Jim & Josh Ain't In It For The Money

When people talk about their business, there are a number of sentences that raise the red flag of skepticism.

“Let me explain this as simply as I can” usually means you walk away scratching your head saying “Wait, what?”

“Nobody’s ever done anything like this” is typically the precursor to a business pitch you’ve already heard twice this month.

And then there’s this one – “I’m not in it for the money.” Pretty much every business is revenue-based, so, despite a passion-first perspective, it’s almost impossible to have a business and not find yourself compelled to be in it for the money.

So, it’s a pleasure to introduce you to two people both involved in tech-driven businesses who are both, genuinely, not in it for the money.

Jim O’Connell was a geophysicist working for Shell in the Gulf of Mexico till 2016 when he retired. That’s when he became “Captain Jim.” Today, Captain Jim uses his 52 foot long sailboat, Satori, to take folks out on Lake Pontchartrain for a 3 hour sail from his mooring in Madisonville.

Captain Jim says Satori is the only commercial sailboat in New Orleans. His customers get aboard by means of an app called Get My Boat.

Get My Boat bill themselves as the world’s largest boat rental and water experience marketplace, with over 150,000 listings in 184 countries. It’s kind of a combination of Uber and AirB’n’B, for boats.

Joshua Smith is a Library Associate at Algiers Regional Library on the Westbank; a branch of  New Orleans Public Library. So, right there, you can be pretty confident Joshua isn’t looking to get rich.

But he could. Because Joshua is also the creator of a music streaming platform. It’s called Crescent City Sounds. Basically, it’s like Spotify – it streams music. The difference is, all the music it streams is exclusively by New Orleans artists.

Masterminding and creating a music streaming service sounds like something with a lot of profit potential. But, if this does make a lot of money, Joshua’s not going to see it. Crescent City Sounds might be his brainchild, but he designed and operates it for the benefit of New Orleans musicians and New Orleans Public Library.

In most conversations about business, the unspoken assumption is, the more money your business makes the more successful it is. And the more successful a business, the greater the accolades heaped on the person or people behind it.

It’s unusual and refreshing to meet people like Jim and Joshua who are not just giving lip-service to an alternative perspective, but who genuinely have goals beyond our usual definitions of success.

Out to Lunch is recorded live over lunch at NOLA Pizza in the NOLA Brewing Taproom. You can find photos from this show by Jill Lafleur at itsneworleans.com.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.