MIND OVER MATTER We left Chicago, where I had recommitted to Casa Integration and its success, and returned to San Francisco.
Sure, it was the agreement with Julie to give it until the end of 2004, but it was more the desire to prove to myself and everyone that I could do it: I could start a business from nothing and make it into something.
I feel you're mostly born with that type of entrepreneurial desire.
I don't want to dissuade anyone from pursuing their dream. But it should be obvious by now that starting and running your own business is not for the faint of heart. It's the hardest thing I've personally done, and if nothing else I hope my writing here informs those inclined to try it themselves.
So you better want it, yet desire alone isn't enough. Because I learned - exactly at this time - that my mind also had to be right if this was going to work.
And if I was going to stay sane.
What follows is largely drawn from a now-classic self-help book my wife gave me at one of several low points building Casa Integration. It is called The Ultimate Secrets of Total Self-Confidence, by Dr. Robert Anthony. The book is worth reading for many reasons, but key among them is his convincing premise that you can't fool yourself.
So when embarking upon something new, Dr. Anthony suggests asking yourself the following questions, in order to truly communicate with your subconscious, as he puts it.
1. Why do I want this? 2. How will I benefit? 3. Will it help others? 4. Will it be right legally and ethically? 5. What are the advantages of making my idea a successful business? 6. How can I reach my goal? 7. Where can I get competent information and guidance? 8. Dates of major phases and the date of intended completion? 9. When will I review and revise these dates? 10. What should I do first? 11. I will keep what mental attitude throughout?
I answered these questions in 2004 and even typed them into a formal plan. Per Dr. Anthony's suggestion, I also used imagery, to better attach my mind to what I wanted.
This is a page from the real thing and I share it because it absolutely worked, and 20 years later, I reflect on it as a pivotal moment. Honestly facing these questions can put you at peace with yourself regarding starting a business. In my experience, that is a vital step that can't be skipped.
One feature of the modicum of success I've had is that I can look at skeptics who dismiss the above as trite BS and tell them they're wrong. Sure, manifesting and the power of the mind are clichés now, but it doesn't mean they're not true.
After all, I lived it. It works.
And twice for me, if one considers London Calling.
And I wouldn't be so quick to dismiss self-help books, either.
PEOPLE WHO NEED PEOPLE Really, a person (me), who desperately needed people; books and sheer will weren't going to be enough. Because what happened after Chicago in July of 2004 upon our return to SF was shocking.
It was like a switch had been thrown.
Except instead of controlling something mundane like a light, it was Casa Integration that had been moved to the on position. From that point until I shut it down in 2018, the business succeeded and . . . my dreams came true. The crying, the press releases, the blood, the mailings, and the excruciating on-the-job(site) training had somehow started working.
Here's an example - this was from the largest project I had sold to date. Getting a $10,000 cash deposit for a $39,725 project immediately after the soul-searching in Chicago felt like the one of biggest wins of my life. Yet as I've emphasized already, the success I experienced would not have been possible without others - several very important others, in fact, who helped push me over the line. Indeed, there are so many this subject goes on into the next chapter.
And that's with skipping the vital Julie, who was always there.
Wholesalers Some still exist, albeit under different ownership, like the North Bay outfit ProfitLine A/V. Most others, including the equally instrumental Electronic Stockroom in Terra Linda, are simply gone. The "fortunate ones," like SoCal's Volutone and Livermore's AVAD, have been swallowed up in mergers and private equity consolidation plays.
But back then, It was the proverbial different world.
Each of these companies sold A/V products, but only to "dealers." In the old days, those were old-school brick-and-mortar retail stereo shops. But as those faded, some of these wholesale warehouses began focusing on what was then and is now called the custom installation market.
You know, guys like me selling and then installing electronics in the homes of the wealthy. Or at least the mass affluent (a term I didn't know then).
Who can be a dealer? As it turns out, anyone with a pulse. Or more precisely, anyone that can present a reseller's permit, and that's only if you don't want to be charged sales tax. I eventually got one of those and worked up enough courage to walk into one, ProfitLine in Novato.
A lightbulb went on, and I owe a big debt of gratitude to Arnold Marr a sales rep at ProfitLine during this time. His patience as he informally educated me on the business was a matter of luck. I was full of myself (I am doing something new! I am Portico Darwin, great tech mind and great tech consultant!), while at the same time completely ignorant. But Arnold saw through my insecurity and helped me.
It was a breakthrough learning the most fundamental thing in the business: how to terminate (or as laypeople say: "put the ends on") different types of cabling. Now, I could put in a cable or satellite TV connection, and make my own A/V cables (RCA!) to any length. Soon, I'd even be making Ethernet cables.
I came home one day with a professional compression tool used for many types of terminations, feeling like it might be time to dump the flowered tool bag.
There were many others; there was Joshua Litwack at Electronic Stockroom and Jon Rodrigues at AVAD, to name two. It was through them that I was able to begin selling (and profiting from) things like Panasonic plasma TVs and Denon A/V receivers. Being authorized to sell products people had heard of mattered then, believe me.
But I must get heavy and dark and mention Patrick Pack, also from Electronic Stockroom. He did not work there in the earliest days but was "my guy" during Casa Integration's salad days, which started right now.
In the coming years, I would end up doing tens of thousands of dollars of business with Patrick, and I can't count the times he bailed me out, by getting me product and/or telling me what was what. Pat was one of those people you are happy to meet in the course of doing business.
But I learned later he died, in 2022, at the age of 49. He left behind a wife and daughter. A reminder that destiny can go in any direction, including the most sad.
Clients This was when I started really seeing some houses, and really started understanding what I had gotten myself into. I will be returning to this subject in upcoming chapters, but it was the kindness, patience, and loyalty of my clients at this time that made the company. Some also told their friends.
There was Jerry and Debbie Andelin, in Sausalito. They had a very trick house and an even more trick French Bulldog - a rarity in 2004. Fun Fact: While at the ad giant Hal Riney, the by-now retired Jerry had come up with the famous Bartles & Jaymes wine cooler commercials.
The Frenchie, whose name I forget, was adorable. He would get so excited upon my arrival that he would get up on his hind legs, only to fall over backward.
Then there was Seth Ferguson, in Mill Valley. Easily the nicest home I'd seen to date, a craftsman-style mansion that he somehow allowed me to drill holes into. Seth was a partner at Kohlberg, Kravitz, and Roberts (the famous KKR), and his house looked like it. I remember driving Julie there in the summer of 2004 to show it off to her.
(Apologies for the first photo's quality - it is a Google Map Street View of the property.)
Nicest home? Learning how to use a 5-foot-long extension drill in Seth's basement so I could run wiring up to the first floor through a wall plate brought on a panic attack I can still remember.
Worse was the old-school SF plaster and lathe (mf'ing redwood lathe boards!) walls, something I'd become all too familiar with in the coming years. But in those days, I simply did not know how to cut into them (I'd learn you use a Roto-Zip or a Fein MultiMaster, or you risk portions of the wall falling off), and I had to admit that to the client.
Still worse was having to race to a hardware store and buy a monster reciprocating saw - so I could chop out a stud in his wall where a speaker had to go.
Thank God nobody was home.
I almost died that day. From the sheer terror of not knowing what I was doing. Again.
And from cutting into one of the nicest homes I'd ever seen. Somehow the in-wall Boston Acoustics speaker worked (great) and it looked fine.
And I think the house is still standing.
There was also Tuan Tran and George Uyeda (who wrote the $10,000 check above) in The Castro, Kevin Sidders in Pacific Heights, the aforementioned Doug Tokerud and all-important Randy Clough, and also Lauren Peichel, in Larkspur. The last two we'll get back to soon, but suffice to say I got lucky these people (and others) were my early clients: People not as kind would have tossed me out, like Patty Dinner's contractor.
But the installations started to go better. Especially when I had help, and began to understand what I was actually doing.
And OMFG the homes; it would turn out Seth Ferguson's place was just OK.
Next: THE REAL WORK BEGINS
FROM THE UNWASHED MASSES
Thank you for reading this newsletter.
KLUF
Yes, this is embarrassing. But if I'm being honest here on KLUF - as one must on his own fake radio station - there is one album that signifies this time more than any other. I also distinctly recall pulling into Seth's house with it blatting from the Civic's feeble speakers. Here is the somewhat dodgy Coldplay and A Rush of Blood to the Head. But Portico, you typically have such impeccable taste. Why this?
