First of all if we are talking about Grass, we must talk in the past tense, as Grass is now in the past. In a nutshell the music festival business is all about providing an opportunity for people to let go and forget about their worries, have a good time and enjoy their favorite music in the company of their friends. We noticed that a lot of people went to music festivals and did not spend much time actually watching bands, more or less just hanging out with friends. So we wanted to provide extra activities for punters while the music was on, we provided live artwork and sumo-suit wrestling, etc.

I lost money on Grass festival when we ran it last year and in doing so I learnt a whole lot about the industry that I did not know before hand. That is, there is little space in Australia for a new music festival. Not enough space for another large festival at least. I also learnt that apart from the Big Day Out, most music festivals don't break even and exist for non-capitalist reasons. I may put a few heads out of place, however it would seem that a few of these festival promotion companies are run by playboys. Their rich parents continually subsidize their companies in order to keep them afloat and thus keep their children occupied.  I don't have rich parents or a political party to subsidize my music festival and thus I cannot compete. Not to mention the entry this year of the V Festival has really squeezed any space left out of the market.

For these reasons I am out in search of the next idea. My business, that is the business of Jackson Allan is bringing ideas to life.

An extreme aversion to boredom and the desire to make things happen. I was an adventurous child and was always getting into trouble in my youth for pushing the boundaries. Whilst my family was relatively comfortable, we were never in any way well off. I have distinct memories of times when my mother had no money and we got into some undesirable situations. So I see money as a means to experiencing life and thus I want to make enough of it that I can enrich my life and the lives of the people I love.

Given that anyone could make quite a comfortable living in various professions it follows that something extra motivates me to want to start businesses. That is my need for adventure and a desire to make things happen. I feel most alive when I am getting a new business idea up and running.

I had saved some money and I got a handy tip from a banker a couple of years prior. That is, while you have a secure job, apply for as many credit cards as possible. When you get them, lock them in a safe deposit box. Every few months the bank will send you a letter increasing your credit limit. After a while you have a line of credit of 20k which you can use to manage the cash flow in your business. I must strongly stress that this is a source of short-term funding and should only be used to manage cash flow and not to fund any capital investment. We used this to cover ourselves for any up-front costs until the proceeds of ticket sales started coming through. The nature of cash flow for a music festival is such that you can start with a fairly small amount of capital.

In the future I will always put my own cash up. If I can't do that then I can't expect anyone to want to invest in the business with me. My strategy for future startups will be to find like-minded experienced investors to join the venture. One lesson I learnt from Tim Pethick is that your investors must share your vision for the business or else they will take it in a different direction.

I also don't want to get money from the so called FFF, friends, family and fools. The management of a large number of small shareholders takes too much time and effort and will distract you from getting the business up and running. You also don't want a personal issue with an investor to ruin your dreams.

Grass festival was originally going to be run in May in 2006. We put a lot of time and energy into it and generated a huge amount of hype for the event. It was originally a pay at the door event where people had to RSVP by sending their name and phone number via SMS to a computer system we had setup. This allowed us to communicate directly back to our target market right up to the event reminding them to tell their friends and hyping them up for the event. That is an example of how we were always looking for new ways to do things.

In the first couple of weeks we had about 500 people rsvp and we were really stoked. Then the week before the event it just exploded and we had 500 people rsvp in one day. This remained steady until we had to cut the list at 1800 because we reached the capacity of what we thought the venue could handle.

However, all the hype we had generated started to turn on us. Even after we announced that places had sold out we continued to get 500 new sign-ups a day. People were writing in their SMS that they were going to come and crash the venue if we did not let them in. Rumors started to spread that various gangs were going to crash the event and people who had signed up weeks earlier were saying they were not going to come for fear of gang fighting. We doubled the amount of security and even got guard dogs. The event was quickly becoming too much for us to handle and I had to take time off work. Rumors of violence reached the police and the local council.

I received a phone call the day before the event was to go ahead from the local council and police demanding that we pull the plug. Unknown to us, the land we had hired to use was actually being leased from the council and they has full control over what happened on the land. In retrospect this was the best outcome, a spate of gang related violence occurred at events in Brisbane over the following months. It would have torn me apart if anything had happened to a punter at one of our events.

Ultimately this damaged our reputation and many people were reluctant to come to the rescheduled Grass Festival in August. The challenge that I faced through this entire process was to rebuild our reputation with our punters, suppliers and with the bands. It was also to motivate myself and my team after what seemed to be a disaster to rebuild what we had started. During that time I had a mantra that I would repeat in my head like an army drill sergeant "What do you do when you fall down? You get back up again!". 

Your ability to get along with, motivate, lead, develop, and influence people is critical to success in any endeavor particularly in business.

Practice the principle of ready, fire, aim. Many people that I meet are starting a business, so the first thing they do is come up with a business name, then they get business cards made, and a web site done. They research and research and then do more research writing in depth business plans down to how much money they will spend on stationary. They have to wait until everything is perfect before they start and so they never start. You just have to do it, it's a simple as that, pick up the phone and call your first customer and try to convince them to buy your widget. Even if you haven't made it yet. Just do it already!

Network, Network, Network! Never underestimate the importance that someone you meet now could have in three to ten years time. You don't know what business you will be in down the track. If you have the ability to help someone out but you cant see how you will get anything out of it, help them anyway. People don't forget those things and they will find a way to help you in return.

I have never felt like I have had to make a conscious decision to sacrifice something in order to get something else. In retrospect I have sacrificed things without realizing it and that is the real problem. While I was working, studying and organizing Grass festival I was very busy and this impacted upon the relationship I had with my partner. She provided me with a lot of support and I was so focused on what I was doing that I did not thank her anywhere near enough. I also sacrificed my health by not getting enough sleep or exercise and not eating healthy meals. This was definitely counter-productive and the quality of my work suffered as a result.

In direct answer to your question, I don't feel I make any conscious sacrifices. I simply make choices. At no point do I feel that I am giving up security, or lifestyle, favorite television shows etc. If I wanted to do those things more than I wanted to start businesses, then those are the things I would choose to do.

Some people would think that I wasn't really successful. I gave it a try and that was very important, I will always stress that you just have to give it a go, as will a lot of entrepreneurs. This is most likely because most entrepreneurs are no longer conscious of the things they do that make them successful in business. So I am always looking for ways to develop myself. When I couldn't speak in public I entered a stand-up comedy competition and learnt very quickly. Once I could make people laugh I needed to be able to convince people of important and serious issues and so I joined a debating society and recently went to the world championships. I attend as many business seminars as I can, even if I think I already know everything about the topic being covered.

No. Starting a business is not really that hard and mine wasn't the hugest success story. My biggest personal achievement to date would be winning the Business Icon competition in 2006. This was a competition run in Queensland similar to Donald Trumps 'Apprentice' where 18-25 year olds compete in a range of business related tasks over 5 days. That was a very hard and long week during which I got very little sleep. I was up against some very talented people and had to really push myself way beyond my comfort zone in order to win.

Make mistakes! The more mistakes you make the faster you learn. The faster you learn, the more you are able to achieve.

Set goals and write them down! Use all your senses to imagine what it will be like when you achieve that goal. Tell everyone you know about it so that you create a form of accountability to your own goals.

You cant do it all over again. End of story. The quicker you realize that you only get to live this life once the quicker you will stop wasting time and start making the most of every day. So all you can do is focus on the future with what you know now.

Do it! Pick up the phone today and call your first customer, call them now, they are waiting for you. Don't wait until tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes.

Find other people that have started businesses and talk to them about it. If you don't know anyone, pick up the yellow pages and start going through the lists. You are bound to find hundreds of business owners in there. Find likeminded people of your own age and talk to them about it. Offer to help them out.