(Part 1) How Harris Media Built Consistent, Human-Centered Storytelling at Scale

We trace Rudy Harris’s journey from a $300 winter and tungsten lights to a scaled studio delivering over a thousand videos a year, unpacking the decisions, systems, and people that made it possible. We focus on hiring with honesty, building standards that protect quality, and choosing consistency over clout even through pandemic shocks.

• origin in school video and early ministry work
• the “pajama startup” years and $300 winter
• networking relentlessly and a counterintuitive free marketing bet
• when to hire using forecast not feelings
• transparent offers and time-bound commitments for early staff
• missteps from poor oversight and the need for SOPs
• building roles: creative direction and post leadership
• consistency as a growth engine and client experience on set
• pandemic pivot to virtual production and rapid scaling
• pride in creating livelihoods and the pain of layoffs
• the founder’s mindset: worry, honesty, and decisive action

FilmStory Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/filmstory/id1641955836

What do we do: https://myfilmstory.com

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@myfilmstory

Transcript

Meet Rudy Harris & Early Work

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the Story First Podcast. I'm honored to bring Rudy Harris on as a co-founder and president of Harris Media, a creative content studio based here in the Tri-State. Rudy's journey from launching what he calls a pajama startup with his wife to growing into a powerhouse that delivers over a thousand videos annually. Is that is that true? That's what I was researching.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Yeah, so we yes, it is. Some of those are cut downs and changes. But yeah, I mean we're final deliverables is well over a thousand every year.

SPEAKER_00 0:38

Amazing. Nothing short but inspiring. Uh one of his major projects that I was interested in looking

Documentary Roots & Signature Projects

SPEAKER_00 0:45

into and and what I looked into and found out more was the feature documentary Like Harvey Like Son, um, which follows the Ultra Runner Harvey Lewis III and his 78-year-old father as they tackle the Appalachian Trail together, reconciling family and adventure in a deeply emotional journey. Um more recently, they created an award-winning film uh for Life Center Oregon Donor Network, uh a striking moving piece that earned Best and Show at the AMA's or American Advertising Awards or A AMA. Yeah. A powerful example of how Rudy's teams brings weight and warmth to the community and driven storytelling. Uh his work blends artistry with heart, and his studio isn't just a production house, it's a place where stories come to life with care, authenticity, and impact. I can't wait to dig into how he's built that and what's next for him and Harris Media. Ladies and gentlemen, Rudy Harris is in the building today. Thank you so much.

SPEAKER_01 1:45

Man, what an what an intro. Jeez. No pressure, no pressure. Yeah, Jesus. But happy to be here, man. I'm excited. Uh you know, I'm excited to be here talking with you.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Yeah, I'm grateful that for you to take the time, man. Like I said, and this is even more interesting to me because in some ways I'm still on the outside looking into Cincinnati and to North Kentucky and and and the Tri-State, really. Um, we've been here a little over a year. And I've, you know, first thing I did when coming here is like, what's in the area? And seeing uh the amazing work that's in the North Kentucky area, of course, Cincinnati. Um I I was inspired to to be able to reach out, to connect and to just kind of get a step closer into the mind of of what I would say is kind of like the leads, the the leading roles here in video and content creation and storytelling, and and really kind of give you guys an opportunity to kind of share and bring some insight to those that are maybe trying to strive to that kind of position or a little bit more of a leadership role or whatever it is. Um so thank you for taking the time and planting a seed, man. This is great.

SPEAKER_01 2:49

For sure, for sure.

SPEAKER_00 2:50

Happy to be here. Yeah, absolutely. So I want to kind of you know take it step by step. I'd love to you you shared a little bit about how you guys got started. Uh I want to know a little bit about that. Um, the whole life story is not needed, but just painting a solid picture to what that was like in the beginning, like what pulled you towards the the storytelling through video. I know you mentioned did some wedding stuff. Like, how did that start for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:15

For sure. I mean the the the roots, roots, roots of it all was in high school, right? So I went to Campbell

High School Spark to First Jobs

SPEAKER_01 3:20

County High School here in Kentucky, and we had a good teacher, a good department doing video. It was really music videos. Everybody got to do a music video at the end of the year. So you're like, oh, I want to do that. Um so I took that class two years, and that teacher was like, Hey, you're pretty good at this. This is a real job. This is way before social media was a thing. Um, so he kind of was like, You should do this. He pushed me into it, right? And said, like, you're good at it, it's a thing. Um, even though fun fact, my guidance counselor literally, when I told him my plan, he said, You're an idiot. That's all he said. I was like, sick, bro, thanks a lot. Um, I want to I want to meet him now and like bring him in here and be like, come on. That's not true. I'm not gonna do that. Uh anyway, so way fast forward after working some jobs at a ministry, um, in video, and then a for-profit. Um, like I said in the beginning, lost my job, right? Five weeks before a wedding. And my dad was the one who was like, hey, you're gonna regret it if you don't try, right? There's a lot more to that story. There's also some biblical stuff of if the birds don't have to worry, you don't have to worry, kind of a thing, which I still struggle with that one today because I always worry. Um chicken little a little bit, but um so yeah, we we started the business kind of out of we didn't get like um people have talked about jumping off a cliff, right? We got pushed off of a cliff. And we're like, we're either gonna like try to hold on to something or we're just gonna see if the parachute works, right? And so we tried it. It was very scary in the beginning. Um, our first um winter season, which winter typically has a little lull, right? For every every industry, really, um, especially ours. We grossed in like an eight to ten week. I can look it up actually. I have that spreadsheet right here, but I'm not going to um $300. We only grossed $300. Our rent was $875. We had $1,000 in our bank account. It was super exciting.

Getting Pushed Off the Cliff

SPEAKER_01 5:10

Um, we have a mirror that was the big gift of Christmas that year that I gave my wife from Target. It's a full-length mirror. We didn't have one. Um, it was like 20 bucks, and that was genuinely like oh my gosh, $20. That is a lot of money right now. Because we had nothing. We had we really had nothing. We had cameras, like we were fortunate that we already had cameras, both of us did still. We were doing mostly, not mostly stills, strictly stills. Um, so and this is before LED technology and like super good lighting.

SPEAKER_00 5:42

What year this is?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

So I mean this is 2011, but LEDs at that moment, it were we're still using tungsten lights, HMIs and tungsten lights, and some fluorescent like keynote flows and stuff like that. Yeah, that all was so expensive. Eventually, after a few years, I did buy my first LED kit, and it was as soon as I opened it up, I was like, this is just trash. This is so bad. The color accuracy was like, this is gross. I thought I was gonna that was all I could afford. We didn't have any money. Um we had like nothing, and we just so it was a slow burn. Um, but you know, eventually things started to come in place. We did a lot of strategic um analytical. That was the going back to what I said, it's a chess game, right? It's a never-ending chess game, right? Um that's even with client work. Like, even if a project is finished, it doesn't mean the game's over. Um, and you're never gonna win it. And that's a big thing that I told staff here recently. This whole thing is a chess game that will never end. When it ends, it means that we have sold the business or the business died. You either lost or won the game, right? And you've or you've passed it on. Um there is no win. So telling a client X is not like checkmate. It's like, well, the checkmate might be, you're not gonna checkmate them, and the checkmate is gonna be on you. Um, so um, yeah, so anyways, I'm digressing. Uh that's how my brain works. But um, yeah, so in the beginning it was very scary, man. Like it was, it was um, it was just me and my wife. The pajama startup is what I call because we physically were in our apartment waking up, having like some cereal or something. It's like, all right, it's time to get to work. And work in the beginning was like, I don't know what that looks like, because we don't have anything, but it's emails, it's meeting, it's constant, it's building websites that we didn't know how to build websites. We taught ourselves how to build websites, starting Facebook pages, starting Instagram accounts, and figuring them out. And again, this is all the infancy really of social

Survival Mode: $300 Winter

SPEAKER_01 7:40

media, the infancy. We're talking Instagram 1.0, right? Facebook 2.0. Um, trying to figure out how do we make a name for ourselves, how do we do this? Started net, and it was just I would I was the will you meet with me? Will you meet with me? Will you meet with me? Meet, meet, come on, like over and over and over and over until people were like, dude, I'm I'm I'm throwing you away, or I'm gonna meet with you. Like, and so I was fortunate enough to make some good connections in the beginning that then um you can do a map and see where I am today talking to you back to certain moments, right? To go, that's when this happened, yeah. Um, and everything we have built comes from this. But then what's what's the best part for me is looking back through the history where things started to really skyrocket is when we started hiring people. So that alleviated things off of my plate to be able to continue to grow the business, but then getting people in the room that are smarter and better than I am. Um, because I'm not an expert at anything to do with video. I'm not the best editor, but I can't edit. I'm not the best shooter, but I can shoot. I'm not the best DP, but I can't. I'm not the best director, but I can't. I'm not the best producer by the long shot, but I can. So getting people in the room that are all out there, hopefully working, they better be working. No, um, that are all working diligently, that are smarter and better than I am, is where the growth really comes. So while me and my wife might have started it, truly I I will say that it is, you know, we've done a ton of work and we're still doing a ton of work to this day, but our growth and getting these cooler and bigger projects was from surrounding ourselves with better people than we are, than better people than us.

SPEAKER_00 9:20

Let me add in a question there. I'm curious because you you say you started in 2011. Um, and you said like one of the key points to kind of the the bigger and better was bringing staff on. Um you'd have to have a good bit of incoming work or income coming in or gross income coming in to be able to afford that to have the staff coming in. So what was like what was that transition like? It sounds like you got to a point where you were getting some progress into what you're doing, and then you saw the need to kind of bring people on. Is that correct thinking?

SPEAKER_01 9:53

Or like for sure. Yeah, for sure, for sure. So um I recently just talked, spoke with uh a new studio that just started about a year ago about this sort of same thing of when to bring on staff, when to bring on more staff, right? Um then I we basically made through some really counterintuitive moves for a lot of people. When I tell this story, I'll tell it briefly. People go like, what? Um, but I basically found somebody who was like super networked that everybody seemed to

Early Tools, DIY, and Slow Burn

SPEAKER_01 10:20

want to know. Um started doing some work for them, but once I realized how vast their network is, well beyond mine will ever be, and then everybody with decision-making powers and candidly money decision-making powers, everybody wanted to know this person. I offered to them at their office when I walked to a two, we live two blocks away from them. Um, I'll do anything you want for free forever, but I want you to be my marketing director. Tap me in your network, and they're like, sure. I literally shot headshots for this person a year ago. Like, how much? I wasn't lying, it's free. Whatever you want is free. And we've done like four projects, they've all been pretty small, but because of that, everything built from we've made all those networks. So it draws from that moment in a lot of ways, but eventually we just started to get to a volume where my wife was handling the wedding side of our business. We had two different brands basically. Um, and we started to phase it out because we're like, man, this can't be, this isn't for us, it's not where we want to be forever. As well as like, how would we do this once we have kids? Like what we want children, how's this gonna work when we're both gone every weekend and every night for our engagement shoots and all this? This is gonna be tough. How do we do this? So um eventually I was like, hey, we're getting enough through that meeting and all these connections, we're getting enough work that I can look into the future, right? And that's the big lesson as far as when do I hire people. A busy period doesn't equal I need to hire people in the sense of I need to bring them on as a part-time or full-time employee. It doesn't mean, all right, I need it. It's what does the future look like? Because the worst is like, hey, I'm busy right now, and then two months later, you're like, never mind, I'm not, get out. That sucks. I don't want to do that. Um, and nor do I suggest anybody do that. Bringing on somebody and saying, and that's what the first employee was was, hey, I know I have X for X, right? I got 20 hours a week at this rate, um, 1099, I know three months. After that, I don't know. And being very honest, and that's

Relentless Networking Pays Off

SPEAKER_01 12:30

a thing that we try, I tried my very best is to be as honest and open to our staff as possible, both historic staff and even current staff. Um, to be to be, you know, I'm their boss, I'm not, I'm not the friend, but I also want to have a friendly relationship. I want them to feel like they can rely on me, right? And then they can rely on me. And if I'm not telling them the right formation, it's not right. And that comes down to that hiring process. So in the beginning, it was looking forward and going, we have enough right now. Maybe we won't in three months, maybe we won't in six months. So let's just be honest and say, I got this for now, right? And moving from there. It was super scary. And mind you, I think it was like $200 a week. It was like making no money. My son, like, we don't have a lot of money, but we do need some help. And this, it was actually a former bride of ours that was our first employee um who worked in our field. And I love her. She's so sweet and so nice, and she helps so much in so many ways and helped take things off my plate so I could do more stuff and grow the business further. Um, but yeah, it's um it was being very honest. Like, I know this isn't a lot of money, it's but this is all we have right now. Um, eventually they left, they moved um to they were from a different city and moved back. Um, but then we we we sat honestly for a minute. We didn't have any other employees for a second, and then we landed this very large client, uh very large contract that we had to immediately to physically do the project, bring on two editors for one year. It was like a one-year contract. I needed these two editors, and then it was still the same thing. Hey, want to bring you on? It's a year, I don't know what it is after that. Hopefully, we grow that we can keep you on. One of those people are still out there, and this is 2016, is when that happened, that that, and that she is still sitting out there right now. Um, so the other employee left and just, you know, not a bad thing. We love him too. He's he's doing really good things and um he's got his family and it's growing, and that's great. Um, and then we again we kept seeing need, and we once we um once things got full, it's like, all right, we need to hire somebody, but do I have I'm busy now, but that doesn't mean I'm gonna be busy in a month or two months. Um, and a lot of times we'll have we're so busy, I'm like, I get it. So that doesn't mean deplete our resources for this moment, it's what do we have later? Is do we have this forecast of months of operation? How much cash do we have? How much projects do we have? Um, and that's all stuff learn again, tripping our way through it. Yeah, it's not that I read a book or I went to business school or anything like that, it's like finding out and figuring it out. Um, I do think there is a level of naturalness to like the sales side of things. My dad was a salesman, my grandpa was a salesman. There is that in that networking element. Um, but at the end of the day, it has just been figuring it out as we go for

Hiring People Better Than You

SPEAKER_01 15:20

sure. And even in the employee side, like, I don't know, maybe we do it, but we've learned enough that I love to share the knowledge of like, hey, and I told this to this group, they're like, we're really busy, and I was like, now, but that doesn't mean hire somebody because what if you've hired somebody, they left another job that was good. Yeah, you hire them, and two months later you're you're like, Oh, never mind, we're not as busy as I thought.

SPEAKER_00 15:41

Right.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

Well, that sucks. You just maybe ruin that person's life for a while, so don't do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:46

Yeah. Yeah, that's great insight. Um, because that's definitely something you know we've we've played with in times before. We were in Georgia, we had uh two 1099s and two interns. And our whole goal was of course teaching the the interns that are wanting to learn whatever specific craft they wanted, but for the guys that are in it, uh yeah, there was that initial transparency, but I think I like what you how you formatted it. Like you have this, I have this for this amount of time after this time, I'm not sure. So I don't think it it calibrates all the parties involved. And I think that's something where you know maybe uh some people are afraid to do that to uh to bring people on because it may not they may not do it the best way that Rudy might do it, you know, that the the leader of the business might do it. But I think you take those steps that you're talking about. That's that's that's insightful for me it is. Um because there has to be there has to be a a little bit of vulnerable vulnerability and transparency to be fully calibrated to what's happening. Um it's a step-by-step thing, which kind of brings me to the next thought. Like as you're going through that, as you're getting these kind of growing pains going. Was there anything that was like a misstep that you're like, ooh, yeah, I definitely should not have done that? In this time where you're like, you landed the big contract, uh, I think you're like probably like getting to kind of a bigger I don't say living setup, but work environment. Um was there anything like that where you're like you recognize something that either slipped through the cracks or was kind of like a misstep as you're going through this kind of growth 2015 through 20, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Today, what's what's the year is it now? Um so yeah, I mean a big misstep, and it's that we still I still have this all the time. Um one is an attitude thing for me, right? Of like, oh my gosh, the world is the world is falling, the world is ending. Um so that's always been, that's always even back then, um, losing a client, losing a project that you were bidding out, and I'm like, the world is over. And it's like, well, hold on, it's not exactly the case. And like up here is going, oh no, back here, it's like, no, it's not, but up here, you're like, oh my gosh. Um, but um, yeah, I mean, there's always missteps. Um, every day there's some level of misstep, but one thing I will say is um I learned from other people. Um, I didn't just create this on my own. Um, me and my wife didn't just like create everything on our own. We learned and we took lessons from other people that we looked up to. But one thing that I still um sometimes struggle with is not being, especially now that we've grown, and we have basically four full-time editors. Two are true full-time editors, two others um do some producing for us, um, is to not dig into everything and say, I don't like that. So at the end of the day, I want um, like as far as the actual content, right,

When to Hire: Forecast, Not Feelings

SPEAKER_01 18:45

that we're producing. At the end of the day, I want everything to be done to some level of excellence. Um, sometimes it's a cheaper budget or a quicker turn that we can't afford as much time to. Um, but the missed step in the beginning was not having oversight. Like, we've had an employee that did um years ago with a 12 video delivery, 12 different videos. And I was like, you got this, right? Like, because in my brain, sometimes I'm like, just because I understand that doesn't mean that someone else will. And I often don't express everything that needs to be said, right? Or type everything that needs to be said because I'm like, I know how I would do it.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Right.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

And without exactly saying it's like the idea that anybody thinks like me is stupid. It's only me, maybe my dad. We think pretty similar. But um, the idea that they're gonna, they're just gonna naturally know what I'm talking about, or like just do how I want. So I just you got this, 12 videos is two minutes, you know, it's like our thing. You know, just do it. I'm too busy, I gotta do something else. Um, that employee left, had to leave, like for whatever reason, no big deal, not a bad leaving. And then I open up the project and I'm like, this is horrible. Every step in this, the organization of it is bad. The the what they chose to put in this video is dumb. So I had to start over. So we had paid them for probably weeks and weeks and weeks, and I wasn't checking in, right? So, with that employee, that first employee stuff, those early days of employees, without having like I have a creative director now and an executive producer, and then our uh our director of post-production, Lindsay, she knows the standard to which I want because she has largely built it, right? She's been the main person that's helped me build this is our standard, this is our standard of excellence. Um, so I don't have to be as involved, I know that they're gonna do it, but in those early days it was just me, and then I would look at something someone would do and be like, dude, what the heck? And I would get upset for two seconds at them and then realize, well, wait, did I say as much as should have been done? Sometimes it is, yes, but often it's like, no, I didn't say everything, I didn't give them all the information. Um, and also understanding those employees in those early days, um, and even to this day, they're not in every meeting, right? So they don't hear all the words, they're not every shoot, right? They're barely on the shoots, they're not hearing everything. So if we don't, as a company and as leaders, the leadership team of my my of our of Harris Media, don't perfectly articulate exactly what is needed or write it down, or then how are we to hold them to the standard that's in our brains without telling them, right? We have to tell them like this is exactly what it is, this is what it needs to be, these are the key moments of this interview or this shoot, here's the story. We if we're not telling them, then you it you can't you don't have a right to be like, why didn't you do it? Why didn't you read my brain? You know, it's like it's silly. And in those early days, I would go through that and I'm like, dang it, I have to be more involved and not just go, you got this, I'm gonna go. I gotta go do other stuff. And it's like make sure that they understand versus just saying just go. And there are projects like just go, it's a play one, just do whatever, and then we'll talk about it. Um, even like the documentary was very much that as like being very much involved because I had a vision of exactly what I wanted

Counterintuitive Marketing Bet

SPEAKER_01 22:10

it to be.

SPEAKER_00 22:11

Um, so yeah, well, that's that's great because that kind of uh logic or understanding is not something that passes with time. So even now, um like I'm thinking from my perspective, you know, getting to that point where we bring people on, whatever it is, editor or DP, whatever it is, um, there is uh a standard that I have come to build over the years. And that's one of the things I I'm always like, man, I need to I have you know, after what is this now, our 12th year? Like I have the system and how I do it, right? But I need to be able to create some sort of uh like SOP, like something that's tangible where it can be given to whoever we bring on and say, okay, if you're coming on to edit, this is how we go about doing it. And I think that's great because one, that's the goal. Like we want to be able to scale the right way so that way I can uh one, you know, keep my sanity, but also be able to make sure that I'm actually helping this person and not like making their experiences worse than it was before they came in. Um so I think that's that's really insightful that you're you're thinking about that, and that's something that you bring up when it comes to growing and scaling your business to what it is now. Um I think a lot of the times the perspective is on the follower account online, you know, the amazing beautiful projects, which are which are great for sure. The following is great to have, but I think those things are the fruit of you know being able to get into those trenches of how do we uh scale this to a point where the quality actually goes from one person to the next. Purposefully, like it's not. I mean, of course you're saying like you're saying you you trip into things, you learn things, but as you trip and learn, you learn. Like you figure out, okay, this is how this is what we need to do if we're gonna try to scale. Um I think that's great insight. Um because there could have been many other things that you mentioned, but I think being able to to learn how to kind of inventory thyself first and then creating the standard tangibly to pass on is something that I don't think is really talked about as much as like growing the following online and posting on social media every single day and you know networking some hundreds of people a day and keeping up with those connections and emailing everybody. Like there's there's space for that, but there's also how how do I do that if I don't have a system to bring them to? Like, yeah, does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 24:59

100%. I mean it's about consistency. So like we um different field, but bit listen, business is business is business is business, right? There is no differences in businesses in the sense of how you run it. Every restaurant, um, every contractor, every everything, right? A good product, reliable. Um I don't want to say affordable, but the price matches, right? Like there was a restaurant in Covington years ago that I got a um private select turkey sandwich. Literally, I saw them get the Kroger bag out, put a piece of turkey on just like Wonder Bread, right? Like, and it was $12. And I was like, I'm sorry, what? Like you better be roasting some turkey back there for months or like days or whatever. Uh it was like, what the heck? But business is business is business, and it is about that consistency, right? So that turkey sandwich has to be at this level and it has to be at every time. And it's that, it's that. So our project, no matter if it's uh $500 project or hundreds of thousands, right? Whatever that project is, this is the minimum, right? Even if it's a cheap project, our excellence level is here. Yeah, and it's that's it. We need to be giving the same experience, um, same attention, no matter who it is, no matter who's walking the door, no matter who's emailing us, um, to everything. It's the same mentality

Transparent Contracts and First Hires

SPEAKER_01 26:20

as that restaurant, as a contractor, as a woodworker. Doesn't matter, it still has to have my excellence on it, um, period, and it's creating that consistency over time. And truly, when I say I'm not trying to be like very complimentary of the staff, but it is truly because of the people that have interviewed here, and then I have taken shots on their skill level and their expertise to continue that excellence. And we do come back sometimes and be like, yo, or especially new editors, like, don't do it that way, do it this way. But it's not like you suck, get out. It's like here's what we need it to be like. This is more online, more how we want it to be. Um, so that does happen. But creating that consistent experience is what brings people back, especially in our field. Unless they're had they have the word vice or chief in their title, they are likely not gonna stay at that company forever. Unless they have chief or vice, probably not even vice, they're not gonna be there forever. Likely, some are, some are lifers, but marketing director, maybe for a while, they're probably still gonna move on. Like that, it's just a cycle, it's not we're not back in the 60s, or it's like I've worked here for 40 years, it's like I've worked here for six, then there for three, then there for 10, then there for five. That's what happens now. So if you're making a good impression on this marketing manager or this communications manager or whatever, and you're given that consistent experience, they're likely gonna move on eventually. Um, and for better or for worse, it's whatever, if they land another job in the same field and they get the same title, they might bring you with that. I mean, a lot of our clients are contacts from certain organizations that go on to another place. And then if you're really good, you've maintained that one relationship that they left from still, and now they've brought you to another one. And then if you're really good, that person, seven, they leave, and now you have like all these things, and that's what it is. It's creating that consistency both of the experience, and that's one of the things we try to do is like onset, it's fun. We want to have fun, we want to be jovial, we want to do it seriously, and we want to do it well, but we also want it to be like that was a fun experience, um, and not go like, I mean, the video's good, but they are jerks. We don't want that. It's like we want them to have a fun environment always, um, and a good environment, it's creating that consistency and monitoring that. And I think to your point, it's overlooked. It's like, I gotta have uh Instagram and I gotta have, and yes, you do, but if you're not consistent with your deliverable and the experience, eh, who cares? Yeah, cool. You have a really good Instagram ad campaign, and you got a lot of likes. Cool beans, bud. Who cares? You gotta have the experience first.

SPEAKER_00 29:08

Yeah, and sometimes that's not the the popular vote, you know, to trust or to to move forward in making sure that the client is fully like satisfied from all the way to export, you know, the process more so than your own following. But thank you for sharing that. Uh so we have starting in 2011, we have uh bringing on people, um, getting that traction momentum going, getting your name out there, like building that clientele. Um, you're building something you have people on site, people on the team, one or two people, I think you mentioned. Um now, how do we go from that area? That sounds like 20, I don't know, 17, 16, 17, somewhere in there.

SPEAKER_01 29:54

18, yeah, roughly, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:56

Okay, so how do we go from there to where we are now? Um in 2025.

SPEAKER_01 30:01

Give me the interesting.

SPEAKER_00 30:04

The quick one.

Systems, SOPs, and Standards

SPEAKER_01 30:06

Yeah, sure, sure, sure. So, I mean, weirdly, the pandemic. Um it was super scary. Um, we had we had three employees at that point, one part-timer, two full timers, and we had to pull them aside in our old studio and say, hey, I have three months of cash. After that, I don't know. Hopefully, we get some projects, but we all have to go home. And we'll keep we'll we're gonna we're gonna do our best. It might have been two months. Or might have been more. I don't remember at this. I could ask one of them, they're still here. Um, but so we did that. But what happened in the pandemic, um, it was nothing for a minute. Nothing, nothing, nothing. We were building our our new studio at the time. We kept working on it. But what happened is a lot of people turned to video to still tell their message, especially nonprofits are like, hey, we do these events, right? And these events are what give us our money for the whole year. We're like 50% of our revenue comes from this one event. So we got to make it a virtual event. So we're doing a ton of virtual productions. Um, and ultimately that, as well as other things and strategic maneuvers and stuff, got really busy. So 2020 was like, well, this is crazy. We grew like crazy. Um, and then 2021, we grew even more because the pandemic was still lingering, and because we made those contacts in 2020, it kept on going. So in 2021, if I'm if I'm accurate, we had to hire four people.

SPEAKER_02 31:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

Um, and it was fast. It was fast. Um, but also the the thing, and it's a it's a really it sounds counterintuitive. Um the more people, the more money, right? That's obviously the more people, the more cash that we have to have. Totally respectful. But the more people, the less of that nitty-gritty editing and stuff I have to do, thereby I can go and grow the business and run the business, versus I'm gonna edit, I'm gonna shoot. Because back in the day it was I'm gonna edit, I'm gonna shoot, I'm gonna network, I'm gonna post, I'm gonna clean, I'm gonna maintain gear, gonna, you know what I mean? It was all that. So as we grew and gave people that are better at all of that than I am the keys to that castle. You're gonna do this and I'm gonna do this, then I could focus on growing the business and running it, right? Um so it is counterproduced. Yeah, please do.

SPEAKER_00 32:28

Wow, okay. So okay, that's so that's a big change. Pretty quick, like you said, pretty quickly. Like when that happens, you said that was 2020, 2021, like the following year. What how are you doing with that? Like going from that to that, and I get what you're saying, like you you you kind of can delegate and give people, but like mentally, like, are you feeling overwhelmed at this point, or is it like, Whew, this brings people on, that's a relief? Like, what are you feeling like at this time?

SPEAKER_01 33:07

Yeah, it's interesting. Um, so kind of all of the above, maybe, but um, one excited because it's like, dude, we we we can do this right now. Like, we have this volume of work coming in that we can do this. And and people, one of the biggest questions I get asked, I I get um I've been on panels, I've been asked to speak at colleges and stuff, and one of them, and then you know, not to ruin a question you might ask later, but what are you most proud of, right? What project are you most proud of? And I'm like, dude, what I'm most proud of isn't a project. There are projects I love and I like are near and dear to my heart. I did a lot of good things for the client andor us. But the thing I'm most proud of is that something that me and my wife started in our PJs, also just a quick fun fact, I'm a crier, so I might cry as I say this, so apologies, but um very emotional person. Um, something that me and my wife started out of necessity, jumping off of being pushed off of a cliff, and we're in our PJs. Something

The Cost of Poor Oversight

SPEAKER_01 34:00

that we started has been able to grow to support people's lives. Um, people have bought houses, people have bought cars, people have sent kids. You're good. I see it. Um it is affording opportunity for people, right? Um, that the merits and the talents and the skill and the work of those individuals is what ultimately is giving them that opportunity. But me and my wife at least paved something. We built something to allow that to happen. Um, that's what I'm most proud of. So at that time, when I'm bringing on four people, I'm like, dude, we're doing it. Look at what we're this impact we're having on these people's lives and and thereby their kids' lives and these lives. Um, but then when you step back and you look at the overhead, that's when you go, uh, oh, what did we do? But it, I mean, for a while it was just perfect. And and last year, unfortunately, we did, I think it was last year. I can't I get confused. No, it was definitely last year we had to lay off somebody because we had a bad, we had a bad moment and then a bad forecast. And we're like, oh gosh, I I still it was one of the one of the worst things that's ever happened for me in the studio. We've had lots of crazy things that I would you would be like, no, that has to be the worst. If it wasn't, it was laying off somebody who was talented, awesome, great person to be around, fit everything that we wanted in the studio that we had to let go just because of fiscal things and seniority. It was like purely that, right? Um, and that sucked. Um so to answer your question, it was at the beginning, it was like, dude, this is sick. Um, but then eventually you go like it is still sick, it's still amazing that we've made these, um we brought people in and able to pour into their lives um and expand what they do and to for them to get more experience, but it's also like it can be overwhelming. So to every every other Sunday I get the email payroll is due, buddy. 7 a.m. The audacity of ADP to send a 7 a.m. on a Sunday morning email, and I shouldn't check it, it's my day really, but payroll is due. I just go into this, like I mean, I know on because I check books like three times a week, if not three times an hour, but I'm still like, oh, what if something I don't know? Like, so it is overwhelming to answer your question, but at that time it was just like this is really cool, right? We're gonna we're able to do this.

SPEAKER_00 36:28

Yeah, man. Great insight. That's great, man. Um, well I'm that's really cool to hear. I mean, I I can imagine, and that's why I stopped and asked, because I can imagine the the duality of thought there. Because it sounds like, I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, it sounds like that was a major like I don't want to say pivot or turning point, but just like a major like time where it's like, okay, we can either try to ride this ourselves and like do everything and run ourselves ragged and probably save on a good bit of overhead and see what happens. Or we can really put our feet down, bring in some trustworthy people. I would assume at this point you've you've developed a little bit of a an SOP of how you're kind of doing these things a little bit

Consistency as Competitive Edge

SPEAKER_00 37:15

and like push that way, that would free up your your brain and your ability to kind of grow the business, which would help the future forecast kind of a thing. And that's that's kind of a kind of a I don't say scary, but kind of a scary point where it's like you kind of have to choose like where you want to go. You can't really do both, you know. So that's an interesting uh that I have yet to experience um at all. So that's really that's really cool. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah, of course. Sweet.