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How to Kill a Successful Business: The Slow-Motion Death of VeggieTales

36 points by tom_rath 19y ago

The creator of VeggieTales outlines how he plodded towards the death of his company, Big Idea Productions. 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.

Spyckie 19y ago
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.
coglethorpe 19y ago
> “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.
iamwil 19y ago
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 19y ago
  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.
hernan7 19y ago
Moral of the story: don't take management advice from /Built to Last/ or from God.
- rms 19y ago
  Or, don't use God as an excuse to take the risky path every time.
- lunk 19y ago
  Don't Take Management Advice from god. I am writing that one down and putting it on my bulletin board. :)
bouncingsoul 19y ago
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.
SwellJoe 19y ago
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 19y ago
  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 19y ago
    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 19y ago
      You don't intend for your children to make up their own minds about religion?
      - SwellJoe 19y ago
        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.
brianr 19y ago
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."
samwise 19y ago
Not everyone can lead a company. luck can only take you so far.
- gscott 19y ago
  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 19y ago
    > 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 19y ago
      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.
    - deleted 19y ago
      [deleted]

36 points by tom_rath 19y ago

Spyckie 19y ago

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.

coglethorpe 19y ago

> “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.

iamwil 19y ago

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 19y ago
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.

hernan7 19y ago

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

rms 19y ago
Or, don't use God as an excuse to take the risky path every time.
lunk 19y ago
Don't Take Management Advice from god. I am writing that one down and putting it on my bulletin board. :)

bouncingsoul 19y ago

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.

SwellJoe 19y ago

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 19y ago
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 19y ago
  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 19y ago
    You don't intend for your children to make up their own minds about religion?
    - SwellJoe 19y ago
      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.

brianr 19y ago

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."

samwise 19y ago

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

gscott 19y ago
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 19y ago
  > 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 19y ago
    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.
  - deleted 19y ago
    [deleted]