We Don’t Need Another GateKeeper

The title came to me because it reminded me of Tina Turner’s We Don’t Need Another Hero.

And the more I thought about it, the more appropriate it felt.

We don’t need another hero.

We don’t need anybody swooping in to save creatives, artists, or small businesses.

We want to learn how to do it for ourselves.

That is the whole point.

For years, I’ve watched talented people be told they should be grategul just to be in the room.

Photographers asked to shoot for “exposure.” Designers expected to throw in extra revisions for free. Artists offered visibility instead of payment. Small creative businesses overlooked for larger opportunities because they didn’t have the administrative staff, proposal experience, insurance, contracting systems, past performance, or connections to compete.

And somehow, we’ve accepted this idea that if you are creatgive, struggle is part of the deal.

I rebuke that.

The problem was never a lack of talent.

The problem is infrastructure.

That distinction matter to me.

I’m interested in building something that helps creatives and small businesses get closer to the money–not another organization that stands between them and it.

I don’t want to recreate the same system with different people controlling the gate.

I want us to understand how the gate works.

Eventually, I want to have the keys.

Talent Shouldn’t Have to Do Everything

A filmmaker should be able to be exceptional at filmmaking without having to become an expert in government procurement, contracts, project administration, insurance, proposal writing, invoicing, compliance, and cash-flow management overnight.

A graphic designer shouldn’t have to pretend to be a full-time advertising agency because a contract asks for five discipline beyond design.

A photographer shouldn’t automatically be eliminated from a major opportunity because the project requires video, strategy, copywriting, media or project management too.

There should be another option.

What happens if we build the infrastructure around the talent?

What happnes if we find the opportunity, read the requirements, determine who is actually qualified to lead it, assemble the right businesses, define everybody’s scope, create the proposal, understand the contract, protect the compensation, manage the paperwork, and help administer the work after the contract is awarded?

Now several smaller businesses can compete together for something they might now have been able to pursue individually.

And they don’t have to stop being themselves to do it.

The photographer keeps their business.

The filmmaker keeps theirs.

The designer keeps theirs.

The strategist keeps theirs.

The production company keeps theirs.

We collaborate where collaboration makes us stronger, but nobody has to surrender their identity, their ownership, their creativity, and their future.

That is the infrastructure I am building.

I’ve Been Listening for Years

Part of why I believe I can help do this is because I’ve been learning for years–sometimes without realizing I was preparing for this exact moment.

My best friend is an attorney.

And not just an attorney. He is great with contracts.

Over the years, I’ve had the opportunity to be a fly on the wall.

Listening.

Watching.

Sometimes asking questions.

Learning how agreements are structured. Learning how much language matters. Learning what happens when expectations aren’t clearly defined. Learning how a few words can protect somebody–or create a problem that last for years.

I’ve been paying attention.

I’ve always been that person anyway. I listen. I watch. I collect information. I connect dots. Dot connection is my superpower. Often times I don’t even know what I’m collecting it for until years later.

In some ways, I’ve been waiting for my opportunity to show what I learned.

This is it.

Not because I want to become everybody’s attorney. I don’t.

Not because I believe I know everything about contracts or procurement. I don’t.

As a native New Orleanian that loves the creative world, I know enough to understand that creatives need to be surrounded by people who respect their work enough to protect the business around it.

Contracts matter.

Rates matter.

Ownership matters.

Payment schedules matter.

Scope matters.

Credit matters.

Intellectual property matters.

And understanding those things shouldn’t be reserved for people who already have money, attorneys, procurement departments or large administrative teams.

We Don’t Need Another Savior

This is where the Tina Turner reference becomes even more important to me.

We don’t need another hero.

I don’t want to save creatives.

I don’t want anyone believing the only way they can make money is through something I built.

That would defeat the entire purpose.

If I build something that people can never afford to leave, then I haven’t built infrastructure.

I’ve built another gate. And I have no interest in becoming another gatekeeper.

I want people to come into an ecosystem, learn, work, earn, build relationships, gain experience, strengthen their businesses—and eventually create opportunities that I cannot see yet.

That is success.

Maybe someone comes in needing help understanding how to price a larger project.

Then they learn.

Maybe they have never responded to a government solicitation.

Then they learn.

Maybe they have never subcontracted.

Then they learn.

Maybe they have never carried the kind of insurance required for an institutional contract.

Then they learn.

Maybe they don’t know how to document past performance.

Then they learn.

And eventually, maybe they don’t need us for some of those things anymore.

Good.

That means it worked.

I Think About Coaching Trees

Strangely enough, one of the ways I think about this comes from football. I am a lifelong New Orleans Saints fan.

Football has what people call coaching trees.

Take Bill Parcells.

Parcells hasn’t coached an NFL game in years, but his influence didn’t disappear when he left the sideline.

People who worked with him went on to lead their own teams, develop their own philosophies, and build their own legacies. Two of the biggest names associated with that coaching tree are Bill Belichick and Sean Payton.

They weren’t supposed to remain Bill Parcells’ assistants forever.

That wasn’t the point.

They learned.

They grew.

They took what they learned, combined it with their own experiences, their own instincts, their own ideas—and built something else.

Then the people who worked with them did the same thing.

The tree kept growing.

That’s what I want.

I don’t want knowledge, relationships, systems, opportunities, and lessons to die inside something I own.

I want them to multiply.

I want someone to learn something working alongside us, then teach somebody else.

I want a business to meet another business through one project and later create something together that none of us planned.

I want somebody who starts as a subcontractor to eventually become a prime contractor.

I want somebody we once helped pursue an opportunity to call us years later and say:

I have a project. I want you on my team.

That is a completely different relationship.

They aren’t being helped anymore.

They are a partner.

Growth Should Outgrow Us

Maybe a photographer starts doing $1,500 shoots.

They participate in a larger institutional project.

Now they have stronger work samples.

They have documented past performance.

They understand a more sophisticated client.

Their confidence changes.

Their pricing changes.

Their network changes.

Maybe the next project is $20,000.

Then $50,000.

Yesterday’s price will never be today’s price if we’re doing it right.

Maybe eventually they build a production company.

Maybe they hire an assistant.

Then an editor.

Then a producer.

Maybe they discover an opportunity in tourism that I never saw.

Maybe another person creates intellectual property from something they learned.

Maybe two businesses meet through one project and eventually create a third company together.

Maybe somebody builds something that becomes bigger than anything I ever imagined.

That doesn’t threaten me.

That excites me.

Because the goal isn’t linear growth.

The goal is exponential growth.

I don’t want everything to have to come back through my system.

I want something we helped start to create another opportunity.

Then another.

Then another.

And eventually, I may not even know about most of them.

That’s the point.

How Do We Know It’s Working?

Success cannot only be measured by how much money flows through the organization we build.

I want to know what happened to the businesses around us.

Did their revenue increase?

Did their average project size grow?

Did they get better clients?

Did they enter new markets?

Did they hire somebody?

Did they increase their rates?

Did they become better negotiators?

Did they learn how to protect their intellectual property?

Did they become more comfortable reading contracts?

Did they learn how to pursue opportunities themselves?

Did they become prime-ready?

Did they start collaborating with one another without us?

Did something happen that we could not have predicted?

That last question may be the most important one.

Because if a company earns $50,000 through an opportunity we helped create and then uses that experience to independently win a $100,000 contract, I want to count that too.

If two people meet through the ecosystem and later build a company that employs five people, that matters.

If someone no longer needs us for proposal support because they built that capacity internally, that matters.

If somebody becomes so successful that we end up working for them one day, that matters.

That is economic development to me.

Not dependence.

Multiplication.

A Safe Place to Become Bigger

I also want to create a place where creatives feel safe enough to grow.

And when I say safe, I don’t mean comfortable all the time.

Growth rarely is.

I mean safe enough to ask the question you think everybody else already knows the answer to.

Safe enough to say:

“I’ve never done this before.”

Safe enough to ask what a contract clause actually means.

Safe enough to ask why the budget looks the way it does.

Safe enough to negotiate your rate.

Safe enough to say no.

Safe enough to understand what you own.

Safe enough to know what you are getting paid before the work begins.

Safe enough to talk about money without somebody making you feel greedy.

Safe enough to collaborate without constantly worrying that somebody is trying to steal your client.

Safe enough to make a mistake, learn from it, and come back stronger.

And ambitious enough to eventually become bigger than the place where you started.

I want written agreements.

Clear scopes.

Fair compensation.

Transparent expectations.

Ownership protection.

Proper credit.

Better payment practices.

And honest conversations about business.

Because creativity is beautiful.

But creativity is also labor.

It is expertise.

It is intellectual property.

It is economic value.

It is business.

Especially Here

And in a city like New Orleans, we need to understand that.

Our music creates value.

Our stories create value.

Our food creates value.

Our visual language creates value.

Our neighborhoods create value.

Our festivals create value.

Our fashion creates value.

Our traditions create value.

Our people create value.

Our culture is constantly used to sell something.

A destination.

A festival.

A hotel.

A conference.

A television show.

A sporting event.

A restaurant.

A tourism campaign.

A development.

A brand.

A city.

The people producing that culture should have a real opportunity to participate in the economy built around it.

Not simply as talent brought in at the end.

As businesses.

As contractors.

As owners.

As employers.

As partners.

As decision-makers.

And yes, as people who get paid.

We Need the Keys

I’m not interested in creating another networking group where everybody exchanges business cards and promises to collaborate someday.

I’m not interested in building another directory filled with talented people and then calling that economic development.

And I’m definitely not interested in creating another gatekeeper.

I want us to learn how the machinery works.

How proposals work.

How contracts work.

How procurement works.

How pricing works.

How intellectual property works.

How teaming works.

How past performance works.

How institutional relationships work.

How to move from subcontractor to prime.

How to build companies that can hire people.

How to build enough infrastructure that the next generation doesn’t have to start from zero again.

Because we don’t need anybody to save us.

We need access to the information.

We need relationships.

We need infrastructure.

We need opportunities.

We need people willing to teach what they know.

And then we need the freedom to take that knowledge and build something of our own.

I don’t want to save creatives.

I want us to build enough knowledge, infrastructure, relationships, and economic power that we can save ourselves.

Then I want the people who learn alongside us to teach somebody else.

And I want that person to build something we never imagined.

That is how the tree grows.

That is how knowledge becomes power instead of leverage.

That is how one opportunity becomes a company.

How one company becomes jobs.

How one contract becomes past performance.

How one relationship becomes another relationship.

How one check becomes wealth.

Bill Parcells didn’t have to keep coaching for his influence to keep showing up on Sundays.

The tree kept growing.

That’s what I want.

I want what we build to multiply, not die inside our system.

I want the evidence of our success to eventually exist in places we cannot see.

We don’t need another hero.

We don’t need another gatekeeper.

We need the keys.

And once we learn how the doors open, it is only right that we teach somebody else how to open them too.

Eventually, creating our own doors.