Solar Dragons LLC

I finally finished the new site I’ve been working on for a while, Compass Investments LLC. The site was easy but I was getting unexpected complications dealing with Dreamweaver. I still have to update my site. There are some things that I want to do but I don’t want the hassle of dealing with the programming. maybe an intern can handle it, if I get one. I received an email from Purdue. They just needed some info, then they are going to put me in their system to look at resumes. Hannah, the girl I might hire for design, called this morning. We have a meeting for Thursday at 11am. Hope that works out. Even if things don’t work out with basic stuff, at least we can still make the comic. I hope to get back into that soon. All this other stuff is paying the bills but draining me creatively.

Ok. So I’m back from vacation, getting back into the groove. I’m finally settling on a theme for redesigning my site. I talked to some friends of mine who are salesmen and they are willing to work freelance with me in the sales arena to keep me connected to Chicago. Vince is getting me in contact with someone he knows in sales and marketing, so I can have NWI covered. I also just talked to a girl that is graduating from school. She wants experience and I want to expand into print material. So we are trying to finalize things next week.

To be honest, I need a couple of design interns if this is gonna balance out. The clients I have now are already taking up a lot of time. I can’t do their sites while taking on more clients. I should talk to Robert Morris either this week or next week. When the site is done, I’ll print up the business cards and we can get this show on the road.

I’ve signed a few more clients on, so things are looking up. Someone I used to work with in Chicago is starting a catering business and is signing on for Solar Dragons services in May. I want things to start expanding a little faster than they are, so I hired a couple of sales people to start after in May. By the time May comes, I’ll be back from my trip and would have redesigned the website.

With the Hispanic population being high in this area and in Chicago, I want to hire someone to translate our site into Spanish. Speaking of which, I need to free up a block of time in my day to learn Spanish. What good is having a bilingual site if I cant talk to clients in their own language?

“Project Icarus” is looking up. Our writing staff is in place and we have a cover artist. I have a contact that can print and distribute the comic for us, so that is working out in our favor. I think I want to keep the comic local and have local businesses advertise in it. We are debating on having a monthly comic or just do a graphic novel. I’m leaning on the novel, just to have a finished product to promote versus a piece of a product. I prefer having a whole product and then have people critique it. Unfortunately, that means there can’t be any room for error. We’re still working on it, so I’m not going to worry about it too much.

Since I’m going on a trip for a week, I’m setting everything up to be ready to go when I get back. I have a client list and I’ll design the business cards for my sales people before I go. Things are looking up so far and here’s hoping they can take off when May gets here.

This month was even more hectic than last month! More people than I expected were still available for me even though I was out of commission for a few months. I am also glad that I have a team to work with. I prefer that for the simple fact that everything doesn’t fall on my shoulders. In addition, we can brainstorm as a group, rather than me sitting by myself burning the midnight oil for a spark of an idea.

I remember when I was getting my A.A.S in graphic art; we had to make a movie. I was fortunate that Isaac was available to help with the movie. About 40% of the movie’s creative look was from other people suggesting a variety of ways to handle a certain scene. I appreciate that those people in my movie really had my back and it turned out to be the best movie in the school. They even took a copy of it to other campuses for Robert Morris. I felt like a celebrity for a little while all because I had a good team working with me.

Now I have a new team. I have a couple of programmers and a guy thats pretty good with flash. This works for now. As things grow, we’ll see how it goes…

Whew… I’m glad this month is over. I went out of town twice and people came from out of town last week. I’ve been trying to contact more people for freelance work but I haven’t updated my site yet. I don’t know if that will have or is currently having a negative impact on my consumer base. I have my energy back, even though I’m still dealing with some throat issues. My wife is going back and forth with being sick, so we’ve been going to the doctor trying to get better.

I started a new project this month. I started a comic with a friend of mine. He liked the basic concept and is scouting artists for us to create the comic. I’m debating over what style and if we want to use color or not. I would prefer everyone to stick to what they are good at, instead of double duty; I.E. me coloring and writing, or the artist penciling and inking, etc. I bought a DVD called ‘Countdown to Wednesday’. It was really informative about how to break into the comic business and all thats involved. We thought we had an artist but he wasn’t up to such an elaborate project. If Solar Dragons has more business coming in, some of the revenue can fund the comic. I’m thinking about sponsors as well, various businesses and colleges in the area. March is right around the corner, so we’ll see how things go.