Lesson #1: Do Not Put All Your Eggs Into One Basket

When McFarlane was once asked by a journalist what he considered to be his greatest career mistake, he did not hesitate for a second to answer. “Not thinking about being diverse in the business and artistic areas I was involved in,” he said. “My early mistake was not putting myself in a position where one or more mistakes wouldn’t determine the outcome of the rest of my future.”

McFarlane says he learned a lesson early on in his career: do not put all your eggs into one basket. As a result, he has been able to thrive more as both an artist and an entrepreneur. “It made me more successful because it forced me to look at more than one option to any plan,” he says. “The more options and opportunities one can present to themselves, the better chance of survival.”

When McFarlane first began tinkering with the idea of “Spawn” he was in high school, and he was a long way away from thinking that his little doodle could be turned into a business, let alone a profitable one. For years, all he could focus on was creating the best comic he could draw; business never once factored into the equation. Once he finally turned his idea into a comic book, he still remained focused on the character, instead of turning his attention to the idea of expanding his operations.

But McFarlane quickly began to realize that if he had any hopes of achieving the longevity he so badly wanted, he would have to do more than just a comic book. “For instance, if you were in a burning building with a hundred people and there was only one door to the outside, do you think your survival rate would be better if that same building had multiple doors leading out?” asks McFarlane. “Of course it would. Life and business are no different in the planning stages. Always assume there will be a fire.”

McFarlane looked to Disney as an example of the kind of legacy he wanted to achieve for himself. “I’ve always said that Mickey Mouse is still alive, but Disney isn’t,” he says. “His creative children have surpassed his longevity…I am hoping that Spawn, sort of like Superman and Batman, will outlive the creator.”

It was to that end that McFarlane decided to create his two companies, McFarlane Toys and Todd McFarlane Entertainment. He wanted to turn his Spawn creation into more than just a comic character. He wanted it to be a three-dimensional character that people would recognize from a movie, from an action figure, or from the comic book. Not only would that ensure the longevity of Spawn, but it would also allow for McFarlane to branch out and expand his operations, just in case there were to be “a fire”.

“Do I have a master plan?” asks McFarlane. “Yes. Do I know the end of the story? Yes. Do I hope that I never have to tell it? Yes. I have conceived of the ending of the character, but the only way I would tell it is if nobody cared about the character anymore.” And McFarlane is seeing to it that that will not happen.



Lesson #1: Do Not Put All Your Eggs Into One Basket

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