This Saturday is Dream Day! A few days ago, I received this book “The Principles of Successful Freelancing” for my Golden Post Award on SitePoint. It suggest writing a shopping list for your business. Sounds like a nice idea and to make it fun, why not dream a little while we’re at it?
Got hobbies?
The first thing I’m thinking right now is podcasting equipment, since I’m listening to Boagworld as I write. Let’s have a look at what podcasting hardware there it.
First of all, we can buy a podcasting package, and Samson has one that has received a four-star rating on Amazon. It’s probably the most simple way to get started recording more professionally and it costs just above $100. Not bad.
It would however be truly awesome to have this Shure SM7B microphone. $350 at Amazon isn’t that expensive for a professional mic I guess, but it’s still more than I would put into a podcasting setup for now.
Behringer C-1 seems to be an option that does a great job without breaking our wallets. At around $45 on Amazon, this would be one of my finalists if I were buying a mic right now.
Then apparently we need a audio preamp/interface to be able to use the mic. M-Audio is a nice brand I like, and here’s a nice one for $99. Another Behringer product is the MIC200 preamp which we can get for as little as $60—nice choice.
Headphones we all probably have, though it could be nice to have a set of real studio headphones. Anyway, this is not a podcasting post so let’s move on. What else could we want to buy?
Equipment (A.K.A. gadgets)
Personally, I already have an Apple Cinema Display and an eco-friendly printer, though a 30-inch display would kick ass. Speakers are fun, but I have those too. What I do want is some more memory in my Mac so that would be at the top of my list. Another thing would be a hard drive for my laptop—a 160GB SSD disk would surely speed up the old champ!
Goal!
Instead of materialistic happiness, let’s talk about business expansion. A big nice-to-have is of course a great office space in a nice location, since I’m now in my home studio. It’s very comfortable but I don’t think I can cram many employees in here unfortunately.
I was looking at a full-service place in Amsterdam a few months ago which would be a decent place to be in, however expensive. Maybe a bit corporate for a web agency but still, it’s very neat. The best thing would of course be a place near, or in, the centre with cool interior. Take a look at these spaces—wouldn’t that be just fantastic?
Conclusion
To be honest, I can’t think of many more material things. The most fun things would be this business expansion, and traveling—hiring a great accountant, hiring employees, going around to conferences around the world, and travel with my fiancée at least 4–5 times per year.
So ideally, the “business shopping list” that started this thread should be prioritized to achieve those goals—pretty smart, huh? The morality of all this is to think before you buy, and making this kind of list I guess can help a lot with that.
Instead of just spending your money on crap, figure out what it is you really want to do, and invest an appropriate part of your income to achieve that. It’s business 101—some call it common sense, yet a lot of people do the opposite.