No. 4 Is Simple as 1-2-3
Mike Flanagan, 35, was a corporate securities attorney when he got hit with the “entrepreneurial itch.” He started a desktop publishing venture, then moved into the digitized video-editing field. Through trial and error, flexibility and a knack for staying ahead of trends, he has opened three companies in three years and recently branched into a fourth area.
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Once you have one company, opening others is not as hard. You know the ropes and you’ve learned from your mistakes. You have the infrastructure, the phone connections, the bank relationship, the cash flow, the line of credit and the track record that helps you with financing.
In the late 1980s, I saw that the next computer revolution was going to be in the area of sound and video. So I bought a video-editing system, thinking that it would really develop a following in the marketplace. But there were some problems with it and it never developed market acceptance.
I chalked that up to trial and error. I had learned flexibility from desktop publishing. My idea was to set up a business printing financial documents. We opened for business one week before the stock market crashed in 1987.
That event pretty much wiped out all the plans I had for that business, so I had to look around and figure out how I was going to make a go of it. That’s how I got into publishing books for small companies.
So when the first video-editing system I tried did not work out, I adapted my idea. I purchased a system made by the Avid company and found that it rented out right away to TV and film productions. We bought more Avids, the business took off and we leveraged from there.
Within a couple of months, we had the opportunity to get into training. We knew there was interest from people who wanted to learn how to use this equipment. The Avid company had developed a training system and we got the chance to become an authorized training center.
We thought that for accounting and financial transactions it would be better to have a second company and we wanted the training program to be state-certified, so we started Video Symphony EnterTraining.
After that, we started Digital Doctors to service the Avid systems. Again, it was a natural byproduct of the rental business.
This year, we added a 3-D computer animation training program to our Avid training center. Eventually, we may split that off into a separate company as well.
I try to stay ahead of the trends by constantly reading up on the industry and listening to what people are saying and observing what is happening. After a while, I start to pick up on the latest thing coming out and I explore it and that becomes an indicator of where the company will go next.
As long as I provide value to people, so they feel like they have gotten a good deal when they walk away, then I know I have a decent business on my hands.
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AT A GLANCE
* Owners: Mike Flanagan, Greg Howard and Tom Flanagan
* Nature of business: Rent, service and train users of computerized Avid video-editing equipment.
* Location: 314 N. Victory Blvd, Burbank
* Year founded: 1994
* Employees: 35
* Annual revenue: $6 million.
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MORE SMALL BUSINESS: D9
