How a Burning Man Camp is Like Launching a Company

^{Entrepreneurs don't just attend Burning Man each year for the party. Many have realized it makes them better at business.}

by John Boitnott -- Journalist and digital consultant

Each year in August, tens of thousands of people, including some of today's brightest entrepreneurs, meet in Nevada's Black Rock Desert for the cultural event that has become known as Burning Man. This event, which started in 1986 on a San Francisco beach, has inspired countless villages and theme camps that populate Black Rock City. One of those camps is Disco Chateau, co-founded by 4 Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Like many other Burning Man Camps, Disco Chateau is dedicated to celebrating the unique culture of Burning Man but with an emphasis on creating social art, community and wellness among the broader community.

One of the camp's co-founders, Ari Kalfayan, is also involved with the Startup Tech Mixer, a large networking event that hosts thousands of budding entrepreneurs, and is the VP of Growth for 10x Management, a Silicon Valley talent agency that represents coders. As a serial entrepreneur, Kalfayan says he is struck by how similar Burning Man camps can be to business ventures. I spoke with him recently about those similarities, and how "The Burn" influences his personal approach to building organizations. Revenue and Expenses

With any organization, revenue is certainly one of the most important goals. Disco Chateau has expenses just as Kalfayan's other ventures do, so it's important to bring in money to cover them. In setting up Disco Chateau, he and his partners approached it just as they had with other startups, arranging limited liability and insurance to cover them in the event a legal issue should arise. Once these features are in place, Kalfayan says, as with any business, teams should work to build a model where they bring in revenue to cover expenses that come along each month.