We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Connor Buss. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Connor below.

Alright, Connor thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Coming up with the idea is so exciting, but then comes the hard part – executing. Too often the media ignores the execution part and goes from idea to success, skipping over the nitty, gritty details of executing in the early days. We think that’s a disservice both to the entrepreneurs who built something amazing as well as the public who isn’t getting a realistic picture of what it takes to succeed. So, we’d really appreciate if you could open up about your execution story – how did you go from idea to execution?

My brother and I have always wanted to work together since we were kids. We were rarely able to play on the same sports team because he was just a few years younger, but we grew up always together and on the same team whenever we could. A part of me thinks that never went away, because when he was a senior in college and I was just getting started in LA, he gave me a note that said he was ready to go all in with me and our first business idea, Foreword Films. That’s where the idea for The Moving Foreword Co., our new and current venture, took shape. Foreword took us into the small business community, showing us that stories meant so much more here than they did anywhere else, and it drove us to create and tell real stories with real people that mattered. So the idea was, can we take our experiences that have driven us to this point in our lives, share those with others, and help empower them to take the leap to start something of their own. Cue the COVID-19 Pandemic…yes we are still talking about it because while it was horrible, it brought us to another chapter of our lives and our careers. That chapter would become The Small Business Playbook, the cornerstone of all our accumulated knowledge when it comes to starting a small business. Andrew and I always learned from failure, and we always grew from it even in the tiniest ways possible. Because there really isn’t any failure with an experience if you learn from it, if you use that experience to move foreword ;)

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Connor Buss and to put it briefly, I am a life lover and passionate business owner. I still hesitate to call myself an entrepreneur, but the pursuit of a small business owner rooted in passion and a deep understanding of why they are doing it has always been my favorite person to interact with. In 2015, my brother and I spent time in Montana on a network television show, only to find that this is what we wanted our lives to be about. So later that year, we founded Foreword Films Inc. to tell stories of small businesses, start-ups and non-profits, in the hopes these stories, even if for just a few people, would help change the world. While Foreword Films’ foundation is storytelling and production, our lives would change forever during 2020 and the COVID-19 pandemic. Sparing you the details, we gathered as a team to sink our teeth into a personal project. That personal project became a series of meetings, those meetings became a mission, and that mission was to empower other potential small business owners to follow their dreams and build a business based on their passion. But we knew the road would not be easy, and we wanted to support that journey in any way we could. So we started a new company, The Moving Foreword Co., based on our experiences as small business owners, and published a 75 page guide called The Small Business Playbook, to help new or potential business owners navigate the very challenging, confusing, and somewhat demoralizing first 6-12 months of a new business. While Foreword Films Inc. is still our “day job,” we are constantly looking for opportunities to support and build up other small businesses and passionate owners looking to heal the world. We truly believe if you have a story, and if that story is fueled with passion, you can do anything.

Have any books or other resources had a big impact on you?

Start With Why – Simon Sinek
Start Something that Matters – Blake Mycoskie

I think you can see a trend. Strongly recommended reading for anybody with an idea that is growing inside of them and looking for motivation, inspiration, or guidance to getting started. Both of these books were integral to the foundation of our ideas and the transformation of those ideas into an entity that has totally changed our lives for the better. What these books did for us, and what they will probably do for you, is show you that your business is nothing without a solid foundation to get it started. There will be many, MANY days where owning a small business feels like an upward battle, and it will definitely beat you to the ground and keep you there if you let it. The way you combat this is with a deeply committed and thorough understanding of why you are doing what you’re doing. This literal WHY is the way you can get through hard times, doubt, basically anything negative that happens to you. I learned if your company is built on a strong foundation, on a deep understanding of WHY and HOW all of it matters, you’ll be just fine.

Any advice for managing a team?

I am going to go out on a limb on this one, because our team is small and partly remote, but I always thought I was a good communicator because I loved to talk to people. I also studied Communication Studies in college, so I just assumed that meant I was good at it. Nope, wrong, I am not haha and that was a really hard lesson to learn once we scaled enough to need those skills. So while our team was small, I left communication out of the skills I wanted to develop for far too long. Now, I’ve learned that an unstoppable team thrives on communication, and that comprises many levels. My advice is don’t just over-communicate, but make sure that communication is diverse, humanizing, and puts your team at the top, not at the bottom. What I mean is, make sure that communication makes the team feel like the highest priority, not a check list item. If they feel like their needs and thoughts are being met and understood, that’s what makes a great leader, and leads to a great team.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.movingforeword.co
• Instagram: https://movingforeword.co
• Linkedin: The Moving Foreword Co.