#creation stands

*deleted countless long-winded diatribes on what not to do when starting and managing a new business*  I’ll try to keep this short.

1. Went into business with his friend, Phillip.  Starting a business with a friend is only slightly less worse than going into business with your brother-in-Iaw (x).  I’ve seen life-long friendships ruined from business relationships gone bad.  It doesn’t matter how good of friends you are, greed changes people and your friendship will never be the same even if the venture is successful.   

Rules of business: never hire someone that you cannot fire 

2. Went into partnership with Creation Entertainment, hence Creation Stands.  Because Creation Entertainmment is an established business and the Ceation Stand was put together by Gary and Adam, and Misha’s friend, Phillip, was running Creation Stands, so that tells me that Gary and Adam were limited partners while Misha and Phillip were general partners (me: fucking idiots).  Gary/Adam/CW contributed most of the capital and then profits are split 75% to limited partners and 25% to Misha and Phillip because they provided expertise along with day-to-day management.  I have to be honest, I would have done the exact same thing as Gary and Adam because that means any losses will be assigned to Misha and Phillip.  People like Misha/Phillip take this risk because if things go well, their profit returns can be huge.  That’s how Warren Buffet did it.

Reminder, if expenses run higher than sales, the losses get assigned to Misha and Phillip, not to Gary and Adam. Creation Stands dissolved two years later.  You do the profit and loss math and while you’re at it, throw in hollywood accounting too.

If I was Misha’s manager I would have told him not to try to double dip in the same place you work, but if he was hell bent on going through with it because of greed or desperation for financial security, then I would try to convince him not to agree to limited-general partnership and instead do the standard proportional equity investment.  If you’re young or inexperienced, it’s better to own a small chunk of a large business than a large chunk of a small business.

3. Used Stands to raise Misha’s profile and focused on getting new clients (which is expensive) and failed to nurture and build relationships with existing clients, the BiBro fans that makes up the majority of the SPN fandom.  This end up costing Misha money in overstocked, unsold Cas merchs.  Now, the jury is out if this was Misha or CW’s idea.  Why would CW do this if it was their idea?  Let’s look at the bad idea timeline:

November 2015: Creation Entertainment announce that they’ve established Creation Stands.  Why now?   I’ll give you 3 seconds to tell me what happened in 2015 that got them salivating over selling shirts.  3……..2……1………

March 2015: Jared’s AKF campaign is a runaway success.  When Jared refused to allow CW to monetize AKF, CW then began working on a copy, YANA.  

October 2015: Creation used Misha/Jensen picture with the AKF tagline to advertise Chicago Con, making them look like headliners.  3 days later, Creation was forced to take down the picture due to fandom outrage and replace with with Jared/Jensen.  

November 2015: Creation announced it has established Creation Stands to sell SPN merchs even though the offered products skewed more towards Castiel merchs. 

February 2016: YANA was launched with endgoal to go multi-fandom.  The shirts were conveniently sold only through Creation Stands.  Uh-huh, just a coincidence that Creation Stands was created 3 months earlier.

 YANA didn’t reach profit margin expectation but CT and CW can keep most of the net profit because they were limited partners and any loss due to higher overhead expense *cough*hollywood accounting*cough*  was passed to Misha and Phillip. 

May 2017: Before Creation Entertainment partnership with Stands dissolved , Misha registered a new LLC, Flash Merchs, still publicly calling it “Stands” in order to migrate loyal customers over to the new LLC.  People don’t create new LLCs because the business partnership was great, often it’s a way to get rid of money-draining partners.  

Personally I think CW knew a Jared-less Misha/YANA venture would probably not be profitable, but if it worked then they can build upon it and turn it into a long term profit maker, but if it failed then CT/CW wouldn’t be the one absorbing the financial loss, that would be on Misha instead.  

4. Web series that lasted all of one episode.

July 2015, Misha debut his TSA pilot web series at the DC convention.  Once again look at the timing: four months after AFK and four months before Creation Stands.

So what happened to the web series?  Web series are not expensive, on average they cost $10,000 for one season for 10 episodes.  You’re telling me that Misha didn’t have $10K to finish the rest of the season?  Misha produced the first and only TSA episode in 2013 when he was re-hired back to SPN as a regular.  After taxes, household and living expenses, and manager fees, agent fees, and lawyer fees, Misha should ideally have at least $75K leftover to play with, not including his convention salaries, enough to finish the first season of TSA: Orange Alert.  He also allegedly had investors so he may not even have to use his own resources. Unless the web series cost way more than 10K because of bad budgeting and management.

Web series creators don’t expect to make money from subscribers or YouTube Ad revenues, they’re lucky if they break even but they keep making contents in hope that a larger, traditional distributor will pick their work and develop it into a full TV show or feature.  For example, Issa Raie’s Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl ran on YouTube from 2011 until 2015 when HBO brought Rae aboard for a spin-off show.  When companies and networks pick up a web series, they are buying the creator’s fanbase.  

What is going on with the SPN cast and Friends this week?

Apparently it’s all about Penises.

Personally I am going to assume it’s all Misha’s doing 😉😂 (Or maybe Osric jumped on the bandwagon after Misha 😂)

Look what arrived! 

It actually arrived last week but with the excitement of @misterpeanutbutterpaws birthday party and incoming relatives from a couple states away, i didn’t take a very close look at the mail when my hubby brought it in. He hadn’t mentioned anything about a package and I just thought it was more bills (as usual) and I didn’t want to look at those yet. *sigh*

The theme for Briana Buckmaster’s new campaign is “Persist” and it’s a (Wayward) sister campaign to Kim Rhodes’ “Resist” campaign. 

Those two words have become a kind of rallying cry for the current social climate. If you choose not to see it as political, look more narrowly into your own life - what forces do you have to persist against that are keeping you from being the you that you want to be? 

For me, the biggest thing I have constantly persist against is .... me. 

Persist against the weight of all the awful things I believe to be true about myself. 

Persist against how overwhelmed I feel when I think about all the things I want to do, and how I let that engulf me and keep me rooted firmly to the spot, not wanting to reach for what I want. 

Persist against the idea that my comfort zone is the best, and only, place for me. 

Persist is a strong word, but like resist and love and forgiveness they are all verbs. They need to be actioned, learnt, practiced. I want to be reminded of them constantly. 

Millions of tiny pieces of stardust collided randomly against all odds to make us who we are. The galaxy we came from is limitless, and I want to persist until I can touch every star in the night sky that seems so out of reach to me now. 

US Creation Stands 

International