How Starting a Business is Like Casting a Movie

Being on a television show set for a few days opened my eyes to the similarities between being an entrepreneur and running a film production.
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As a web entrepreneur, I'm free to work wherever I want. Though I typically put in twice the hours I'd prefer to, I get to choose which 80 hours a week I want to work.

That flexibility, somehow, led me to decide to become a part-time actor.

To be honest, I just wanted to get out of the house, and living in New York makes background (i.e. extra) work easy to obtain. So, I registered with CentralCasting.com and was immediately cast in Gossip Girl and Law & Order, SVU. That was enough acting for me, it turns out, but the experience was fascinating.

Being on set for a few days opened my eyes to the similarities between being an entrepreneur and running a film production. I recently blogged about Rock Bands vs Tech Startups, based on my experiences with both, so after my brief stint in Hollywood, I created this business/movie industry comparison for GrasshopperGroup:

2010-08-16-ghmovie.png

Perhaps the rock band analogy fits better than movie casting, but I believe it illustrates how many things in life are entrepreneurial endeavors, whether they're an actual startup or no.

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Shane Snow is a writer and web entrepreneur in New York City. A graduate of Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, Shane has written for Wired, Mashable, Gizmodo, and Fast Company. He runs the online printing site PrintingChoice.com and draws infographics about savings accounts and other financial topics for VisualEconomics.com.

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