

How to Kill a Successful Business:  The Slow-Motion Death of VeggieTales - tom_rath
http://www.philvischer.com/?p=38
The creator of VeggieTales outlines how he plodded towards the death of his company, Big Idea Productions.<p>It all seems to have been painfully avoidable, and I find this story a reminder that even successful businesses can be brought to failure if one isn't vigilant.
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bouncingsoul
Wow, that was long.

Here are some sections I think are interesting for people who don't have time
to read all eleven parts:

> We were proposing to triple our expenses, while only doubling our sales.
> More concerning, we were proposing to double our staff size, without
> increasing our ability to produce films. Of the 165 hires being requested,
> only a handful were in the animation studio. Ninety percent were in finance,
> HR, marketing, licensing and design. So at 315 people we would be able to
> produce no more videos per year than we had produced five years earlier with
> a staff of 10.

> Did I _want_ to release all of this product? Did every last bit of it have a
> compelling ministry objective? Did it all fit into my “masterplan” to
> benefit America's kids? Frankly, no. None of it was _against_ our mission,
> and most of it promoted a biblical value or virtue in some way, shape or
> form, but the sheer volume was driven not by mission, but by a desperate
> need to keep Big Idea from collapsing. Many of us felt the tension between
> our ministry-driven mission and the vast amount of merchandise we were
> attempting to drive into the market. The pace of work, however, left
> precious little time for introspection.

> There were no comparables for VeggieTales. Our sales had skyrocketed 3300%
> in four years! Against that backdrop, how do you project the future? More
> skyrocketing? Was our growth almost done, or just getting started? Look at
> another example: Between Christmas 2003 and Christmas 2004, sales of Apple's
> iPod increased by a staggering 500%. A huge success, but also a huge
> challenge. How many iPods do you make for Christmas 2005? 500% more than
> 2004? 100% more? 10% less? Unprecedented success is extremely difficult to
> manage simply because it is unprecedented. Every year is a big ol' guess.

> I was a shy kid who would rather read Starlog Magazine or build a
> rudimentary optical printer out of cannibalized 8mm projectors than show up
> at the prom or run for student government. As VeggieTales took off, I became
> terrified that my business inexperience and lack of people skills would
> result in Big Idea's failure. So, in a panic, I brought in others to help,
> often spending far too little time getting to know them before or after the
> hire. I then backed down from my own convictions, assuming that an executive
> with an impressive resume surely knew better than a Bible college dropout.

* * *

So many decisions involving tens of millions of dollars were made based on
_nothing_ concrete. Not even gut feeling. Just blind hope.

And it's horrible because the stuff they guessed about _is_ knowable to some
extent. I seriously doubt Apple goes into Christmas having no clue what the
iPod demand will be. It seems like simple market research would have clued
them in.

Interesting too is the settling that happened in picking the first executive
team. He couldn't convince the best people to move, so he settled for second
tier. That seems like a horrible decision: spending just as much money with
lower chances of success.

I'm sad to see the company go down, but some of the decisions made were just
dumb: Obviously a cheap, 2D spinoff is not going to be as successful as its
parent. Why would you agonize over firing 30 people when the entire company is
going bankrupt in months?

There's a lot to think about in this story.

~~~
willchang
Not just a second tier executive team, but second tier legal counsel as well.
It's telling that he felt sorry for his lawyer after he lost a case that he
should have won handily. Like many people who focus on making something good,
he's just way too nice. He doesn't seem to understand the implications of the
fact that many people get wealthy by securing a piece of a carcass that other
people kill.

------
SwellJoe
I'm a bit ashamed to say it, as I'm sure the people involved are all very
nice, and I don't wish them any ill, but I'm smiling to learn that the company
behind Veggie Tales is dead. I was pretty much disgusted when I watched a few
episodes with my nephew. It's rather obnoxious Christian propaganda, and I
really don't think kids should be exposed to that kind of thing in the guise
of cute cartoons.

~~~
bouncingsoul
Really? I've only seen a couple a while back, but I thought the preaching was
really tame; it was mostly _be kind, don't lie, etc._ kinds of messages with a
_isn't God wonderful_ tacked on the end.

~~~
SwellJoe
So perhaps I'm overly sensitive, but in the couple of episodes I saw, it
seemed pretty overtly superstitious, to me. My sister (the mother of the
nephew in question), who isn't religious, also defended them as being "ethical
rather than religious lessons"...and she saw a lot more of them than I did.
So, perhaps I judge too harshly. But when/if I have kids, I expect I'll avoid
the religious stuff when looking for ways to entertain them.

~~~
curi
You don't intend for your children to make up their own minds about religion?

~~~
SwellJoe
Yes, when they're old enough to understand that adults often tell lies.

Other things my kids won't learn about, unless they want to explore it from
the perspective of human superstitions or in fantasy stories:

Astrology

Witchcraft

Area 51

Scientology

Sasquatch

Vampires

Elves

Oh, yeah, and can't forget Eskimos

Of course, in the context of fantasy, all of this stuff is fine. But I don't
think adults should tell kids that things that are clearly fantasy are, in
fact, reality. Kids actually believe things that adults tell them, so I think
you should try to tell the truth to kids as much as possible.

~~~
curi
and if your lengthy list contains a mistake somewhere?

~~~
SwellJoe
It might...but here's the thing, there's no evidence that it does. Religious
folks don't believe in hundreds or thousands of gods, just like I disbelieve
the existence of them (Christians don't believe in Zeus, Krishna, etc.), we
just disagree on the number of gods to disbelieve.

Should we teach kids that all of those hundreds or thousands of gods might be
real? No? Why not? Couldn't we be wrong about them not existing? So, if, in
fact, one of those gods is real, you have an imperceptibly better chance of
telling your children the truth than I do. But if, in fact, all of them are
human creations, then you're just confusing them with a bunch of old
superstitions....all of which have some pretty crazy ideas about how the world
works and how humans ought to treat one another. Sure, some are better than
others, and some are more modern than others, but if they aren't true, why
confuse kids with odd fictions in the guise of "One Truth"?

~~~
curi
there's a big difference between teaching that something is true, and
providing information about mainstream ideas (including criticism of them) to
help children make their own decisions.

~~~
SwellJoe
We'll just have to agree to disagree on the value of exposing kids to
Christian cartoons that have little other merit (I think most kids programming
has little other merit, so I'm not just picking on Veggie Tales...there are
many things I'd rather kids not watch, most of which don't have Christian
beliefs as one of the things they're teaching). And that's OK.

~~~
curi
We aren't disagreeing about the merit of that show. We are disagreeing about
the merit of the parent making all the decisions about what the kid is allowed
to watch.

~~~
SwellJoe
"We are disagreeing about the merit of the parent making all the decisions
about what the kid is allowed to watch."

We are? OK, I guess that's something to think about. I kinda think it's part
of a parents job to decide what young children see and hear. Hard core
pornography, extreme violence, cultist propaganda of most kinds, and various
forms of hate speech, all fall into the category of "things young children
shouldn't have to figure out yet", for me. They'll see/hear it all when they
get a little older, and that's OK, but we're talking about the Veggie Tales
age group: 3-5 years old, or so.

~~~
curi
_I kinda think it's part of a parents job to decide what young children see
and hear._

Yeah, that is the thing I've been disagreeing about.

I don't think "stuff the parent thinks is good/bad" is a reasonable criterion
for what a child gets to see or not. It should be the child's decision, with
advice from his parent.

The fundamental issue is that if you can't persuade someone of your ideas,
that is a bad reason to force him. If your child wants to see a religious
video despite your advice, then he should see it. If it's full of dumb ideas
it won't be very persuasive anyway, right? Certainly not more persuasive than
the wise parent..?

~~~
SwellJoe
"The fundamental issue is that if you can't persuade someone of your ideas,
that is a bad reason to force him."

Classic. I wish I could be there the day you try to persuade a 3 year old with
your ideas. Have you met any young children, ever? You'll have a cantankerous
and unhappy 80-pounder on your hands in no time, as they watch crap, consume
crap, and learn crap from mainstream television and movies. I'm more laissez
faire than most when it comes to kids, as I was raised in a very relaxed
household and I think it works out very well in encouraging independent
thought, but it's just stupid to imagine that a 3 year old can make wise
decisions about their consumption. They simply don't have the knowledge to
make reasonable choices, and you've never had the infinite "why?" conversation
if you think they do.

~~~
curi
See, I told you we disagree. I'm going to drop it now since you aren't
interested in my ideas.

------
iamwil
That was a long, yet good read. I too have read Built to Last, and I'm rather
surprised that by following the book's convictions, he got himself into
trouble.

I guess the main lesson I took away was to live well below your means, both in
personal life and in business, because you don't know what the future's going
to be like. Projected sales of veggietales was way off mark that he kept
approving expenses in ventures and territories he wasn't experienced in.

~~~
mixmax
Correlation does not equal causation.

It seems to me that built to last ignores this fact. I have only read the
executive summary, so I might be mistaken.

------
coglethorpe
> “It looks cheap!” “It looks like something my kids can watch on the Cartoon
> Network for free!”

I demand only the highest quality animated vegetables.

------
brianr
One of the more interesting pieces of this story is how different Vischer has
dealt with failure than a more typical startup founder. It seems like failure
is usually quite acceptable, if not even applauded, but Vischer seems to feel
a significant personal failure. His apology paragraph on the last page is
especially telling, and I would guess quite rare in the realm of "startups."

------
Spyckie
good read.

It's interesting - the author wasn't pressured by external forces (VCs) to
grow big - he wanted to grow big as fast as possible. He didn't grow because
of demand but because of his dreams, which is the number 1 reason why he
failed. It's strange, too, because he wasn't competing to capture market
space; nor was he under any sort of deadline to sell the company at a certain
valuation.

If the author had just kept on making veggie tales like he had been doing
before he wanted to grow big, the company would have been fine. Veggie tales
was a solid product that had everything going for it.

------
hernan7
Moral of the story: don't take management advice from /Built to Last/ or from
God.

~~~
rms
Or, don't use God as an excuse to take the risky path every time.

------
samwise
Not everyone can lead a company. luck can only take you so far.

~~~
gscott
I believe if he ran the company himself instead of leaving it to other people
then he would have been fine. His common sense was right on, he just didn't
have the faith he should have had.

I am unsure how much he prayed about his decisions, but I believe he didn't
pray enough and listened to other people too much.

~~~
icky
> I am unsure how much he prayed about his decisions, but I believe he didn't
> pray enough and listened to other people too much.

Prayer as a surrogate for decision-making?

~~~
gscott
Prayer before decision making... not in place of decision making. What you are
saying is a lot like saying you want to pray food into your stomach. It just
isn't going to happen. You have to take action but are you going take your
action in the context of the "world" (world tells him he does not have the
skills to run such a large company) or do you take action in prayer (the world
says one thing, but look at what has been created, you are not so bad as you
think you are).

He listend to what the world was telling him and his creation was taken away
from him. He put his company into the hands of people who didn't care what
happened, it was there "job" and they would go out and get another "job" when
this job was done.

