BUSINESS LESSONS FROM THE FYRE FESTIVAL

Wrote this a while ago.

Here are the lessons you can take for your business from the disaster that was the Fyre Festival.

YOU DON’T NEED TO SELL A DREAM

Selling dreams to people means your intentions are not pure. The people who want to sell dreams are usually con artists. Fakes. Phonies. The one thing about social media as it continues to grow and exist in our lives is that it’s starting to expose people. Social media doesn’t get a lot of credit for that. It’s showing us the frauds. Now for a person like me I don’t give a flying fuck about hanging with Bella Hadid and I never will and I have the sense to look at what they were advertising on their first Instagram commercial and say “Yeah right. Whatever” but to hundreds of other people that means the world to them and they played on their ignorance. They didn’t need to sell a dream. All they needed to sell was the island and a great festival full of great acts and it would’ve did fine. 

TAKE YOUR L 

So these idiots were so concerned of how big of a failure it would be to cancel the festival because it was nowhere near ready and not thinking of the worst possible scenario, they instead kept digging themselves into a hole when there was no need to. Just take the L and cancel the festival. Your reputation will still be intact on the business side. You won’t be indicted by the feds and thrown in prison. You will at least be able to still have a career. Billy and Ja Rule were short term thinkers. Even when the festival became a literal laughing stock and they were trying to put out the oil fire that was Fyre Festival. Ja’s solutions were all short term suggestions. The best suggestion was THE TRUTH. Take the loss, speak the truth, and own it. He tried to work around it and spin it with more cover ups. There was no way to cover that shit up and spin it into good P.R. Just take your L and keep it pushing. Live to fight another day. 

GREED IS POISON 

The Fyre app was actually a great idea. The card company Billy had was a great idea. If he would’ve just did honest business both would’ve had a high probability of being mega successful but this idiot was so fucking greedy that he ruined two good businesses. First scamming people with fake perks if they sign up for his credit cards which ruined that business. Then the Fyre festival ruining Fyre app. If they would’ve had PATIENCE the outcome probably would’ve been different. They oversold tickets despite knowing that the number of people who bought tickets could not all fit on that island just to get as much money as possible. What would’ve been a better idea was selling a limited amount of tickets and making the festival feel exclusive. I hate giving things a V.I.P treatment because I hate the premise behind V.I.P’s but a festival on an island would make the most sense to use that approach starting out. 

LEGACY > ATTENTION 

There was a scene where Ja Rule is trying to get models to run with him to the ocean and the reasoning behind it is so dumb because it falls under the “Selling a dream” category and it’s not creative at all. It’s corny. They could’ve taken a dope photo and that would’ve been better. Everything they were motivated by either dealt with attention or money. Not legacy. Now their legacy is that they’re a joke in the market. Can they come back? Yes. As long as you have a great idea and execute it the market doesn’t give a fuck about your past losses even one as catastrophic as Fyre Festival.

NEVER AVOID PRACTICALITY 

Yes a lot of things sound good in theory. Doesn’t mean you should go out and do them. Every realistic option that was presented to Billy McFarland was countered with an unrealistic answer or ridiculous solution. He rather look cool instead of being practical. Practicality keeps your business running. Looking cool does not. I rather look ugly and win than look good and lose. 

I hope people learn from these documentaries on this disaster. All the models, jets, yachts, beaches, liquor is all bullshit and businesses can be built without flaunting any of that shit. The people who try to build businesses based on those things are insecure and they’re liars. They’re selling you fantasy and not the reality of true entrepreneurship.  

Peace. 

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