BUILDING CAPACITY — PART 1

WHAT ARE YOU STANDING ON?

Sometimes the thing you're building next is only possible because of what you've already built.

I've been thinking about that a lot lately.

Over the past several months, I've spent a lot of time building Red Alpha Studios while continuing to operate and grow Red Alpha Custom Prints.

From the outside, those might look like two separate businesses competing for the same limited amount of time.

Some days, they can certainly feel that way.

But I'm beginning to see something different.

Red Alpha Studios may be growing as quickly as it is because of what it's standing on.

And what it's standing on took years to build.

THE CAPACITY YOU DON'T ALWAYS SEE

Red Alpha Custom Prints didn't suddenly become easy to operate.

But the business is different today than it was years ago.

My wife, Veronica, handles much of our operations. We have experienced graphic designers whom we trust. We've developed relationships with reliable wholesale print vendors—what I prefer to call Print Partners.

We're also becoming more disciplined about the work we accept.

We're learning to say no to projects that can consume enormous amounts of time and production capacity without moving the business where we want it to go.

And we're outsourcing more of the work that doesn't necessarily need to be produced inside our own building.

For a long time, I think I looked at capacity the way many business owners probably do.

How much can we produce?

How many machines do we have?

How many people are working?

How many jobs can we get through the shop?

I'm beginning to think that's an incomplete definition.

CAPACITY CAN BE A RELATIONSHIP

When you have a reliable Print Partner, their production capability effectively becomes part of your capability.

We don't necessarily need to own another machine to offer another product.

We don't necessarily need to hire another employee to increase production.

Sometimes processing an order and allowing a trusted partner to produce it gives us something more valuable than keeping every part of that job inside our building.

It gives us time.

And time creates another kind of capacity.

Time to sell.

Time to market.

Time to take care of customers.

Time to develop relationships.

Time to think.

Time to create.

And, in my case lately, time to build Red Alpha Studios.

WHAT ARE YOU STANDING ON?

That's when I started asking myself a different question.

Why have I been willing to move so quickly with Red Alpha Studios?

Maybe somewhere in the back of my mind, I know Red Alpha Custom Prints is there.

Not as a fallback plan.

As a foundation.

I'm not starting from zero.

I'm standing on years of owning a business.

Years of relationships.

Years of customers.

Years of mistakes.

Years of figuring things out.

I'm standing alongside a wife who carries a tremendous amount of responsibility in our business.

I'm standing with a graphic design team that doesn't need me looking over their shoulder every minute.

I'm standing on relationships with vendors and Print Partners we've learned we can trust.

And I'm standing on a business that continues operating while I explore what something new could become.

That changes the way you build.

THEN SOMETHING UNEXPECTED HAPPENED

Here's the part I find especially interesting.

Red Alpha Custom Prints has helped create the capacity for me to build Red Alpha Studios.

But now...

Red Alpha Studios is beginning to strengthen Red Alpha Custom Prints.

Through Studios, we're telling more of our customers' stories.

Customer Spotlights and featured articles allow us to celebrate the people behind businesses we've worked with for years.

Our shows introduce us to people we might never have met through the print shop.

Their audiences discover Red Alpha.

People who initially find us because of a conversation, article, podcast or social media post sometimes become customers of Red Alpha Custom Prints.

And existing customers are developing a different kind of relationship with us because we're doing more than producing something for them.

We're helping people discover them.

Suddenly the relationship works in both directions.

Custom Prints creates capacity for Studios.

Studios creates relationships and attention that can strengthen Custom Prints.

And the two things I thought I was trying to balance are beginning to support one another.

GROWTH MAY LOOK DIFFERENT THAN WE THINK

Business owners spend a lot of time thinking about adding.

Another machine.

Another employee.

Another product.

Another service.

Another customer.

Another revenue stream.

But maybe growth isn't always about adding more things.

Sometimes growth comes from building the people, relationships and systems that create room for more possibilities.

Your capacity might be sitting inside your team.

It might be inside a relationship with a vendor.

It might come from finally saying no to work that consumes too much of your time.

It might come from trusting someone else to handle something you've always handled yourself.

Or it might be hiding inside something you spent years building and stopped noticing because you see it every day.

So before you ask what you should build next, maybe there's another question worth asking first.

What are you already standing on?

Because sometimes the thing you've already built isn't keeping you from what's next.

It's the reason you finally have room to build it.