This is the third in a series of posts about Being Lightweight.  The first two were about Working with Clients and Tools We Use.

We are lucky to have a product that people like. Our challenge is to experiment and find the best ways to build a business around this product. To be successful we need the business to be profitable, but also work within the life we want to live.

We see this process as "business design" and as this series outlines,  being lightweight is a big priority.  Below are a number of ideas and thoughts about creating a lightweight business.

Two People - We are dedicated to being a two person company without employees. This is a fundamental constraint that guides nearly every decision. By making our size the priority, we have been forced to think hard about what is possible for two people and be prepared to focus on opportunities that work within this constraint.

Employees - We may work with contractors and short-term help, but we do not plan to hire employees.  In the last article in the series I talked about the heavy nature of stress and anxiety. Growing the business by hiring would add potential revenue, but also add significant stress and loss of focus on our work in order to manage those folks.

Business Model -  We ask ourselves - What business do we really want to be in?  What do we want to be doing on a day-to-day basis? Consulting? Custom Videos? Licensing? Ads? Commercial? To be lightweight, we need to bring focus to the 1-2 models that get us closer to our goals and put others on the back burner.

Scalability - We are small, but we do want to scale the business.  How? We consider business models.  The custom video model does not scale - we would have to hire employees to make more videos each month. A more scalable model is selling licensed versions of our videos in the Common Craft Store.  In this model, potential revenue is not tied directly to production time.  

Not Doing it All - When opportunity knocks, it's hard not to answer.  The problem is that we can't do it all and we've learned to say no, even if it hurts sometimes.  The key is being clear about our future goals.  If an opportunity doesn't take us there, then it's creating drag.

Marketing -  We don't spend time on brochures, fliers or ads of any traditional sort. We believe that the best marketing doesn't always come from a campaign - it comes from the users of our products.  We focus on making free versions of the videos easy to share.

Agility - About a year ago, a few companies started to become interested in our custom videos.  We literally woke up one morning and decided to focus 100% of our business on these videos. The same thing happened when we decided to focus on the Store. Our goal is to retain this freedom to react to changes and opportunities efficiently, and avoid the need to seek approval from others.  A beauty of being small and lightweight is the ability to react.

People Philosophy - We believe that people are essentially good and given limited resources, we'd rather focus attention on being open and helping them do the right things rather than trying to make the wrong things impossible.

Balance - We don't believe in working 80 hours a week, 51 weeks a year so that you can vacation when you're old.  We work more hours than most, but we're not bashful about making sure that we live a fun, interesting and balanced life. Lightweight businesses make this easier.

Investors and Partnerships - Often, these are required for business growth. The problem comes when the requirements and expectations of others become a part of the business. We've been careful not to form agreements with investors or partners because the baggage these relationships create may not balance with the benefits they provide.  It's added stress and anxiety that creates weight we would rather not have.  Advice is great, but financial relationships weight a lot.

Limited Middlemen - Each person who handles a product on the way to the consumer adds weight and removes reward.  We look for the best ways to get our product from an idea to the customer as directly as possible.  Outside of us, The Common Craft Store doesn't have salespeople, distributors, marketers or support.  We do it all, A-to-Z, using products like PayPal and e-junkie.

Contact Points - As our visibility on the web has increased, so too has our time managing communication. We recently decided to make email our most public source of contact and have removed our phone number from the web site. It's nothing personal, it just allows us to do a better job managing communications as lightweight as possible.

Supporting Two People - At the end of the day, we remember that we are two people.  Sure, our model may not enable us to dominate markets or become a Fortune 500 company, but that's not our goal.  We need our business to support us and the life we want to live.  

So, you might be wondering about the result of all these ideas.  Well, we've made a number of decisions lately.  Our future is devoted to building a library of videos for the Common Craft Store.  We are phasing out custom videos and devoting time to videos we can license to influencers and educators for use in the workplace.  This model enables us to be lightweight and 100% independent.

Ultimately, we want to wake up each morning and know we are choosing what we do that day. For us, that's lightweight.

This is the second in a series of posts about being lightweight.  Our first was focused on working with clients and this installment is all about tools we use.

Tools, or the the wrong tools, become a risk when they create unnecessary drag in every day work. Often, we've found ourselves wondering if we're using a sledgehammer to drive a nail.  If so, we look for alternatives.  

In being lightweight, we also consider mental and emotional baggage that goes along with tools.  We're often willing to pay for peace of mind and look for tools that remove anxiety. Anxiety is very heavy for us and we always want to reduce it.

Here are some of the tools, services and ideas that we use to be lightweight. Your mileage may vary.

Web Site - We're fans of content management platforms like Drupal, Wordpress, etc.  We only know basic html, so when we're working with designers on a new Common Craft site, we make easy, lightweight management a big priority.  I've wasted too many hours trying to write code.  Technology often stands in the way of what I want to share on the web - and that's a shame.  

Hosted Services - We're not technical people. Maintaining our own
server sounds like hell to us.  So, we use hosting services for
everything we do. Our web site, our videos, our photos are all on
servers that are maintained by others.  Choose them well, let the specialists do their
jobs and get out of the way. 

Documents - Google Docs has had a huge impact on our workflow. We do a lot of editing together and there simply isn't a better way to work on the same document at the same time.  Attachments are too heavy.
 
Video Sharing - Often we need to share a 50mb video file with a client.  We could send a CD, we could FTP it.  Instead, we use hosts like Vimeo.com that have good privacy options.  This makes life easier on us and the client - all they need to share the video with co-workers is to share the link and password.  Plus, they can watch the video in Flash and choose to download it it too.

Social Networking - We have presence on the major social networks, but they aren't a part of our day-to-day work. We have serious questions about the time it takes to really make the networks work, especially Facebook. It seems too heavy for me to have to use multiple inboxes across the networks.  We love Twitter because it's lightweight - it's a direct line to part of our community that doesn't require clicking a link in email.

Bookkeeping - When I started Common Craft in 2003, I bought Quickbooks because I thought was what you're supposed to do. It was a way, way too much for me.  Even today, we are more than happy using spreadsheets to track our books (Sachi is a spreadsheet ninja). For many small businesses, Quickbooks (and similar programs) are often a heavy, cumbersome way to deal with the books. Do you need all that?

Home Network - We have all our computers, printers and music system hooked together wirelessly. We used to have to take a laptop to the printer in another room to print.  We used to have to get up to change the music.  It's a small thing, but a nice home network (run by Apple's Airport Extreme and Express) makes life a bit nicer.

Home Environment - We spend a lot of time at home. Because we're here so much, we've agreed that we will invest in making home like we want it - comfortable and easy. Home should not feel heavy or cause anxiety. If you can't make home like you want it, what can you do?

Back Ups - Like most, we are horrible about remembering to back up our files.  The thing is, we shouldn't have to remember - this is stress that has a cure.  We use Mozy that keeps everything backed up automatically. Peace of mind is lightweight.

Selling Digital Downloads - We have been very impressed with e-junkie as a means for selling digital downloads.  You upload a file and e-junkie provides an "add to cart" button that works on almost any web page and a flash-based shopping cart.  It's a perfect solution for The Common Craft Store - e-junkie handles everything and provides the right tools for managing customers.  

Mowing the Lawn - Yes, it's true.  We recently purchased a rechargeable electric mower called a Neuton.  We've gone through a dirty, loud mower every couple of years and those things are a PAIN.  Our new mower is perfect - it starts immediately, mows for an hour on a charge, is clean and so quite you can hear the blades being chopped.

Reading -  I'll write more about this later, but I recently bought a Kindle - Amazon's e-reader. It's poorly designed in some ways, but it makes books and especially newspapers feel heavy, cumbersome and wasteful. I am a big fan.

Future - I'm currently lobbying Sachi to get a scooter.  I think we can get rid of one of our vehicles and replace it with a scooter over time.  Scooters are lightweight in so many ways - gas, parking, convenience.

So, this concludes the tools part of the series. I hope that you will look at the tools you use every day and think about the alternatives - and don't forget about anxiety - what could be the heaviest thing of all. 

Next Up - Being Lightweight: Business Design

The first is by Antione de Saint Exupéry, author of The Little Prince and a pioneer in aviation:

Perfection is not when there is no more to add, but no more to take away. 

The second is by William of Occam (1288-1347)  You might know the name from Occam's Razor.

It is vain to do more with what can be done with less.

These quotes mean a lot to me and were found, most recently, at the beginning of Chapter 5 of Tim Ferriss' book The 4-Hour Workweek.  More on that later. 

What a year.  I can say with ultimate confidence that we never would have guessed, one year ago, that 2007 would be so transformative for Common Craft. Here are some things we learned:

    OUR WORK 

Video works. Text, graphics, audio, they all have a place.  But video is a different animal.  Nothing engages people like the dynamics of a video.  Ever read about a car chase? It's not as fun.

Simple is better.  Approach an explanation by removing information instead of adding it. Remember Occam's Razor.

Production values and ideas are often at odds.  Flashy graphics and cool music are sometimes a poor replacement for a good idea. Spend time focusing on the message.

Constraints facilitate creativity.  Jazz great Charles Mingus once said, "You can't improvise on nothing, man."  Bring focus to your work by creating rules or constraints that give your creativity a starting point.

It's not always about how it works - it's about why anyone should care.  The opposite of love is not hate, it's indifference (Elie Weisel).  The path to a solid explanation is making people care as a first priority.

We all need a little more levity.  Unstuff your shirt and make people laugh. Look foolish.  Defy convention and do not take yourself too seriously.

"Viral video" should never be the goal - it's a by-product.  The best you can do is to fill a knowledge gap and make it easy for others to share the love.

Solve problems when they need to be solved. If you have a big idea, don't try to research and plan everything from the start. Instead, do what you can today and tomorrow's problems will be revealed in due time and in a manageable way.

Don't assume. You are part of a tiny group that knows what you know. It may seem like everyone knows, but they don't - it's an illusion created by a consistent group of contacts.

    OUR BUSINESS

Small is beautiful.  You don't have to grow just because you can.  Look for ways to work in the most lightweight ways possible. Beware having too much momentum going in a single direction.

You're never too small to build a brand.  Give your company a name and logo and make it a part of everything you do.  The best time to plant an oak tree was 80 years ago - the second best time is today.

Give it away.  Find something you love to do and give it away.  If people love it, it may become your business.

Lifestyle is what matters. If you're independent, remember why.  Look closely at how your business impacts your life.  Step back and remember that you have a choice in how you live.  You don't have to do it all.

Be Authentic, genuine and legitimate. There are far too many hucksters out there.  Be yourself and orient your business around integrity as a priority.

Always tinker and experiment.  There is no such thing as a finished product - always push for the next big idea.