her the general steps I intend to take to move PeaceBuilder forward - reconnecting with people I know at Pitt's business school, reconnecting with people I know in Pittsburgh's tech community, and connecting with people I don't know yet, but should -  and told her about the three things I am working on now to generate income: placing a "donate" button on Homewood Nation, setting up a Cafe Press shop on Homewood Nation, and publishing "Quick Flicks."

I also told her that, while it is possible for someone to accumulate significant wealth without anyone knowing about it, reaching my goal of an April, 2017 IPO valuing Luminaria Productions at $1 billion would automatically make the value of my Luminaria shares a matter of public record. And even before the IPO, the very process of building such an enterprise in Homewood would attract the attention that would make me a public person.

I told her those things because - as I also told her - I have long believed that she has a fear of becoming rich, partly coming from a fear of other people knowing about her wealth, and making her a target for them to get some. She didn't disagree.

I apologized for going broke, and asked her if she forgave me, and she said yes. I told her that I am bound and determined to get out of the place that I've come to, and to never come back to this. Ever.

Odd that so far, thinking about making money has focused my attention almost exclusively on Luminaria Productions, when Homewood Capital Partners might actually produce income sooner.

There's a lot of damage to repair. I believe that tonight was a good start.

Happy New Year!

2012 could be the year in which my life totally explodes. In a good way.
Or it could be the year in which my life totally implodes. Icky yucky bad bad.

What would make it a good year - a great one, even?

The completion of some projects, the advancement of others.

For completion:
Short film, "I Will Love You Always" - final cleanup, distribution
Short film, "coda," - final cleanup, distribution
Book, "Black Man in a Suit," - compilation, editing, production, distribution
Game, "PeaceBuilder: Homewood," - completion, v.1
Homewood Banner project
Race Street spring tree planting
Race Street fall tree planting

For advancement:
Homewood Capital Partners - launch
PeaceBuilder: Homewood - marketing

Ha - the post is taking a long time to write. Part of me is looking at the list so far and thinking, "That's enough for one year," making me hesitate to add more.

So I'll come back.