Recently I did a talk with a client of mine, the brilliant Hankook Kim – founder of the brilliant Gentle Monster.
For those who don’t know who Gentle Monster is … in simple terms they’re a street culture, luxury eyewear brand who do some of the most brilliant – and crazy – collaborations you’ve ever seen. From World of Warcraft to their own brand of cake shops to pretty much everything in-between.
Anyway, we gave a presentation to a bunch of venture capitalists called Mosquitos Annoy The Fuck Out Of Giants and it highlighted the short-sightedness of their scalability investment model.
For example, Gentle Monster were initially turned down by a lot of VC’s because they saw them as only ever having a small retail presence, literally ignoring the fact he started the company with the goal of having an outsized cultural impact … whether that was through the design of his stores, the collabs he would do or the focus on making eyewear for Asian facial structures – when most other manufacturers based their product on larger Western physical features.
Obviously in all of this, Mr Kim brought the credibility whereas I just brought the punches … but it was a huge amount of fun, regardless if we convinced the VC’s or conflicted them.
The reason I say this is because I recently got sent the ad above about the beatboxing funeral musician.
On first glance you may wonder how many people would want that, but then you think about it and you realise that maybe quite a few do.
Not just because they like beatboxing, but because they want to go out with fanfare.
A few years ago I wrote about the songs I want played at my funeral, and while most remain the same [though I’ll be adding Myles Kennedy’s Love Can Only Heal, to it] … I’ll still have Europe’s classic ‘The Final Countdown’ to end proceedings.
Now I appreciate some will see that as a highly inappropriate song choice, but that’s kind of the reason for it.
To make sure whoever bothers to turn up is sent off with a smile.
To ensure my last ever act one has a glint of cheekiness and mischief.
To say thank you to everyone who made my life better than I ever imagined it could be.
And while this may all sound like I’m a delusional fool, the reality is it is important to me and I would be willing to pay a premium for it – especially if it’s the last thing I’ll ever pay for – which is why this is a reminder that before you judge, [1] remember it’s not whether you like it, but whether others do and [2] your definition of success may not be the same as theirs.