This post was supposed to honor this website’s predecessor’s legacy, but rather, with this title – it has morphed into a cautionary tale. I’m no stranger when it comes to ill pursuits – and one of my lifelong dreams is a prime example.
On July 22, 2020 (per my Colorado Certificate of Factor of Good Standing still hanging on the wall next to me), I officially launched Bring Vida. As a lover of eclectic music, I finally launched my own record label. I had written my own music for a near decade. “An official, legal platform is obviously the next logical step,” I told myself.
After shelling out money for a Squarespace website, ecommerce functionality, refunding that website plan upgrade shortly after to integrate Shopify into my website instead, and investing in ZenBusiness to make my operation legit – I learned monetizing your dream actually takes work. And friend, we have a term for that in this day and age – it’s called a job.
But truly, I was on cloud nine. I released my very first album (another life long dream). After navigating all the obstacles of getting that first stock of merchandise, we put together the coolest promotional video this farm town had ever seen and started selling merch. It wasn’t glamorous by any means, but I was finally realizing the dream.
I’ll never forget opening our ecommerce store for the first time. It was a hectic day at my primary job and I unexpectedly stumbled across on call duties. I had promised earlier to everyone following my label that we were going to drop our first line of merchandise that night.
My phone was flying off the handle from work, but I was going to keep my word. When the website countdown hit 0, we dropped out first line of merchandise. Shortly after, running off fumes, I was bagging t-shirts, hoodies and stickers, loading them up in my car, and dropping them off in people’s mailboxes. Mercifully, I suppose, I never had to learn how to use that label printer and product scale I bought, since I never sold a product outside of my hometown.
Creating for commerce, rather than for the love of creating itself, is a different affair – especially as you get older, accrue more responsibilities, and have less life to give. I was stumbling my way from A to B, to X, to C, and maybe to P? I knew how to create, but nothing about running a business. Soon, I had nothing to love.
I participated in a podcast episode a while back, and I talked about how I get into this funk when I put pressure on my art to perform – to pull me out of reality and into the world of fantasy I crafted in my head where I only have to do the things I love for a living. Isn’t art supposed to be about freeform, carelessness, and experimentation? Not driven by trends, data, and strategy (coming from an MIS nerd)?
Bring Vida didn’t last long – it was legally dissolved in 2022, and I probably couldn’t write a paragraph about what we did in 2021. My tale isn’t as bad as some. I’m not in copious amounts of startup debt (that I know of anyways). I think I got rid of those last few t-shirts collecting dust in that first shipment box somewhere along the way. Maybe 2 people listen to my songs on Spotify still (hey mom and dad, probably).
But alas, that’s why I love Noisyleaf so much. It’s redemption, so to speak – or at least, a new frame of mind A chance to fall in love once more with the things that make me feel human, without the pressures of hustle culture that many creators push on us these days. A chance to rebuild Rome.
Or perhaps, history simply repeats itself. Let’s find out. 🙂
– Anthony