Entrepreneur Files with Andrew Ellenberg
Entrepreneur Files with Andrew Ellenberg
Inside Streaming TV With The Chief Content Officer Of A Hot Studio in Kansas City
Join a serial entrepreneur who has been working for decades at a feverish pace to create, produce, and distribute original dramatic series, documentaries, and feature films to Netflix, Sony TV, Amazon Prime and many other popular streaming TV platforms.
By failing fast and often, he has continuously adapted his business models to the rapidly evolving trends and share shifts in the explosive video-on-demand space. Now, springboarding from the critical and widespread acclaim of his hit series Girls Uninterrupted, he reveals what's next for entrepreneurs and streaming TV fans.
Andrew Ellenberg is President & Managing Partner Of Rise Integrated, an innovative studio that creates, produces, and distributes original multimedia content across digital touchpoints. Email andrewe@riseintegrated.com or call 816-506-1257.
entrepreneur files inspiration inside. These are their stories. We're back in the studio with another thought provoking episode of entrepreneur files. When business owners discovered new meaning in their businesses, they feel more connected to people around them. Executive producer Andrew Ellenberg created this fast paced 30 minute podcast to inspire business owners creating deeper perspectives into their personal and professional motivations. Join the conversation with other entrepreneurs to give you the energy you need to power through the daily grind of owning a business. And we're back in the studio. Entrepreneur files inspiration inside I am sitting here face to face with Eric Keith, the Chief Creative Officer of space mob, a independent studio that produces original features and series documentaries distributes them the whole supply chain to the Netflix's of the world and Sony and who else Eric, Samsung Vizio, Amazon Prime, so on and so forth. So you guys get the idea that the next generation of entertainment on the screen, and I guess you can't even see small screen anymore because a lot of people have 70 inch screens or bigger in their home theaters. But he's here to kind of give us an inside perspective a fly on the wall look at a really interesting emerging industry that is is exploding right now. He's coming off of a huge success with Guerlain scripted that I get that right yeah. If you Google that people, you will see massive listings pages and pages of press and publicity and reviews. And it won a bunch of awards. Do I can't even keep up with all those awards? Yes, like over 70 at this point. Congratulations shot. You know, in all my and I'm guessing there's probably not 20 others right like that behind it. You probably have to do a few things before you hit it like that. Yeah, exactly. That one took 15 years. Is that it? Just 1515 Yeah, really. So tell me how you got into this because I mean, right now you're the chief creative officer of a company Chief Content Officer Chief Content. Well, you're also extremely creative. So fair enough. You know, maybe you should have that one too. But you know, I'm not going to get involved in internal politics and everything. But you were a serial entrepreneur before that happened. And in fact, this This job came out of you being an entrepreneur. So that's why you're on entrepreneur files. You have to be an entrepreneur to be an entrepreneur file. So that's correct. Talk to us about how it all started when you were all alone. And just toiling away in your garage. Actually go way back to when you know, I've been an entrepreneur, serial entrepreneur my entire career. But I'll just go back to sort of a day job that I got where I was running a sales team at a digital marketing company and I was just ready to pull my hair I think it did actually pull my hair out. And so I just reached the point where, you know, a little bit of nepotism came into the company. It was just, I just couldn't deal with my team anymore. And I was just like, I'm done. And I scrapped everything. We hadn't felt financially prepared for it at all I told my wife and we're going to move back to Kansas City and start this company with her. You know, we lined up one investor and eventually it sort of grew from there but the the startup space mob was from the office of a sales leader to you know, the start the beginner of a creative company. So talk to us about the environment and what you were what you were working with, was it a paperclip and a rubber band or it's some other high tech equipment involved? Well, you know, when we first started space smile, I kind of laughed at your your logo here because it has this rookie file cabinet drawer and that's exactly the kind of file cabinet I had in this like office. It looks like an old low class attorney's office paneling all around it. And really, I brought in a lot of awards and things just to try to spruce it up. But it just didn't work. And it had terrible carpet. It was yeah, that's that's where we started and then we came to Kansas City and I started working immediately with company answer media who had offices and they're doing video monetization and digital monetization and, you know, sort of sort of realizing there were synergistic opportunities there and you know, they kind of grew over time. Interesting. So, your proudest accomplishment? Is that girl unscripted or watermarks beyond that sir. Girl unscripted, is literally the idea was to follow the lives of 32 at risk girls. In Kansas City and St. Joseph, Missouri. And follow them over the course of 10 years of their lives. So you really understand the challenges that girls in today's society face and it hits a lot of dark topics, which I won't go into but yeah, I mean it's the most raw real production I've ever been a part of and sorely needed as a single father of a 15 year old girl. I can tell you right now I need all the insight that I can possibly get because there is no manual that came with raising a wild tiger. I've got a three year old girl and I'm terrified of what's coming. You should start studying, watch girl and scripted a lie. Yeah. Take your own advice. Yeah. lessons and insights. Interesting. What's the biggest risk you ever took? Was that the one that you busted that move? And started that? I think so. Yeah, I think leaving a big time job for nothing and literally no income and just starting everything from scratch. Wow. That is just that is the essence of betting the farm. Yeah, yeah. We thought we had a great idea. And that idea didn't turn out to be as great as we expected. But that never had very, very unusual. So the worst job you ever had was that that one of the one that you and I were dead. I think it's a tie. So Andrew and I worked together in a radio station. And he was the most impressive BD guy I ever met. He was straight out of Bloomberg and came from New York to Kansas City. And I was just like in awe trying to keep up with this guy and I was like an alien. I did not fit in that environment. Andrew can attest to that. Yes, well. Generally speaking, a creative genius does not work in a sales position, low level sales. position. I'll take that Thank you. Yes. I'm much better at marketing and creative than I am in sales. I can tell you this a lot better salespeople out there. I'd love to have them working for me, but I can't afford them yet working on it though, you know? Yeah, for sure. So when When did you know you need to venture out on your own a long time ago? Not not this most recent adventure, if you will, but you know from the very beginning coming out of school and all that. I mean, honestly so I started as an actor, and I worked as a professional actor making a living for seven years I was doing plays and I worked in LA you know, it was on ER and Providence on NBC to season on a soap opera. And just started realizing that I was more excited about taking meetings for producing projects. And so I kind of started my own little side hustle on the producing front like raising money putting together projects are produced the award winning play, called the humidity of fish, which won like five backstage West awards. And I know it also be one of my biggest failures because I misjudged How many nights a week we should have run and we grossly overestimated how many audience members would show up. So there were three people. You suffer from an excess of optimism like I do. Exactly. Yes. I think that's a common condition with entrepreneurs. So let people can relate to that. That's really interesting. So you're, you're in the eye of the storm right now. There's a tsunami of content going on. And innovation and new platforms and distribution models and what is your greatest source of optimism for your position in the industry, when it's absolutely was the change that's going on in the space and we're just looking at I mean, I'll use I'll use a few examples. But Netflix is creating an ad supported model like I never in my entire life would have expected that. Amazon Prime was trying to compete with you to where you had a self serve platform where you could upload your own creative to the platform. And they abandon that quick as quick as they possibly could. And they took their other asset which was IMDb TV, and they've turned it into something called free V. Which I won't insult the the name anymore because I've done that for the last six to eight weeks. But one more on entrepreneur files. Free V is now their ad supported model model within the the the Amazon Prime experience but it's actually very well integrated. But here you have all these monsters that are adding ad supported models because they can't compete with the Samsung TVs of the world and the Pluto TVs and zumo. And so yeah, it's really interesting irony in business. I love the way that things go the karma and the cycles, and how it all comes back full circle. So Netflix was the original disrupter. They came in and they just blew everyone out of the water. No one knew how to respond. And they they dominated this streaming space for over how many years was yours I'm have over a decade well over a decade maybe longer than another the incumbent right now. They're the big dog and you've got all these other platforms that are forcing their hand to adjust and adapt and you know, be nimble in their approach to, you know, to their strategy. Yeah, very, very interesting that the the original players, the original incumbents, they totally knocked him out of the game, and they didn't know what to do and now they're coming back to and reclaiming the audience that they stole from them. They're taking them back. But it's a fragmented market from your point of view. It's phenomenal though because all the free TV, that's your wheelhouse, correct? Yeah, we are. Business is we produce original content and we distributed anywhere we can sometimes it's s5 or a subscription base, so like with Amazon Prime, or Netflix or Hulu, so on. Sometimes it's with the AVOD or advertising based VOD platforms, the Samsung's of the world. But yeah, we have a channel business where we create streaming channels that are all ad supported. So when you open up your Samsung TV, you see a TV Guide, and on that TV guide our channels where people can watch them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, people are going moving back to kind of their lean back experience where it's like not leaning in and picking this particular program on VOD. I'm leaning back and wanting to scroll through and see what's happening. You know, maybe I want to see a Mexican wrestling program or maybe I want to watch you know, some sort of cooking channel and you've been spying on my viewing it. Exactly, exactly. I knew it. I know your habits. They all do the illusion of privacy. I'll tell you what, I don't think there is any anymore. I don't know if there's much we can do about it either. DuckDuckGo is not the answer. So it's much more sophisticated. And you have what aspect of your career brings you the most joy. I'd really like to get to that emotional resonance with the audience if we can. I mean, for me, it's twofold. But the biggest would be just the creative aspect getting to create original series and we're not doing film quite as much as we have in the past but just getting to work on original stuff. Some of it's terrible. I mean, it's not great, right? And then some of it's fantastic and it's just a joy when you get to honestly all of it's a joy not just the not just the good stuff, just getting to work on creative content is what makes me tick. Yeah. And you're very talented. So how do you find your material? Where do you find your talent? So you know, it's a real slog of talking to all the platforms and understanding what they're looking for. Like, for example, right now, true crime is everything. And so, you know, you put out an APB to everyone you know, it's like, Do you have any talented person or person that would be like great on TV that knows something about true crime like a detective or somebody in that industry. He just put out the word to everyone that you possibly can come up with. So we're dictating our decisions based on what the markets requesting. So you, you go out there you actively source for passive job seekers that are already gainfully employed and doing phenomenal work. And then what is the value proposition? How do you lower them into space miles? The talent Yeah, yeah, the talent the the the writers the shredder? I mean, it's a good question because we're relatively new players in the space. This is gonna sound arrogant, but I think my resume is is beefing up to the point where they look they look and see it hey, these guys actually get stuff made. And that makes a big difference. And our company is investing in content and so sometimes we bring money to the table. You know, and that that makes a big difference when you're able to kind of make an offer where everyone else is like come to me when you have a finish series right finished season or something. Got it. Netflix, I understand is jumping into the bidding war. They have a huge war chest now to acquire assets. Yeah, I mean, my understanding from our experience is that the license fees are so much lower, like you know, five years ago, we did a deal with Netflix and we got $200,000 in the same movie. And Todd would make 40,000 Now, wow. And they wouldn't even get us to recruitment. Wow, what do you attribute the downward pressure on pricing to be they just can't they can't they can't afford it. Because they're not playing in the ad supported space yet. They can't really afford the big license fees anymore. It's just this the market is too competitive. That's my my take on it. Is that just Netflix? It's doing that or that's market wide? Oh. Apple plus is like, so selective like so I think they are. They're spending like crazy, but they're being super, super selective in what they do. Amazon's trying to figure out exactly what they're doing. I've heard that they're moving to a, a non licence fee model with like more of a rev share model based on their SVOD situation. I'll put up something on the screen that says Video on Demand since you've used that acronym and been so many times throughout, but I figured people can figure that one out. Yeah, what else would it be five mod. Its subscription. This VOD is SVOD and a VOD is advertising based VOD, which is video on demand. Video on Demand with ads. Got it. So why does it have an ad at the end? Is perfect yet we always have jargon alerts. People hate jargon. Sorry. I always feel like I'm talking to a bunch of people that know what I'm talking about. We don't we have no clue but this is a really interesting business that you're in. So you've always given back to the community. I love that about you. And we worked on something that I thought was pretty cool. I don't know how long ago was seems like forever like another life? Yeah. But you did the films for youth. Can you talk to me a little bit about or us all of us about that project and what motivated it What inspired you to do it? And did that kind of provide a springboard for a girl that scripted also? Yeah, so we I had created in 2003 a nonprofit organization called Red eco group. And we had that 501 C three that was devoted to education of youth and, and general arts. So the government recognized that it's an organization devoted to the arts. So we kept it going, I always kept it alive. And we kind of fired it up in Kansas City with the idea of working with at risk youth, teaching them filmmaking, giving them a sort of purpose and giving them some real way to express themselves and we did that while we were launching another business, Capstone Entertainment Group, because, you know, there was grant money coming in there. You know, it was It wasn't like we're getting rich off the nonprofit by any means, but we were making salaries, very small salaries and we were able to really work on a bunch of film projects. We got our first feature film off the ground during that time period. Yes, it ties directly to girl unscripted, that's when it started. So 2007 was the first year that we shot girl and scripted and we came back and shot in 2008 Again, so this was a natural building block then heading toward this really high level that you achieve, ultimately, but you didn't do it all in one shot. You didn't go from nothing to all the way up there at the top of the industry. You've been doing it gradually. You've been making incremental moves. The added up, there's been a lot of luck along the way like, you might remember that on New Year's Eve or New Year's Day. We had a big article about radical group in in Kansas City Star Tara van Russo, the award winning director from Austin, Texas, who's the Director for girl and scripted she was in South by Southwest back in it's been a while. She saw that article, and she called me up and said hey, do you want to create this movie at the time now it's a series it's a mini series with me and helped me create the youth programming and get all the infrastructure in place and you know, that was a start of a really cool relationship. Excellent. So branded entertainment. You know, I gotta go there because that's my wheelhouse. And that's what we're in talks about all the time. What do you see as the opportunity for small and medium sized business? Is it only for the huge guys that have massive amounts of money to do brands and entertainment or smaller opportunities than, you know, two and a half million $5 million, your business to get into? Alright, so I'm gonna take a long longer path to get to the answer to this than I probably should but we did in 2016, or what, six years ago, whatever that works out to be exactly. We started space mob studio with the idea of helping big web publishing companies scale their video operation. So we worked with like groups like Dow Jones, the Wall Street Journal, Time, Inc. So on and so forth. And then we move to more branded content content. We worked with NBC Universal Chase Bank, Lululemon Honda motorcycles, match.com and then all sorts of small groups in the middle. That was a failing business that the first the first part of it, we just couldn't there were not enough publishers to support the model. So do you. If you would ask me what my biggest failure is? It probably would be tied to misjudging the market for that particular product. Had I done it all over again, it would be exactly what you're talking about. There are so many brands, there are so many, like small businesses, and they all need video and we had a low cost video solution. That would have been perfect for for this era of what's going on because they all need do a tick tock video can you get me a you know, something for Instagram? I need something. Whatever. Well, thank you for opening up that space for rise integrated. I really appreciate it. Yeah, well, you'll do you'll do a better job and you're looped back into it. We'll have an alliance or something because you guys are really great at what you do. But it is a different ballgame. There are opportunities to do some product placement that are not hugely cost prohibitive, right. Like if you just kind of do the run of the set scenario, like we'll just play something and it'll be relevant to your brand and don't worry about it kind of thing. Yeah, I mean, there's there's big agencies that specialize in branded content. You know, I'm talking movies and TV, because that's where my my experiences and those agencies will help you find the placements so when it comes to the smaller ones. I found that a little trickier because that's going to be part of a bigger marketing strategy, which again, that's more what you do than what we did. We were we were sort of video guns for hire, and you're like thinking, holistic, strategy, strategic approach. That's absolutely true. So what advice would you have for film students or people that are aspiring to be in a creative professional like yours? And should they be prepared to pivot a lot like you do on the fly constantly throughout your career in real time? I think so. I mean, if I were to do it all over again, I absolutely would have gone and interned at a big Hollywood agency, or studio or whatever I could do. One of our line line producer on Guerlain scripted is now you know, pretty high up at Lionsgate and he was just in college when the project was going on. So they keep going and put it paying your dues, like, you know, whether it's getting your parents to flip the bill, while you're while you're, you know, taking that next step. It's like grad school, right? You know, you go and do a two year internship. And next thing you know, you're an agent at a Hollywood agency. And, and that's such real it's not like it's not made up if you can get in to one of these places. I wouldn't. I mean, in the entertainment space, that's what I would encourage outside of it. I don't know as well. You know, I would, I would say Okay, so, have you ever felt like thrown in the towel and what made you stay in the game? I just stay inspired. I mean, every day I feel like the towel. You got to dust yourself off and get back to work right? It's you got to make the next call. Like every time you get a rejection you smacks you in the face and makes you should fuel you to the next, the next battle, right? But what I noticed is you don't throw in the towel. You just pivot and change your business model and adapt and evolve and you've been hitting it out of the park do and that Congratulations on all your success. It's absolutely amazing. Thank you. It only takes a second for the towel to hit the ground though. So you might have missed those moments. And with that, hold on to that towel. So thanks again for coming on entrepreneur files. I think you got everybody all pumped up and excited. Even though most of us are not in this industry. I would say what is it like 1/10 of 1% of the people that are doing what you do, but it applies to whatever you're doing regardless of the business the the ability to adapt on the fly to be responsive to admit mistakes, to learn from those mistakes and be smarter going forward. I think that's all we can really do. So thanks everybody for joining us. Eric Keith here, Chief, let me get this right, Chief Content Officer. He is a creative genius too. But he's not officially that title. He is Chief Content Officer. And oh, see that he is an entrepreneur. He qualifies. He is a co founder. So did you sell this business to them Rana did okay, now we know he's a deal maker to this guy. Thank you very much. I guess that'll that'll wrap it up for now. I'm gonna I want to have you back though. That was too interesting conversation not to keep going. Yeah, hopefully it wasn't too inside baseball. But yeah, it's fun. Absolutely. All right. Make it a newsworthy day everybody. We hope you're inside look into the entrepreneur file of today's industry titans. Let you inspired to bust through any walls between you and success. Not literally. Entrepreneur files is not responsible for any property damage caused by uncontrollable co Well, our job here is done. You could be the next entrepreneur we feature on podcast call 816-506-1257 Or does it rise integrated.com To schedule a quick meet and greet with our producer. 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