About TortoiseClimbing

 Evolutions of TortoiseClimbing


Since its establishment in 1993, TortoiseClimbing™ has experienced at least 4 significant evolutions from its very modest beginning concept. (What might our future hold?) Its original goals/mission were to produce 1) nice recordings for 2) private release.

Question

Were the evolutions serendipitous (or were they perhaps destined?) The path of the evolutions is a scintillatingly delicious story.

Summary of the Story

Original TortoiseClimbing

Immediately prior to establishing the original, hobby TortoiseClimbing™, David recorded a group of at least 6 songs with friends at Bias during 1990-1991, which were not released even privately. Following the private release of Solo Collection in 1993 and creation of TortoiseClimbing™, David began working on a follow-up private album, Romantic Duets with a variety of women singing duet parts. Several years after beginning work on that 2nd private album, David's father died in late 1996.

Evolution 1: Upgrade in Mission/Goals

Then in spring 1998, David's mother, knowing he had sung for years, studied voice during and after college, and was recording at a professional studio, requested he record an album of selections from his father's and her favorite traditional hymns and songs. David and his mother jointly selected the hymns and songs to include on the album, which became Hymns and Songs of My Mother.

(A simple playlist of that album is available at Simple Playlist. An annotated playlist of that album, with artists and streaming of sample hymns, is available at Annotated Playlist.)


This project led to a significant change in missions/goals. That occurred because in discussions with his mother about what she wanted the album to be, she expressed her preference was that the album be 1) high-quality, and 2) be publically released. That meant the new project required considerably more attention to:

Accomplishing those resulted in the first major evolution of TortoiseCimbing™'s mission/goals, i.e.,:

As a result of mother's request, the goals/mission for TortoiseClimbing™ were redefined, substantially impacting TortoiseClimbing™'s future by expanding the roles performed to encompass the larger related areas of:

Evolution 2: Expansion of Business Structure

Around 2004, it became obvious the notes being prepared to accompany the recording had morphed into a history book. That essentially meant TortoiseClimbing™ had inadvertently entered the publishing business. With that realization, we embraced the fact we had taken on publishing as another part of its operations, i.e., TortoiseClimbing™ created a new separate Publications portion/subsidiary focused on the different requirements for publications.

Evolution 3: Further Structural Expanion

Building on the previous evolution in mission/goals to 1) upgrade audio product quality for public release, and 2) to expand the role to include creating and distributing publications, another significant evolution occurred in 2019. That year TortoiseClimbing™ became able to devote full time to completing all elements of the multiple pieces of the Hymns and Songs project. That is elsewhere referred to as the beginning of Phase II of the hymns and songs project.

The production goals/mission for recordings and publications remained unchanged. But, because of today's heavily oriented online environment, to be a success as a small business, clearly we needed to:

That led to creation of the additional WebServices portion/subsidiary of TortoiseClimbing™.


As a result, by 2020 when the initial version of the new website was in testing, TortoiseClimbing™ had 3 operational subsidiaries, plus a cooperative arrangement:

  1. TortoiseClimbing Audio™;
  2. TortoiseClimbing Publications™;
  3. TortoiseClimbing WebServises™; and
  4. The ongoing cooperative relationship is support for K's Pet Sitting, established years before on its 1st website.

Evolution 4: Change in Legal Structure

About a year after beginning Phase II, with the increasing amounts being spent on development of the hymns album, in 2020 it was decided to transition the legal structure from the 1993 original of being a hobby, to become a small business for-profit, sole-proprietor.

New Requirements

As of 2024, TortoiseClimbing™ has also taken on all the responsibilities needed for marketing and distribution. As part of becoming a for-profit, it also became critically important to develop more systematized financial tracking abilities, including more detailed and capable recordkeeping and tax accounting. Thus, as we are entering the marketing and distribution of multiple initial products, in addition to mastering the worlds of marketing, distribution, we also have to create a more robust recordkeeping function.

Future Products

Current plans for next products include:

(No decision has been made on what will be done with the draft duets album.)

Ideas for new songs, albums and publications are in planning stage.

Role of Life Experiences in Evolutions

The question of whether TortoiseClimbing™'s evolutions were serendipitous (or destined) likely should include consideration of the part David's life's experiences played in influencing possibilities of TortoiseClimbing™'s evolutions.

Perhaps the pivotal steps were the initial decisions to:

All else flowed from those decisions.

The 1st evolution to expand its mission occurred in 1998, because TortoiseClimbing™ had to take on significant new functions to accomplish making an 1) excellent album, for 2) public release. That required taking on greater recording Production responsibilities.

The 2nd evolution to take on publications to produce companion eBooks to the recordings was because of taking on greater writing and publication responsibilities.

The 3rd evolution was to tackle creation of the subsidiary WebServices.

The 4th evolution was to become a for-profit as part of taking on requirements for marketing, distribution, recordkeeping, etc.

Fortunately, many of David's previous life's activities complimented a number of these new requirements. Those experiences gave him a headstart in being able to take on the multiple new roles. His experiences include:


Those experiences provided valuable foundations upon which to build knowledge and skills for performing the new resposibities TortoiseClimbing™ needs to run:

Notes. The publishing requirement evolved from the initial desire to include simple stories about the hymns. In 2000 that began evolving into what is now the eBook, History Through 26 Hymns and Songs.


The website requirement initially began from several needs:

The 3rd evolution to pursue becoming a for-profit company is similarly blostered by David's background experiences. It remains to be seen how successful the third goal will be.


Summaries of Each Component

Each of these areas of business activity were significant new roles, requiring numerous new skills. It was necessary for TortoiseClimbing™ to undertake them because, TortoiseClimbing™ had no:

Thus, TortoiseClimbing™ has become proficient in all of these requirements.

TortoiseClimbing Audio

Production responsibilities of TortoiseClimbing™ include identifying and arranging for multiple artists and skills needed. The following examples are explicity for the album Hymns and Songs of My Mother, but many also apply to other albums.

TortoiseClimbing Publishing

The entry into publishing was evolutionary. It grew from the humble beginning of just preparing notes to include in the CD jacket. It morphed into:


TortoiseClimbing WebServices

As support for marketing, it was critical to create a quality website supportingTortoiseClimbing™ -

K's Pet Sitting

There has been a long running cooperative arrangement between TortoiseClimbing™ and K's Pet Sitting which began with our first website.

-- End of window on New Roles --


For current information about TortoiseClimbing™ see Current TortoiseClimbing™.



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