This is a subject that fascinates me no end, so, perhaps against my better judgement, I'll weigh in on it.
I think Dennis made precisely the right point:
"I think that aside from the luck factor, you have to be very smart about your business approach. Just doing good work isn't the end all to success.... For most of us, doing the work is the easy part, it is the marketing and business side that is less than inspiring."
This is the dirty little secret of entrepreneurship: you start out with a vision of what you want to accomplish, then suddenly discover that accomplishing your goal requires a lot of dirty business involving budgeting, marketing, planning, conniving, worrying incessantly about money, and an occasional knife in whatever back needs it. Before long, these things take over and, if you're very lucky, you can retain some semblance of the ideal that started the whole affair. Oscar Wilde said that each man kills the thing he loves. I didn't understand this at all when I first read it, in high school, but, boy, do I understand it now.
I don't wish to be critical or sharp, but I do detect a fundamental flaw in the reasoning in Bruce's post: it starts with the assumption that doing superlative work should automatically lead to some degree of business success, and if it doesn't, there is something wrong with the world around you. I do wish that life were like this, and in the best of all worlds it would be, but guess which world we live in. Definitely didn't even make runner-up in the best-of-all-worlds competition. The fact is, there is a difference between art and business. If you want a business doing art, you need to find a niche in which (1) the art can flourish, as uncompromised as possible, and (2) you can make a buck with it. Not easy, but that's what has to be done.
My older son, Ben, is a perfect example of this. He is trained as a clarinetist, has degrees from Eastman and USC. Studied with Mitchell Lurie at USC. He's maybe one in 100,000. Unfortunately, to get an orchestra job, you need to be one in a million. Not a prayer. So he now does freelance recording and digital audio work, picking up playing gigs on occasion as he gets a chance. Not the world he would have liked, but it works, he makes a living, and enjoys himself. If I can at last return to the KOF frame-building issue, I think that this kind of creative thinking in finding or making a niche is what's needed. In this case, don't know what that niche might be, but, still, that's the issue that must be addressed.
Steve Maas
Long Beach, California