First, some good news:

I cried happy tears after getting some hugely validating feedback this week. 🥹 

But here’s the thing—

Michael wasn’t talking about Drunk Business Advice. 

Because let’s face it. Drunk Business Advice isn’t exactly practical. 😉

He was talking about Drunk Writing Advice, my new newsletter that features exercises to unlock your stories and sharpen your voice, tactical lessons for writing online, and real talk about the pain of putting yourself out there.

Not subscribed yet? Why the hell not?

🍻 THE DRUNK BUSINESS ADVICE 

👉 Logistics may be boring, but so is bankruptcy. Choose wisely.

👉 Amateurs chase vibes. Professionals ask where the toilets are.

And now — the story behind why this advice matters. 👇️ 

But first…

I’m going LIVE this Thursday at 3pm ET!

So if you haven’t RSVP’d to my FIRST LIVE PODCAST EVER, you should have one of two responses right now:

1. Oh dip. I forgot. RSVPing now!

2. Shit I’m busy at that time. But let me RSVP so I can be sure to get the recording!

I’ll be interviewing Jesus Vargas, who has built over 300 business apps (hot damn), and grown his company LowCode Agency to 40 employees.

His background involves a cult, a kidnapping, and a crap-ton of Succession-level drama.

This is going to be one juicy discussion—

And perhaps against our better judgement, we’re also doing an audience AMA. So if you’ve ever wanted to pelt us with uncomfortable questions, now is your chance.

This is all going down THIS THURSDAY, July 24th at 3pm ET (technically not too early to start drinking if you’re in New York / Miami like we are). 👇️ 

Jesus Vargas is the owner of LowCode Agency, a badass software development agency that builds custom apps twice as fast, and for half the cost, of traditional software developers. His sponsorship of Drunk Business Advice keeps this content free. 🙏 

WTF is Fyre Festival?

On a temperate evening in the spring 2017, I cozied up to my neighborhood sushi bar with some other hungry patrons to enjoy a solo spicy tuna roll. 

A few minutes later, someone joined the person next to me, collapsing onto the barstool, bellowing “you would NOT BELIEVE what I’ve just been through.”

My ears perked.

“We were held hostage in the Bahamas. They wouldn’t let us out. There was no food.”

Um. What?

“I’m f*cking suing.”

At that point in time, (having never been on Instagram or Twitter in my life), I had absolutely no way to connect what I was overhearing with the now notorious Fyre Festival.

But that’s exactly what this guy was talking about.

In the weeks that followed, the world became captivated by the story of the young entrepreneur Billy McFarland, his “business partner” (🙄) Ja Rule, and the nearly-unbelievable fraud that shined a light on some of the lesser merits of Millennials.

For those who somehow missed this delicious moment in history, here’s what went down. 👇

25-year-old Billy McFarland partnered with rapper Ja Rule to put on a Coachella-inspired music festival in the Bahamas. They raised a shit-ton of money from investors, and ran a glamorous Instagram marketing campaign featuring the sexiest supermodels on the planet.

But when festival-goers showed up in the Bahamas, they were not only met with no festival — they became trapped with no food, no bathrooms, and no place to sleep.

And I got to hear all about it first-hand from an attendee who had just escaped the Bahamian bedlam, simply because I had chosen the right barstool and the right sushi bar on the right evening.

What might you call a combination of schadenfreude and serendipity? 

Shaden-dipity? Yep. That’s what I felt.

You have to plan for #1 and #2

Before too long, competing streamers Netflix and Hulu both released in-depth documentaries about the doomed Fyre Festival, and audiences ate that shit up.

You better believe I did, too.

But unlike many viewers, my favorite part of the story was not Billy’s misguided mentor agreeing to —ahem— perform fallatio 🍆 on a customs agent, or the swaths of supermodels pretending to enjoy the company of pigs (both porcine and human).

Nope. I fell in love with this legend. 👇️ 

Keith van der Linde was Fyre Fest’s “head of logistics” until he got voted off the island by daring to suggest that even supermodels have two basic needs — #1 and #2. 🧻 

Jokes aside, plumbing is a pretty vital consideration for any business that involves people leaving their homes. I dunno. Maybe it’s just me. 🤷

But instead of listening to Keith, or any of the other professionals who truly tried to safely usher their vision for Fyre Fest into the constraints of, ya know, reality, Billy, Ja Rule, and their group arrogant asshats were only concerned about three things:

“Living like movie stars, partying like rock stars, and f*cking like porn stars.”

What gems. I’m sure their mothers are proud. 🙄

In the end, Billy went to jail for wire fraud, and a frenzy of lawsuits tried –but failed– to hold Ja Rule accountable.

In a final bizarre act of parasitic greed, last week Billy McFarland sold the brand rights to Fyre Festival for $245,300 — on eBay.

You can’t make this shit up. 🤦

(Oh, and Keith van der Linde , if you’re out there, get in touch. I’d love to buy you a beer. Mad respect.)

It keeps bloody happening (bloody being the key word)

If you’re thinking “C’mon Kristin, this is old news. Why are you talking about Fyre Festival?” — fair question.

I’ll tell you why.

I was recently reminded of the Fyre Fest saga while watching another documentary. About another music festival. That turned into another logistical nightmare.

This time, it was Astroworld — the Houston music festival conceived and headlined by hometown hip-hop artist, Travis Scott, and produced by the “professionals” (🙄) at Live Nation.

Go watch the documentary immediately, but the short version of this story is that festival organizers:

• Sold 50k tickets to a site that could only safely accommodate 35k people.

• Dramatically under-planned security and festival containment, meaning that an unknown number of people got in without tickets, overcrowding the site even more.

• Designed crowd-flow so poorly that there would have been major issues even if the event wasn’t oversold.

• And ignored every warning sign that shit was about to go terribly wrong.

As a result of their disturbing negligence, hundreds of people were injured, and 10 people were killed.

All of this could have been prevented if the organizers had placed any priority on logistics, instead of swatting that responsibility away like an annoying gnat.

Professionals talk logistics

“Amateurs talk strategy, professionals talk logistics” might be an overused trope— 

But business leaders should write it on their bathroom mirror with permanent marker, and look at it every goddamn morning.

Because ignorance toward logistics is not limited to the music festival industry. Every business has a factor that is boring and unsexy, but if not executed well, will topple the operation like a drunk game of Jenga. 

These factors are typically the last considered, the least calculated, and the most difficult to get right.

So even if you’re not a fraudster like Billy McFarland, or negligent like Live Nation… Even if you genuinely want to do the right thing and properly plan your logistics…

You can still easily screw this part up. It’s kind of terrifying.

But in his book What to Do When Things Go Wrong, my dear friend and professional mentor Frank Supovitz (who was in charge of the Super Bowl the year the New Orleans Superdome lost power shortly after halftime) simplifies logistics planning beautifully:

👉️ Don’t try to plan for everything. Instead, plan for anything.

In the nine years that Frank and his team had been running the Super Bowl, they had not once planned for a scenario involving a power failure. Yet, when it happened, they were able to respond quickly and calmly, keeping everyone safe.

This is because he had built a culture of team-oriented problem-solving.

So as you head into work tomorrow, ask yourself two questions:

1. What logistical snafu is most likely in my business? Then prioritize a plan to address it.

2. What is one step I can take toward building a team-oriented, problem-solving culture in my business? Then take that step.

It’s all thanks to Frank’s mentorship that I somehow pulled off making Christmas happen at Rockefeller Center — in the middle of a pandemic.

So trust me. His approach works. 👊 

I may not have attended Fyre Fest, but… 😬

I was an early “customer” of Billy McFarland, circa 2014.

His first venture (also co-founded by Ja Rule) was a company called Magnises, which was pitched to me as a professional networking club for NYC Millennial entrepreneurs. It included heaps of networking events, and access to a swanky co-working space.

I was running a consulting practice at the time, so when I interviewed with their “Membership Director”, I was easily sold on the benefits they were offering for only ~$250/year.

Hey, better than joining WeWork, right?

Unsurprisingly, the co-working space was never open (they trashed one, then got kicked out of a second), and after attending one of the “networking events”, I vowed to never be in a room with those disgusting weasels ever again.

So I lost $250, but at least I have a keepsake to remember that mistake by. 👇

I plan on bestowing this relic to the Smithsonian upon my death. But for now, it’s a fun token to whip out at parties.

Yes, it’s metal.

Yes, it makes a deafening noise when you drop it on a table.

Yes, I’m embarrassed that I fell for a Billy McFarland scam. 🤦

Cheers! 🍻 

-Kristin

P.S. — You made it to the bottom of the email! Yay! Now please RSVP for my first LIVE PODCAST, and subscribe to Drunk Writing Advice. I’d love to see you at both!

And don’t forget, Drunk Business Advice is FREE because of Jesus Vargas, and his team at LowCode Agency — so show ‘em some love!

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Whether you need help building an MVP, creating software to run your business, or even just a badass website, I highly recommend the savvy team over at LowCode!