What if your tools are worth more than your work? [WRAP 191]

Hey Reader, welcome to October! This is my favorite month of the year. Cooler temperatures, camping, football, my birthday, and stout beers. What could be better?

In this edition of the WRAP you'll learn about having an infrastructure mindset. I'll show you how George Lucas (Star Wars) and Taylor Sheridan (Yellowstone) built infrastructure businesses that supported creative work while becoming very profitable on their own.

We'll also talk about how the systems you built to support your work might be more valuable than the work itself, and three questions to help you find what's hiding in plain sight.

Let's begin!

💡 One Big Idea: Your Infrastructure Opportunity

What if the thing you built to support your work is actually more valuable than the work itself?

I just realized this about my own business. 65% of my revenue this year came from client work: systems, processes, and infrastructure I originally built just to make my own videos and newsletters. The other 35% came from the content people actually know me for.

Which got me wondering: Am I a content creator who does consulting? Or something else entirely?

Then I read about George Lucas this week and how he started Industrial Light & Magic (ILM). The story goes: Lucas wanted visual effects for Star Wars that simply didn't exist yet. No studio could do what he envisioned. So he built ILM himself just to make Star Wars.

But here's what's wild: After Star Wars proved the effects worked, other filmmakers wanted what Lucas had built. ILM started taking outside projects. Lucas kept making films, but he'd also created one of the most successful visual effects companies in history. Not because he wanted to run an effects business, because he needed better tools for his movies and figured others probably did too.

Same thing with Taylor Sheridan and Yellowstone. He bought the Four Sixes Ranch in Texas because he needed an authentic location to film. Now he rents the ranch to Paramount. And the horses. And provides the cowboys. He's still writing and producing shows, that's his main thing. But he's also getting paid as the property owner, livestock provider, and location manager.

Multiple revenue streams from infrastructure he built to support his creative work.

That's when it clicked for me.

I built email systems and launch processes because I needed them for my newsletters and courses. I documented everything because I have a terrible memory. I created templates and frameworks because I kept solving the same problems over and over.

Then clients started asking: "Can you build that for me?"

I thought the systems were just scaffolding for the real work, i.e. the content. Turns out the scaffolding can become its own business. Not instead of the content. Alongside it.

Jason Fried calls this "selling your sawdust," monetizing the byproduct of your main work. But I think it's deeper than that. The infrastructure you build to support your creative work often becomes more scalable than the creative work itself.

Lucas can only direct so many movies. But ILM can work on dozens of films simultaneously.

Sheridan can only write so many shows. But his ranch can host multiple productions.

I can only make so many videos. But the systems I built can serve dozens of clients.

Maybe you've already built your version of this and just haven't realized it yet.

That spreadsheet you made to track projects? Someone would pay for that.

The hiring process you developed after three bad hires? That's a template.

The system you built to batch content? That's infrastructure.

Here's how to find it:

One: What did you build because it didn't exist? Think about what annoyed you enough that you made it yourself. That's usually infrastructure, not just a workaround.

Two: What do people always ask you "how did you do that?" about? When someone wants to know your process more than your final product, you've built something valuable.

Three: What could you license or rent to others while still using it yourself? This is the ranch model. You don't have to choose between using it and monetizing it.

You might be running two businesses but only focused on building one.

Worth asking yourself which one has more room to grow.

📰 Article to Read: High Agency People​

One of my favorite articles the past few years is George Mack's High Agency People. But it's a great companion to the lesson of having an infrastructure mindset.

George Lucas didn't pout because special effects weren't at the level he wanted, or that the studio was slow funding the project. He took his own money from American Graffiti and started ILM.

The article is a long one, taking about 30 minutes to read. If you want to jump to my favorite section, I highly recommend reading Escaping Low Agency Traps.

👀 Video to Watch: My 1 Page Planner​

I've been trying out a 1 page planner the last couple of weeks, not because I'm over the Bullet Journal but because I'm testing out low-friction productivity tools. A single sheet of paper, folded over twice, gives me 8 squares in which to write down my GAP, WRAP, Notes, and Weekdays.

Check out this simple productivity "tool" and let me know what you think!

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Have a great weekend,

Matt "Infrastructure Implementor" Ragland