Building a Streaming Platform with Revry Co-Founder & CEO, Damian Pelliccione

Damian Pelliccione, Co-Founder and CEO of Revry, shares his incredible transformation from Toronto actor to entrepreneur in Los Angeles. He reveals the pivotal moments that shaped his journey, highlighting the importance of community and the mission to uplift new voices in the entertainment industry.

Damian discusses content development and founding Revry, a free streaming platform supported by advertisers. He provides strategies for creating original shows, from in-house development to collaborations with trusted production companies, and offers valuable guidance for filmmakers on getting their content licensed and featured.

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Cinematography for Actors is a community aimed at bridging the gap between talent & crew through our weekly podcast & community events. Our weekly show supports the filmmaking community through transparent, honest & technically focused interviews with the goal of elevating the art of effective storytelling.

Transcript

Entrepreneurial Journey of Streaming Network CEO

Speaker 1 0:00

One of the biggest things is like, when you look at it, like we're predominantly Gen Z, millennial, focused audience. I don't know how we got to that. I know that we are focusing on that from a marketing perspective, but I think it's the content and kind of like to your point we were talking about earlier mission which drives so much of who we are. You know, we are authentically the consumer of this product and and we are really focused on finding ways to uplift new voices within our own community.

Speaker 3 0:31

This is the Cinematography for Actors podcast.

Speaker 4 0:34

More than a podcast. Cinematography for Actors is a vibrant community devoted to bridging the gap between talent and crew. Each week, our show offers transparent, insightful conversations with industry leaders. We unveil the magic behind the scenes, from candid discussions about unique filmmaking processes to in-depth technical exploration. Join us in unraveling the intricacies of filmmaking, one episode at a time. It's more than just cameras and lenses we aim to inspire, educate and empower as we peel back the curtain on the art of effective storytelling. Now on to the episode. Hi, everybody, this is Cinematography for Actors podcast. I'm your host, haley Royal, and I'm seated here with my co-host, indiana Underhill, hi. And we're seated with the CEO and co-founder, damian Pelliccione of Reverie, hi Hi. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me. We're really excited to have you here today.

Speaker 2 1:29

I have a lot of questions about just the business.

Speaker 4 1:31

I mean, we've been sitting here talking a little bit about business and the things you learn while you run a business I'm so curious about. First of all, what was like the seed that built this idea?

Speaker 1 1:43

for you.

Speaker 4 1:44

And then what's the first step to creating a streaming network?

Speaker 1 1:50

Yeah. So this it's funny because, like we just celebrated eight years consumer facing- Wow, congratulations and this fall will be nine years since we had the idea. Cool, the idea came to me back in another life when I first moved to los angeles. I'm 43 years old now. I was an actor actually fantastic now. I went to performing arts high school in toronto, moved to new york from toronto from born and raised in toronto oh my god yeah, yeah that's so.

Speaker 1 2:22

I'm born and raised in unionville, markham. I am so happy, yeah that's so funny, she knows we love canucks every time we meet a canadian, it's really exciting.

Speaker 4 2:32

I have like finally energy.

Speaker 1 2:33

I'm like oh my god, we can, we can relate. Yeah, we can talk about a lot of a lot of things okay, sorry continue um, like how celine dion is gonna open the olympics it's gonna be amazing.

Speaker 3 2:43

it's gonna be amazing, it's going to be amazing.

Speaker 1 2:45

I'm so excited. Have you seen the documentary? No, I'm dying.

Speaker 3 2:48

Okay, I keep seeing it on Tik TOK, little snippets.

Speaker 1 2:50

I know, me too, I keep wanting to watch it.

Speaker 2 2:51

I haven't watched it yet.

Speaker 3 2:52

And.

Speaker 4 2:52

I'm like, she's like.

Speaker 3 3:05

I think that's exciting have a whole podcast on just Celine Dion.

Speaker 1 3:06

Yes, we could anything Canadian please. Oh, it makes me so happy, so, anyway. So, going back, like I, you know, coming from a performing arts background and, after 9-11, moving to Los Angeles. So I've been in Los Angeles now it's kind of crazy to say since 2000, october 2001, so it's been 20, it'll be 23 years.

Speaker 4 3:22

I'm like 23, 22 years, 23 years you're a local, I'm a local, stayed in los angeles past. That, like, I feel like 10 years, is where people are like oh, like I've done, like, if they haven't already, they're like, you know, like, but you did it. Yeah, you stayed more of my adult life has.

Speaker 1 3:42

I've lived in los angeles than growing up, yeah, in toronto, which is wild to me when you, when you cross that kind of like barrier and you're like holy, like how did this? How did the time fly right? So, one of the things I've always been curious about his business, and I've been very entrepreneurial my entire life and so, um, I had a roommate of mine who won the first emmy for Best Broadband Drama back in 2007, dionna Nicole Baxter, who's a super fabulous actress and writer, creator, director, producer, extraordinary, filmmaker, extraordinary, and so she really inspired me to just start doing things on my own, and so I started producing. And then, from producing work, you know, and at this time, in 2007, 2008, this was all about the web and youtube was just created and launched in 2006, so, like, we were creating short form, serialized content for the web, and so, um, that parlayed into um, working for a startup, uh, and then working for another startup, and then working for another startup.

Speaker 1 4:42

All, all startups that were based in entertainment. Okay, um, so one was like casting, one was platform based, one was, um, a filmmaker social network. Another one was, um, you know, focused on, like, uh, software for live streaming, software for podcasting and it just kind of escalated and elevated into being an export at technology for entertainment, specifically for making and creating for entertainment. And so I was working for. The last startup before I started reverie I was working for is this german-based startup out of cologne, germany. They were called make tv and they were b2bB, business to business, saas, so software as a service platform that essentially powered a lot of live streaming for news organizations, and at the time I was actually the director of business development because my predecessor before me, she, got pregnant and in Germany they get a year of maternity leave right.

Speaker 4 5:43

What a dream Paid year of maternity leave right.

Speaker 1 5:44

What a paid year so I took over her beat, like I was just North American, focused on Hollywood in LA and like some you know folks in Canada, but ended up like working in the international television business on the you know, on the sas tech side, for like Al Jazeera and Med Car in Singapore, and going to like all these different parts of the world and seeing what television, how it operated outside of the United States. Yeah, and this is you know, 2010, 2000, 2009, until basically like 2015. And what really blew my mind, I think, was we were at this kind of precipice where streaming was essentially just taking over and streaming is a global experience, it's not a localized experience. Youtube was the first one to really define that. Um, the barrier to entry is is just pick up and watch Um. And so this is when I was sitting in my um, my hotel room, waiting to do IBC, the international broadcasters convention in Amsterdam, which is in September, and I don't speak German, non-spekendie Deutsch. I was trying to learn German. I don't know one thing Wo ist der Schwulenbar, which is, where is the gay bar? That's the only thing I really needed to know.

Speaker 1 6:56

And so I watch the Apple keynotes every year, like from the time that Steve jobs was doing it all the way till tim cook, like it's the olympics, like it's just like I have to have all the products.

Speaker 1 7:08

I am self-proclaimed apple file, I like, live for the culture of apple and so I'm watching it. They're talking about apple tv, and apple tv, specifically in 2015, had introduced tv os, which was essentially a unique operating system that was for just Apple TV. Now, they had already existed, but it was a closed source system, and Roku devices were really popular, and Amazon Firesticks were really popular, but they weren't really open source, and so when Apple does something, it really changes the game. And so there was this light bulb that went off in my head in amsterdam, like waiting to do ibc not not speaking german and watching the apple you know product launch on my, on my laptop, on my, on my computer, which was, oh, we should start a streaming service that is specifically for lgbtq and allied communities. Um, and so it wasn't until about a month later, my husband, who's also my co-founder, chris Rodriguez, or COO power couple, we could do a whole podcast on working with your, your partner.

Speaker 3 8:14

That's the whole separate session with power couple. So let's please eventually do that.

Speaker 1 8:17

Oh my God, I feel like we're going to write a book or do a podcast about the do's and don'ts.

Speaker 2 8:22

Um, do a podcast about the do's and don'ts.

Speaker 1 8:23

Um, you should. That is a whole other conversation. But, um, but through thick and thin, um, you know he had broken his iphone. And this is back in the day when you go to the genius bar and you go to get your glass replaced. And so I'm playing with a new apple tv and I'm new about tv os. I'm like great, just pack it up like I'm waiting for my husband to get his phone fixed, like I need to have this in my life, and and then I plug it into my television.

Speaker 1 8:45

And the first thing that you do and you think about it is like when you go to an app store is you search for apps that are of interest to you. So I typed in lgbtq, lesbian, gay, all the acronyms. Nothing popped up, nothing. And so that solidified that there was a white space in the market, there was an opportunity, there was a need, and so, um, uh, two weeks later, my other two co-founders, alia j daniels, our coo, and lashawn mcgee um, I sat them down in chris and i's living room at our little house in echo park and, like, pitched them this idea for a streaming service. That was for and by and um. Immediately they were like we're all in and for context, like alia and chris went to law school together, chris was actually the attorney at the time for shark tank and delhi's cats and storage wars previously and like was also doing like people's choice awards, and so he quit that job to come do this.

Speaker 1 9:39

Alia was also an attorney, but specialized in like small business and employment startup, hence why coo and so great. So um, and she didn't really like the job she was working at.

Speaker 1 9:48

So you know she's like great, I'm all in and leshawn whatever yeah and leshawn was our chief product officer for the first um seven years and she was like, yeah, I'm also. She was an editor by trade. She actually was editing a feature film that was actually in holly shorts, ironically enough, like a long, long time ago, and like she had um worked with everyone from, like gabe, a different, a graduated the american film institute, you know, really had a eye for programming. And so, um and uh, we started this with no money, um, you know, we're now venture-backed, um vc-backed, yeah, which was that's a whole other story.

Speaker 1 10:24

And struggle being four equal diverse co-founders focusing on an LGBTQ, b2c, you know, business and consumer media product, at a time where no one was really investing in media or didn't understand how this would all shake out. And so, you know, we immediately started building the application with a developer in New York and we started going to all of our friends who were like filmmakers and like, give us your web series, give us your music video, give us your short, give us like like it's rev share. It's just like YouTube, like this is all we can afford right now. But, like you know, we're really going to make a big deal about it and we launched at San Francisco Pride 2016. And I remember this vividly. We drove up like all four of us with, like our pink, like really bad self-printed.

Speaker 1 11:12

T-shirts with QR codes. Back before, qr codes were like a thing. We were like what do we do with this, what do we do with it? And these flyers that were like double the size I don't know why we did like theseers that were like double postcard size and we thought they were a good idea and we gave away like 5,000 of them between, like the Saturday before Pride and the Sunday of Pride. We did San Francisco Pride because it's bigger than LA and it was just tech focused. And what we did is we found ourselves at the end of that weekend being interviewed by Macworld, which is the biggest.

Speaker 3 11:41

Which for you as a big fan, yeah.

Speaker 1 11:46

I was like, oh my god, I was geeked. I was geeked. I was like, oh my god, I can't believe they want to talk to us, but it's obviously. It was like a queer journalist, um, oscar ramundo, who's still a friend of our company, who was like I want to write about you guys. This is really super exciting to be the first lgbtq tbos app, and so that came out about a month later, end of july, around this time 2016, and immediately 5 000 people were using our app and we were in 10 different languages. Um, you know they had replicated the article and we're getting calls from all these other media outlets to be interviewed and cut to. Today we have 7 million monthly active viewers, we we say, across the globe, with about 80% of those 75% of those being in the United States. Congratulations. Over 1,000 hours of content. Working with major studios like Sony, bbc, lionsgate, warner Brothers who are fabulous and license this content. Working with lots of filmmakers and creators creating lots of amazing.

Speaker 1 12:44

We just won a GLAAD award for our original project Drag Latina, our season two of our Spanish and English hybrid drag competition series, hosted by Carmen Carrera, formerly of Drag.

Speaker 3 12:55

Race. I know I was looking through all of the originals and I was like there's so much diversity in genre too that you have, and it's so cool. So, are you guys the production company on that? Or are you saying like, just give us stuff and we'll like, kind of, we're the distributor of?

Content Development and Acquisition Strategies

Speaker 1 13:11

it. So what we do best is distribution, marketing and sales, like at our core, and technology. That is like what a network, a streaming network, is great at. Yeah, but we also had development backgrounds. So all of the originals are majority of the originals that you see. Um, we developed in house or we may have acquired and then continue to develop with our team. Um, we work with production companies to service a production Cool. So, um, and sometimes we just see really great shows that come to us that are either finished or maybe halfway finished or our concept, and we're like, hey, this totally fits the tone and the voice of the network. We really think we can get behind this and we feel like we can find an advertiser to support this At the end of the day, because we're not a subscription platform, we are a free-to-consumer platform, so we are supported by our advertisers, much like you guys.

Speaker 1 14:04

It's so funny. It's a very similar model, like with you guys in the workshops, and so we you know, the content that we develop and that we create has to have integration to a brand for it to work, for us, for us to pick it up, for us to want to want to, you know, put our weight behind it and and and so for a vast majority of the content that we have, it's been unscripted because it plays really well with brands. It's the easiest to integrate. But we're now branching out and we're starting to think about scripted content for next year well, you have like what's the railroad one, the?

Speaker 1 14:39

yes, oh, that one we acquired. So the production company is the barn um. They are really really amazing friends of ours. They actually produce a lot of our shows. We, because we just love them. They're great at musicals, um, um, but that was their short, was their thesis project, um for usc, and we were like that's how we met them, was they submitted it to us and we're like you guys are really cool, would you want to work on some shows with us and cut to today they actually they produce, I would say, almost 50 of our original.

Speaker 3 15:08

That's great, yeah, I mean cfa like hayley and I are all about. You know you work with who you love yeah, like that's why you design your own things because, you're like, I want control over, like kind of who I'm working with and, and you know, diversifying that community as much as I can through the people that are like-minded you know, and and so I love to hear that you're like, yeah, and we met them and it worked, and now you know it's like a long-term relationship we have with them, with multiple things on the pipeline.

Speaker 3 15:34

So how does it work for, like, our audience that's listening, who is obviously going to check out reverie? But yeah from for the creator standpoint for filmmakers, can you talk about what it looks like to work with you guys on a development thing, versus when they already have something and they want to like get it up on the platform?

Speaker 1 15:51

yeah, so great question. You know, getting things up on the platform, I always say, is like our low-hanging fruit, right? We're always licensing content, um and um, and so if it's a finished work, it's really just a matter of like reaching out to us with a screener and within about a month we'll get back to that person afterwards and say it's a yay or nay, or we'll give you an offer to license the content um, sounds just like such an open submission just like.

Speaker 4 16:18

It's beautiful, look like we'll look at it like don't worry, don't be scared, just send it to us. We'll look our.

Content Acquisition and Relationship Building

Speaker 1 16:24

I love that very much. No, it's really like we're in very much an open door. Our one criteria is we now don't distribute any short form work. So we are looking for full length movies and we're looking for full length series. Series do really well because, of course one, it makes more money for the filmmaker, it makes more money for us because we have more sustainable audiences that way.

Speaker 1 16:51

But we love film, obviously lots of film, from documentary to narrative, you name it, scripted, unscripted, like we have tons of stuff, um, that we distribute. Um, and I think like one of the biggest things is like will if most folks it's funny and like here's like a little like do and don't, right, I think one of the biggest things is like when pitching a service like reverie with a finished work and then we'll go back to like the second part of the question, um, you really have to think like, does this fit into what I'm seeing already on the platform? You would be surprised how many people send us stuff and I'm like great, what's your favorite show on reverie? And they're like oh, I've never watched reverie. And I'm like like, I'm like, so you don't even, you're not even the audience, you're not even like looking at who the audience is like do your homework, just do a little bit of homework.

Speaker 1 17:29

It will go miles and miles and I will ask that question, sometimes strategically, just to like get a little bit of like, you know, um, um, like a gut check on, like, is this person paying attention to? Like what we're actually putting out? Um, most people are today like. I think it was like more though that's more like the early day, like mistakes, when we weren't so recognizable as a brand. Um, I think, you know, one of the biggest things is like, when you look at it, like we're really we're.

Speaker 1 17:56

75 percent of our 7 million users are under the age of 45. We're predominantly gen z, millennial focused audience. I don't know how we got to that. I know that we are focusing on that from a marketing perspective, but I think it's the content and kind of like to your point we were talking about earlier mission which drives so much of who we are. You know, we are authentically the consumer of this product and we are really focused on on finding ways to uplift new voices within our own community. Um, you know so we're not doing like coming out stories those have been so done before and we're focused on minority communities. You know what be it? Um, you know black, hispanic, indigenous, aapi audiences and in communities or intersectional communities where we're showing, you know, a very diverse cast or a very diverse story that has never had a chance to really be seen or had an opportunity to be have a platform like RevRave.

Speaker 3 18:54

What I love about it as well is like because you're like you even said it's like it's the low-hanging fruit to kind of getting working with that relationship with us is there's not a lot of platforms that have submission links ready to go, like that, and what that means is that you're creating an industry that showcases filmmakers at every level. As long as that story aligns, yeah, and I think it it's like kind of emotional because and I imagine that's like why it's so wonderful for you as you've been developing this but and hayley probably feels the same as like a lot of people you know that we work with that I know that she knows are constantly like how do I get it some, how do I go?

Speaker 3 19:33

to even start like how do, I do I have to get a sales agent. Do I feel like?

Speaker 3 19:37

no right manager. Do I have to like have money to just do my own pr like, and I think it becomes a dead end of like. I have this amazing film that I want to share that has an interesting story, but because it's not you know, I don't have 10 years of credits behind me no one's willing to look at it and I love that you're like we'll take at it, like we'll at least give you the green light of like yes, we will check it out and then let you know, and I think that's so rare in this industry and that email, by the way, goes to like me, chris, our chief content officer.

Speaker 1 20:13

It goes to Alex Albright, our head, receipt and like give us sometimes it could be two weeks and sometimes it could be upwards of a month. It just depends on, like the season and like how busy we are.

Speaker 1 20:22

We're still a startup, we're still a small team to you yeah, yeah and sometimes I have 500 emails to answer but um, but um, but no. But I mean like we respond and we watch everything. Like you know, if I'm not watching something, alex, her team is watching something, and so much you know. Going back to what you said before, is it's so much of this business is relationship is like, and also just being a marketer yourself, like being a filmmaker today, being an actor, writer, producer, any like type of creative.

Speaker 1 20:54

You actually need to learn marketing it's 95 it's 95 yeah, exactly and I think, like learning to market yourself in a business to business, like whether it's a streamer, whether it's you know um, a agent who does below the line, or, you know, because film distributors are dying, film distributors are disappearing. I mean there was like three that like wanted us to buy them this year because they were shutting down their business model, because the business audible is no longer sustainable. When we live in a creator economy, when we live in a direct consumer economy economy, or when you can just go on a streaming service and, like, you know, all the right people will get that email immediately and respond. So there is um and everyone's fighting for content. So it's you know, people will watch, people will respond to you, people will seek you out sometimes, too, like if we hear that there's like a festival hit or darling, uh, like holly shorts, for instance, or any, or, or outfest, or any of these other festivals, lgbtq or otherwise, um, you know, we'll sometimes seek it out.

Speaker 1 21:54

If we don't, if we think that we can compete and what I mean by that is like, if it's at south, by or or or um like sundance or sundance like we're, we're gonna get, we're gonna get right, we're gonna get bought out by you know, someone is gonna beat us to the punch from like an amazon prime or netflix, um, but we're still interested in those, in those pieces and, believe it or not, there's still a lot of stuff from even those festivals that get, you know, glossed over.

Speaker 3 22:17

Yes, so we're like great, we'll take it like you have the potential to actually work with those filmmakers in the long term.

Speaker 1 22:22

Yes, like getting bought out and then being like, okay, yeah, maybe if it's another festival, darling, you'll come back to you if you're like a larger, larger, larger and it's funny, I can't say who, but there is a amazing filmmaker friend of ours that came to us with a project that had a festival darling all throughout last year and he came to us with this project and we're like, of course, like, this is phenomenal, it has all these celebrities in it, you made this yourself, you, you know, crowdfunded and it has had so much traction.

Speaker 1 22:53

We would love to put this on reverie and make this like an original and create an entire like strategy, pr, marketing, release, programming around it. So we do have, like some of those legacy kind of relationships, but, like this person we hadn't worked with in like since probably the inception of Reverie, like in like five or six years, and came back around and said, hey, I have something I think would be perfect for you guys, because I don't see this living anywhere else unless I just throw this out on YouTube, and so you know, I think, like you know, we were talking about networking earlier. Networking is such a big part of that and one of the things that I've always taught my staff or anyone who's ever worked for for me or for reverie is develop a relationship, not the business deal, because that relationship will take you you don't know where that's going to take you. It's going to take you, you know, 10, 15, 30 years from now out and that person could be sitting in a totally different seat than they are now.

Speaker 3 23:45

so having that relationship today could be building your equity and your capital for tomorrow the relationships are happening like on the beach at someone's party at someone's birthday party, or like at dinner at like a group dinner at someone's home, or you know like birthday party or like at dinner at like a group dinner at someone's home, or you know like they're happening in places where it's not a business meeting set up that you're attending.

Speaker 3 24:04

And it's like the follow-ups or the casual instances, you know, and I and I think it takes a lot of people a long time to learn that. But if they can learn that earlier on, I think you'll have more authentic relationships come out of it, more authentic problem um projects and like it'll just be kind of a better industry yeah, you know, and so I love that you said that, because I we talk about that all the time. It's like yeah, no, those deals happen at like dinner, they don't happen like or in the hallway.

Speaker 1 24:30

That's all like going from one screening to the next. Yeah, I mean go to film festivals.

Speaker 4 24:35

Go to film festivals. The an argument we have a lot over here is like you don't have to have a project in the festival to go. There are so many people I know who refuse to go to a film festival if they don't have a reason to be there. The reason can be just to casually run into someone that you'll probably see at another film festival in a couple of months and to slowly begin building an authentic relationship with that person. You don't have to be winning a film festival to go to it, yeah.

Speaker 1 25:05

No, totally, it's networking. I mean, we were just at Ken Lyon, which is the marketing and advertising side of Ken, thank you. We were the first LGBTQ business to ever present at can lions and we presented a study that we did with nielsen, um, around lgbtq audiences and connected tv, which also had never been done. We like to do, we like to break a lot of firsts, um, and so we, we like to be very creative with our presentation. So it's like you know, I got up on stage with an executive from nielsen and talked about you know, oh, this is what we this, these were our findings about lgbtq audiences, which over index, obviously, in connected television, um and um, and then we put on a vogue ballroom show and we flew in.

Speaker 1 25:46

We had flown in six voguers from paris, our executive producer of our big vogue um ballroom show, pride ball, which just aired, actually last night, our second annual um sponsored by bt. Plus, yeah, pride ball. So like voguing, you know. Obviously you probably have seen legendary yeah, wait, I actually didn't know, oh my god. So tell me, can I be so now I know that you, now I know you didn't go to the madonna concert or the beyonce concert last year.

Speaker 4 26:11

No, I'm just, I'm teasing, I'm kidding. No, we were building a startup. I'm a gaga fan too. We didn't go to any. No, I'm just teasing, I'm kidding.

Speaker 2 26:15

No, we were building a startup. Oh, I'm a Gaga fan too. We didn't go to any concerts last year. No, but it's funny.

Networking and Industry Relationships

Speaker 1 26:17

I only say that because it was amazing to see Beyonce and Madonna like making Vogue like such a big part. I mean, madonna, she, you know Vogue the song Vogue like that comes from the 80s era but it's on Pose, which was Ryan Murphy's show on FX, and later there was Legendary, which was on HBO Max, and so you know we both those shows, unfortunately, were canceled after three seasons. One was scripted, one was the actual reality competition show. But we've always been very big in the voguing ballroom community and so it's a dance tournament like that is the the basic way to like kind of describe it, kind of like a dance battle.

Speaker 4 27:00

Yes, it's a dance battle, exactly yeah, and so we put on.

Speaker 1 27:04

We did this um big show last year pride balls uh, season one, and it was sponsored by nike and hankles got to be like hairspray, hair hair gels, and so we had, you know, different categories that voguers will walk or battle and dance to, and we had a panel of judges. We put it in front of like 800 people at Neuhaus here in LA. This year we did it at the Frankie downtown. Bet Plus was our big advertiser and the categories they have to dress up or kind of bring a narrative story in their form of dance.

Speaker 2 27:37

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Speaker 3 28:09

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Speaker 1 28:30

Cool and so bt plus was really focused on don't tell mom the babysitter's dead, with nicole richie, their remake, and so we had don't Tell Mom the Babysitter Vogue's categories from service industry outfits like from the original film, to just so much great goodness that focused on promoting their new film on BET Plus, I don't know. No, no, no, no. You're going to come to the next ball. I'm going to invite you to the next ball, but you're going to come to the next ball. I'm going to invite you to the next ball, but you're going to watch pride ball.

Speaker 1 28:58

I get really into it for all the time, but it's super. You do get into it Like it's very. You can't because you're watching a competition and it's something so unique and super fun. So we bring like these things to our, to these industry events like Cannes, canline, and so we brought these vogers down and we put on a ball on the terrace and the blazing hot heat and the like french riviera, in front of 2 000 people who were just like what is this that I'm watching like this is so cool they were there for analytics and then they got a vote ball.

Speaker 1 29:28

We flipped it and they were just gagging, like they were taking photos and videos, and can was so excited like they were, like we want you to come back.

Speaker 1 29:36

So smart, yeah, wow so this is the type of stuff that we do. We look for disruptive, creative ideas, whether it's, you know, in these places. But you know, going back to kind of what you were saying, like with can, yeah, like half the business that I did were not in the meetings that we created prior to going to can. They were like literally walking from one event to the next in the hallway like or just passing a friend and being like, oh my god, I haven't seen you. How are you? What are you working on? What are you doing? You know and hearing about what's next?

Speaker 3 30:05

yeah, that is the most fun stuff when like your relationships, like in passing or catching up, turn into something where you get to see that person more and also work on something together. That's like the best part of our industry and like what I'm always telling people. Hayley like comes from the actor side originally, and when we first started doing cfa she was like networking is a dirty word. I hate networking. I was like I love networking. It's my favorite thing in the world.

Speaker 4 30:26

It's the most powerful invention, like you know, like and now, like hayley loves that, would she do?

Speaker 3 30:31

you still hate the word no, oh cool.

Speaker 4 30:34

No, it's not scary anymore.

Speaker 4 30:36

Now you know like now that I have experienced this side, it's the side of the industry that I think a lot of actors never see because, yes, we are trained or somehow just like have it in our heads as a collective that the way we have to break into the industry here is to go to our job as a server, go to acting class, go home, learn our lines, do our self-tape, be a good girl and wait. You know like yeah, and, and networking is the scary thing, that sometimes you have to go to this thing and like bring your cards and like everyone around you is scary and has your life and your future in their hands and like it's not like that on other sides of the industry.

Speaker 4 31:22

On, on any in any other avenue. You can just go, have a good time and make some friends and then someday be like should we shoot something you know like it?

Speaker 3 31:32

it happens so organically like hey, you knew that person. Do you guys want to? You guys should connect over this and stuff like you. I think you guys would be good. You know, it's like kind of like matchmaking too a lot of the time, which I love, so the idea that it is or it's organic and it's friendship is true.

Speaker 4 31:46

Yeah, and it's very exciting to me and it's something that I love. Now we changed your phone, we did it?

Speaker 1 31:52

no, but you know what's funny is it's like I I think like the scary part if I, you know, can dive into the psychology of this is that you're not conditioned because you weren't taught how to network like when you were learning your trade.

Speaker 4 32:04

No, because it's just important that you're a good actor.

Speaker 1 32:06

Right, exactly, learn your trade and that you know how to do your trade.

Speaker 1 32:08

Yeah, and that should speak for itself and people will fall over themselves at you Right, that's not how it works, but no, but you have to like, you have to market yourself, and it's the same way of like. You gotta market yourself to agents, you gotta market yourself to managers, and I think of like. What I think people get scared of is like you're marketing, you're creative, but you actually already know how to do marketing. You, you had to figure out how to get that server job, so you had to market your resume to get an interview, to get a job, right, yeah, same thing, same concept. You, um, you had to find a roommate and you were looking for somebody, and maybe you interviewed those people and like or you were looking for places that you wanted to live. So it's like you were networking, you were networking to figure out where to live. So it's the same basic tools and model.

Speaker 1 32:53

But I think where people get tripped up is that like, oh shit, but this is for something that I really want and it's high stakes. Yeah, exactly Because we hold it on this in our psyche, on this like, like high pedestal, and so part of it, I think, is developing the confidence to be like it's the same fucking thing Excuse my French and if you take that, you actually inherently already know how to do this, and if you just take away the high stakes and the fact that this is something you really want and you just go after it, then you actually it'll just happen, like things just start to happen.

Speaker 4 33:24

They all fall into place can be lowered. Like you said, take away the high stakes. The stakes can be lowered by continuously going to these places and there will always be more people to meet and there will always be more chances to create with people, but you have to go many times.

Speaker 1 33:39

Yeah, even if you don't have a film in the festival yes, totally, even if you don't have a film that should be in, like that should be in a t-shirt go anywhere, just even if you have don't have a film in the festival, go.

Speaker 3 33:50

What does that?

Speaker 1 33:50

mean go to holly shorts go yeah yeah, go to the party, go, go support independent but so canline, that's amazing yeah, so that was a really big turning point for us and we had so many new advertisers and new business that came out of that. Um, and just to be looked at internationally in that way, I think was really super exciting. Um, and and previous year, last year, 2023 we are also the first lgbtq company to ever present at an upfront, a tv upfront, and it was at the new fronts in new york. So tv up fronts are like when all the studios and networks will present to the advertisers like they're shiny new shows that are coming out for the fall. Um, yeah, and so we did this at the new fronts, which is the digital version of the tv up fronts, and you know, there's's like Samsung there and there's, you know, snapchat and there's Facebook and a whole bunch of big, you know, and there's also like streamers and Vizio and a whole bunch of other folks Netflix, you name it. We're on the multicultural stage with Hispanic and black and API and other types of networks or smaller streamers in our space, and we were the first LGBT company to ever present there, and the way that we did it is we did instead of getting up and talking about analytics, which is what most of them do.

Speaker 1 35:09

Here's a sizzle and some analytics about our new show. Come on, dove Soap, you want to sponsor this. We did a 15-minute, so we, we, oh my gosh, and it was actually the barn slash, the silo, that same team that actually produced it. Yes, I'm gonna send you guys the link. So we did it in the vein of the Wizard of Oz and I played the wizard and so, and so it was really fun and we brought in talent from our shows and we did it as a musical because, you know, we're big, we're gay, we want to, we want to do everything as a musical, and, and what really disrupted what people's opinion was of a tv up front was really unique and we were voted by forbes, the number one thing to watch at the new fronts, over over amazon and roku, which, for context, they spent like over five million dollars on their new fronts, and we're like a baby fraction, can you?

Speaker 4 36:02

imagine the relief that all of those advertising executives or representatives felt when it wasn't one more yes, with the fucking grass. Yes, yes, yes you're like it's a musical and they're like oh, thank god, they're like wait we're gonna entertain you, we're staying here. We're not going to go out and get coffee for this one.

Creative Storytelling and Business Scaling

Speaker 1 36:22

No, no, no, totally, and I think it shocked them and disrupted them. There were so many phones up and so many people. So this year we came back to the new fronts. We did cabaret, which is our cabaret theme don't hate me, she knows this.

Speaker 3 36:36

I'm gonna admit it I hate musical cabaret. I love them.

Speaker 1 36:39

You should go see it on broadway. It's really good, freddie redmond and is amazing.

Speaker 4 36:44

We're getting indiana to broadway.

Speaker 1 36:46

Yes it's really, and you know what's funny. We went to go see it before we did the upfront this year and it cabaret was. It was experiential. So the moment you walk in there's like players and they hand you a shot of sherry. This whole thing is. It's like Broadway is I think 2.0 is like experiential.

Speaker 1 37:05

There has to be. You can't just go sit in a theater Like. It has to have an experiential element and it was amazing, so kudos. So we did cabaret and I played, I played the host and so the MC, and I even sang money, money money. Yes, yeah, we did money, money, money. We did that it's part of it, yeah I know you totally did it, but I just know I like that. But that's funny that you hate musicals. But you know that part, you know that part.

Speaker 3 37:30

I love cabaret.

Speaker 1 37:31

Everything else I hayley knows my impersonation of musicals the best it's just like someone talking and then they go.

Speaker 3 37:37

But what is it Like? It's? Just it just starts into something.

Speaker 1 37:40

Yeah, but yeah I love cabaret, but it was. It was one of those moments where that room, because of last year, was full. There was like not a single, it was standing room only. So much so that like even the conference staff when I was going to check in, they're like we loved you last year, we're taking our break so we could watch your presentation this year. I was like, oh, my God, that's so cool.

Speaker 3 38:05

Thanks to you, but you are representing like what you do at your company. So it's like the most authentic representation of like working together, like with. Reverie. And so that's why it's so cool, cause it's not like you're just doing it as like a marketing gimmick, it's like you're doing it as like a marketing gimmick.

Speaker 1 38:14

No, like you're doing it because like that's what your audience is, that's what your brand is, like that's what you're trying to get out and like promote and like it's amazing you know that's like a fun way and it's creative and it's cool, so that's awesome and this is where I think, like even from filmmakers is like how are you disrupting with your projects, like what we've already seen? Right, and so you really gotta like think outside the box, to do things outside the box, like take away everything that they taught you in film school and like just create something totally new and authentic that no one else could like replicate, because it's so you Totally.

Speaker 3 38:48

I mean like and this is like, but Chris Nolan's original student film that he like put out that's available for everyone is the weirdest film I've ever seen.

Speaker 1 38:57

I've seen it. It's so weird, it's so art house. It's so art house, so strange.

Speaker 3 39:02

It wasn't like I'm going to conform to this reference and make it like this so people can see I can do that. It's like, no, I'm just going to make it my own and like it's just this, like really strange short film and it works, like it's just like you can see the thought behind it, you can see that and it's just so. I love that. It's like, yeah, you take it's almost like you take your foundational tools and you're like okay, I have that. Now what do I throw out the window? What do I keep for this and how do I like bring in my own?

Speaker 1 39:25

personality. Well, your personality and your story. I think that's the most important thing.

Speaker 1 39:30

Yeah, that creators and filmmakers like don't do enough of or they feel like they need to like like siphon right like because I feel like the most interesting stories are that person's own story, because none of us have the same story, none of us come from the same background, none of us have the same struggle like and, and I think, like for me, when I started to really amplify who I was like right now you're getting boy Damien, but I do identify as, like, non-binary as well as male, and when I was at Ken Lyon I was in full makeup and heels and an amazing, like you know, outfit.

Speaker 1 40:08

I I transition between you know my, my female, my feminine self, as well as my masculine self, and I think that that's who I am. That's when I'm most confident, when I feel most, uh, most real, because it's it's, it's, it's who I am, it's how I express myself, it's, and so I think, like when, when I started to do that and I didn't actually come out as non-binary until the pandemic, um, business shifted for me in a big, big way, yeah, as an executive and even just with our company, I think when you can authentically be who you want to be and amplify that through your storytelling, like, people are attracted to that. There is a law of attraction, there's a magnetism to your authentic self that nobody can replicate to excel yes

Speaker 4 40:53

100% but nobody can replicate and there is.

Speaker 1 40:56

there is such power behind that and I think that there is such audience behind that.

Speaker 1 41:01

Right, because what I noticed is, even in like business to business spaces, when because I never look like this in a business business space I will totally be full femme and wearing some amazing, you know, full face of makeup and like dress or frock or like oversized, like you know, heels yeah, we saw your headshot on the website.

Speaker 1 41:19

Yes, yeah, my Instagram. Right, it's empowering for other people to want to do the same. So I have like queer and non-binary folks come up to me like, oh my God, it's so great to see someone like me in a position of power, who has a voice. Or I'll have like the uncle, the aunt, the parent of like a trans or non-binary or queer kid who tells me their story of like their kid coming out or their kid transitioning, or their kid, you know, being an ally to the community because they're part of their LGBTQ. You know student association, and I'm like that is so empowering because what I am doing is giving voice to the voiceless. What we are creating with our network is a place for stories at all levels to be told, both independent or studio.

Speaker 3 42:05

Yeah, incredible. I want to talk about the scaling. So you went to san francisco, pride you had 5 000 people, you're at 7 million. What? What happens after pride? Like back then, right, like so you got the. You hand out the, the double-sized flyers yes and then how do you scale a company?

Speaker 1 42:23

between year one and year eight. So a lot of blood, sweat and tears, a lot of um ups and downs, a lot of sacrifice, um, um, you know you scale, you, you scale a business by having a firm belief in what you're doing, um, and not giving up, because, also, you know to say that I would say, 30 of success is still timing right, and so the timing between 2016 and 2020 was not ideal for us, but we sustained ourselves and kept ourselves afloat and kept going and kept trying and kept pitching investors and VCs and filmmakers and studios and even distributors to like give us content on spec. And it wasn't until the pandemic where we had a social shift, obviously, um, with black lives matter, and we also had a economic shift because there was a lot of money and resource being pumped into um, you know the arts and creative and and investment specifically, and so there were, you know we are black owned 50 women of color, black owned 25. Chris is hispanic and gay. I am non-binary but I am also queer, and so 75 ali as an ally. She's our ceo, so she identifies as heterosexual, um, but lashawn is lesbian. And lashawn is also a veteran 25 veteran. So we check a lot of our D&I boxes.

Speaker 1 43:47

But that wasn't always the purpose. We just knew, by being four equal co-founders, that this was something that we wanted to have as equitable for all of us and build together. So we all had skin in the game, so we would see this through. That, I didn't know at the time, would be our greatest strength to scaling our business today. Because your diversity of thought that's one right. And the diversity of thought allows alia and lashawn and chris and myself, being from canada, like our backgrounds, being so diverse in our education, the way that we thought, the way that we um, you know, tackled problems um with the business, like hurdles, um, and, and so I think that was a big part of it.

Speaker 1 44:27

Um, and and you know there is a podcast that um shell sandberg, the coo of facebook, meta um, talks about it's on masters of scale, um, and she's like when she had pods at facebook where it was all youero, cis, white males coming from like the same five Ivy Leagues, and then the diverse pod of engineers coming from different schools, different backgrounds, different races, ethnicities, gender markers, sexualities. That pod that had diversity of thought, like shot up about 50, outperformed, 60, 70% over the one that didn't 50, outperformed 60 70 percent over the one that didn't, um and and and I. I believe that that has been our biggest strong suit where, economically, people weren't necessarily believing that prior to 2020, then 2021, 2020 started to happen and investments started flowing our way because there was a. There was studies that forbes put out around being minority co-founders and, by the way, that includes women, women in general.

Speaker 1 45:35

That's a minority, not male not straight male and only like, like, like, like five or 6% of all venture capital was going to that yeah, the minority founder. But yet we gross 40, 50 higher margins and and it's like kind of like, oh, the rest of the venture world started to wake up and realize the investment world. Hey, we need to start taking, we need to start paying attention to this and these are actually really great investments and that's when we're able to get a lot of venture through the door and really build the business.

Speaker 3 46:05

wow, and so to ask that second part of the question yeah, oh yeah, sorry, we went on so many tangents I know I'm and I'm so grateful for all of them it's a canadian and I say my boyfriend recently brought um, bought tim horton's coffee. That I came yes and I was really excited about it. I was so sweet and he was like I found this. They were like, came up online and I thought you might enjoy it and I was like it actually is. Yeah, it's like our McDonald's coffee, but it's really good yes.

Speaker 4 46:29

It's actually good. We have Tim Horton's pods here in the studio we do. I made us buy.

Speaker 3 46:34

Costco business Tim Horton's pods. And so when people come, I'm like Tim Horton.

Speaker 1 46:38

I love it.

Speaker 3 46:41

But no great people can submit do your homework. What about if and I think maybe the answer, and you tell me, is that they should submit what they already have and then build a relationship with you? But how can they work in development with you and looking at originals?

Speaker 1 46:56

yeah, so we put out. It's funny, it's like this is around the time of year that we look at the most originals. Our cycle for development is like q3, so so July, august and September, and that mainly has to do with how we are attaching brands Brands we're pitching throughout the year, but mainly it's a year in advance. So we're already in 2025. Planning 2024 is completely obviously spoken for and we're looking for gaps. So, like, do we already have a show that's around voguing? Yes, so we're not going to look for another voguing show. Do we have a show around hispanic drag, drag latina? Yes, we're not going to look for another one of those.

Speaker 1 47:36

We're looking for gaps that we are not necessarily paying attention to or not necessarily like in our purview. Yeah, so this is why watching the content and like being a consumer of the network is really crucial in order to pitch them. New ideas, um, things that we are always thinking about right now is like food, beauty, fashion, um, looking and, and gaming. Video gaming is really, really big for our community and we don't have any shows that surround those concepts, um, and so those are things that like you heard it here, like our ideas that you could pitch us right now, because there are advertisers that want to put dollars behind it, and that essentially is we.

Speaker 1 48:16

in turn, take those dollars and use that as the production budget.

Speaker 3 48:19

And what does that process look like? So say, someone was like I want to do something in gaming.

Speaker 1 48:23

Yeah.

Speaker 3 48:23

What is the next step that they need to do in order to reach out to you?

Speaker 1 48:27

Yeah, I gaming. Yeah, what is the next step that they need to do in order to reach out to you? Yeah, I mean, look, having a calling card like a one sheet, yep is really crucial. Um, um, which gives the who, what, when, where, why. Um, you know the five w's, I think that. And and submitting that through our submission. Um, you know, email through that, that, that part of our website on reverietv which can be found at the bottom of the website.

Speaker 1 48:46

It's a submit your content yeah, and we take new ideas like all the time, like we're looking and if, if it's something, you know that one we don't need a whole bible. You know, I don't. We all we don't want to pressure folks to do too much work, because that's kind of like it's like a courtship, right. So it's like, hey, you're baiting me with that one sheet where I'm like, oh, there's this really cool queer design show. We don't have a design show. Oh, and we're talking to Home Depot. Oh, my god, like let's get a meeting. So then we get a meeting and then at the meeting we'll be like, okay, show us the whole concept, give us the whole treatment, the bible, the like, the six episode arc don't put the cart in front of the horse.

Speaker 1 49:22

Yeah, yeah, totally yeah, don't give away too much, like you know, and and and. Then that's where we're really making decisions on, like okay, and asking a lot of questions and being inquisitive and being like, does this fit in what we're doing, is it? And we take it to committee with programming and marketing and sales and like, pick it apart and think like, is this something that could work? And also, is this budget and is the timeline realistic for us and for the person? Right, right, um, you know, if your last project was only sixty thousand dollars, I don't think you should ask for six million dollars for your next project. Like they're, you know it's, it's, it's almost like.

Speaker 1 49:58

I use also the example of like working your way up the ladder, climbing the corporate chain. It's similar like if you are only as good as your last project, but that doesn't mean that your last project doesn't. Your next project doesn't need to be an elevation, but you, you can't level jump like it's, like it's got to make sense and like our budget range is between, you know, anywhere between two hundred fifty thousand to a million per project. So we're not like at a Netflix budget range.

Speaker 3 50:22

We're not at like a Hulu you know what's great about that is it's a fantastic place for a lot of authentic creators and storytellers to come in at yeah, because you're gonna get people who are like really doing it out of sheer passion and haven't like sold out or something like yeah so that's actually like a really great but you're creative with their resources and know how their networks already and already know how to do that.

Speaker 1 50:46

Yeah, like you have to. You have to be a media preneur, like an entrepreneur. So it's like I want like being a producer is being a media preneur. It's like, okay, like, what resources can you tap? Like, because we're still a startup, we're still tapping resources.

Speaker 1 50:59

I still wear multiple hats, you know, we're not at that level where we're. You know, and I don't think I ever want to be at that level, we're like so big that we're just paper pushing, like one thing. You know. And that's really what a studio is, you know, today. It's like you get hired to do one thing and just think very myopically I can't do that. I have adhd, really bad adhd. So it's like I have to be a hundred places at once. Yeah, um, but like we want to see and even like going back to like this filmmaker which I can't say who, but like that I'm really excited about coming back full circle to work with is he is a mediapreneur and he is really smart and he has a resource pool. He taps his resource pool to make the content that he makes, to market it, to evangelize it, even to sell it. And that's the type of person because they're not, they're entrepreneurial in their approach. That's the type of person I want to attach myself to because they think like us.

Speaker 3 51:49

Well, it's the like-minded thing again, and they work like us Exactly. Yeah, always, always, oh, my God.

Navigating Industry Relationships for Success

Speaker 4 51:53

Dan, thank you so much Did you have one, yeah, and you were going to ask a question I wanted to mention something I've said this before about film. For me, when you were saying, yes, if someone sends something that's like a queer design show and oh, we're talking to Home Depot, that also is like very, it all kind of like depends on like time and coincidence of what's going to work for you in that season of programming.

Speaker 4 52:20

So I think it's just important for people who are putting their work out there, creating something that they're proud of and then submitting to any place. Right, you're not chosen, it doesn't mean you suck yeah, it often means that it just isn't matching up time wise and you just have to try again. Which is what you said 30 percent of the time, yeah, yeah, it's all about, uh, which advertisers we have right now kind of thing and like maybe try again soon.

Speaker 1 52:49

Or like and I'm so glad that you said that, because I don't want filmmakers to get discouraged- when it comes to timing. There are so many projects that like will say like hey, we're going to pass on this right now and it just has to do with like bad timing for us or just not matching like what we already have ahead of us.

Speaker 1 53:05

But I really want to help and like I'll introduce you to other folks. Or like hey, come back to me in like six months if you haven't already like sold this. Yeah, and, and I think one of the things is like, like you know, I remember being an actor, like you'd ask for feedback from the casting director, even if you didn't get the role it's from the studio, the network or whoever that you're pitching and be like hey, can I ask why you passed? Or like was there?

Speaker 1 53:27

something that I can improve upon, either in my pitch or in my deck, or or, like you know, give, give me the why. Yeah, we'll always answer that question. That's great, right, like, and I, and I'm happy to answer that question and I'll be honest, you know, it's funny, as it's rare to have people who do ask that question right, and I get super excited because I'm like here's a filmmaker who wants to improve and you're starting a relationship and it's starting a relationship feedback.

Speaker 3 53:53

It starts a relationship because you're now more like like engaged with that one person rather than just like, oh, we're gonna pass this time, and they never follow up with you again. I can remember annoying.

Speaker 1 54:03

Yeah, no, it's not, it's totally not. I can, because there's a way to do it.

Speaker 1 54:06

That is, you know, you're asking professional, professional yeah out of, like, I would say, 500 projects in the last, like you know, eight years that we have been pitched or put in front of us. I would say that, like, maybe five to ten ask for feedback and it shocked me because, like, I won't offer it unless it's, you know, asked. But, like, the ones that ask for feedback, those are the ones that I'm still we're working with today, or I always keep in mind, or I'll come back to and say, like we, we recently did this great commercial with rain valdez, who was actually the first trans person to be nominated for an Emmy award. Um, and amazing filmmaker, actress, writer, director, creator, um, and she had started a production company and I've always wanted to work with rain and she had sent me her deck and the timing of it was we need a production company to do this Pantene ad. That's for pride.

Speaker 1 55:01

Um, rain, like it's not a huge budget. I know this isn't like like it's not a huge budget. I know this isn't like, you know, razor tongue or one of your, your, your Emmy nominated projects, but do you want to do this? She's like hell, yeah, I have. This is timing for me. It's great, I'm looking for, like, something to do and she made this beautiful, amazing, like kick-ass 30 second commercial. That to me, I think, is like I can't wait to like, I want to put it up for like awards and stuff like that next year.

Speaker 2 55:26

It's so good.

Speaker 1 55:27

It's so good and and and and. She was so proud of it too. But it was like the timing of that relationship was she just happened to reach out and ping me and I was looking for somebody and immediately like you're hired, let's go. You know, so you never know like you. It's so much of it is just being consistent.

Speaker 3 55:45

Yeah, and being and remind people you're, you're around in there, Like not in a desperate way, but like. I think one of the best pieces of advice I ever got from an agent was like be at the top of someone's inbox, you know, because we get overloaded.

Speaker 1 55:57

Rain was always at the top of my inbox. There you go, you get overloaded with information socials like you get buried and stuff Just Just like.

Speaker 3 56:03

Maintenance on relationships is like just checking in or updating people about what you're up to is a reminder that you exist, and a week later they might be like oh wait, we need a DP or we need an actor for that thing. Like Haley might be great, or, you know, maybe we think of Reverie for like that next. It's just so interconnected and I think once people start to realize that like you're not a bother, like it changes the way that you work in this industry so I'm so excited about everything reverie's doing

Speaker 1 56:30

damian thank you so much for sitting down with us.

Speaker 3 56:33

We can't wait to um get you on to talk about power couples and coming back. We're talking about the book, book release yeah, that's gonna be my, my next book awesome well, we can't wait to check out all of the stuff you have on the slate for next year the panting commercial vogue, ball right pride ball, but the vogue ball room yes, cabaret, I'll send you guys a link too. Yeah oh, thank you so much we'll see you next time.

Speaker 5 56:56

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