I can already see the company as a movie in my head.
Then, in the first lecture of a marketing course, I heard advice that challenged the whole picture.
The message, as I understood it, was this: building a lovebrand is extremely difficult. Put your ego aside and build something more conventional and sustainable.
I understand where that advice comes from. But it left me with a question:
Am I protecting a meaningful vision—or simply refusing to let go of my ego?
A vision beyond the numbers
I recently decided to study marketing fundamentals. I have some experience, and I have independently arrived at concepts that seem to work. This time, though, I want to understand the domain as a whole instead of continuing to find my way through the dark.
There is value in a conventional approach. Choose an audience. Understand its needs. Create a clear offer. Learn from what works and adjust what does not.
None of this guarantees success. But it gives you a practical way to reduce uncertainty and build a business people can understand.
Still, something bothered me.
When the marketers explained what a company vision could look like, one example was roughly this: in five years, advise at least fifty companies, including one major brand.
Clear. Measurable. Easy to imagine.
And, to me, uninspiring.
That is not a judgment of their ambition. They may genuinely want to build that agency, serve those clients and grow that business. Their goals make sense for them.
But those numbers do not explain why I want to build mine.
I have envisioned something different. Bigger, perhaps too big, yet concrete enough that I can see scenes from it: people developing their craft, sharing knowledge, moving across disciplines and creating things together.
The marketers in that lecture seemed to start with what they could explain, sell and grow. I started with something I wanted to bring into existence. Now I am trying to discover whether it can support a business.
Their approach may produce a working company sooner. Mine may never become real.
I am aware of that difference.
The company has to be experienced
One example is Storia Talks.
I imagine a place where we explore stories in depth. How did tango emerge? What is it like to direct a film? Why do some sitcoms work while others fail?
These are subjects I genuinely want to explore with people. Each conversation could reveal something about our curiosity, our way of thinking and the connections we see between different disciplines.
The company would gradually become visible through me, the people involved and our shared activities.
People need to experience our events. They need to enter a conversation, encounter an idea or participate in something before the larger picture can mean much to them.
An advertisement could invite them in. It could make an event easy to discover and explain what to expect. But announcing the whole vision upfront would flatten part of what I want to create.
Some of its meaning needs to unfold through participation.
That is what I mean by a mythic company: a company whose stories and shared experiences become part of its identity. The mythic character has to emerge from things people actually do and remember together.
I hope people will stay long enough to see the picture emerge. Their patience, however, is something I have to earn. Each encounter needs to be worthwhile before they understand how everything connects.
What I am unwilling to lose
I spent almost a day thinking about this.
Is it my ego that refuses to let the vision go?
Maybe.
But maybe I am also willing to fail at building something I care about rather than succeed at building something I never really wanted.
My company is about more than having a guild inside it. A guild describes part of how people could work together. It does not, by itself, explain why I want to build this company.
Scaling an unusual organizational model just to prove that it works would not fulfil the vision. I could end up with another sterile company—one that happens to operate differently behind the scenes.
I want the model to support a world people can enter, contribute to and care about.
If I remove that ambition, half the things I have imagined lose their charm. They become a list of services and events, with the connections between them reduced to a marketing explanation.
That might be easier to sell. It would also leave out much of what makes me want to build it.
A smaller beginning can still carry the vision
My conclusion is to keep building the mythic company.
I will continue learning marketing. I will make individual offers clear, test formats and listen to what people value. I can change the sequence, the scale and the way things are delivered.
The first event does not need to contain the entire vision. It does need to carry its spirit.
That gives me room to begin smaller without turning the company into something I do not want.
If the business does not become sustainable, my fallback is to offer services under my own name: Vlad, the consultant. That could support me while giving the larger vision more time to develop.
And if the company remains on paper, I accept that possibility too.
I do not need to prove to anyone that I can build a company at any cost.
Financial discipline matters. So do customers, revenue and the ability to keep going. But I also care about what the company makes possible, what it asks of people and what kind of life develops around the work.
A smaller, more conventional business might be easier to realize. I understand why someone would choose it.
I still want to discover whether this one can become real.
