The Filmmaker's Guide to Explosive Growth: How To 2.5x Your Video Business

In this episode of Studio B Sessions, we sit down with Jacob, founder of Poor Bear Stories, to explore the journey of building a successful video production and branding agency in the heart of Orlando. From a chance encounter at a filmmaker meetup to launching impactful collaborations, Jacob shares how community, creativity, and resilience helped him scale his agency by 2.5x—even in the face of a global pandemic.

We dive into the behind-the-scenes strategies that fueled Poor Bear Stories’ growth, from niching down and strengthening client relationships to the importance of consistently showcasing work. Jacob opens up about the real-world challenges of balancing full-time staff with contractors, pricing projects effectively, and navigating the highly specialized contractor defense space with authentic storytelling and strategic marketing.

Whether you’re a seasoned creative or building your video business from the ground up, this episode is packed with lessons on branding, scaling with purpose, and staying adaptable in a fast-changing industry. Don’t miss this inspiring, unscripted conversation filled with practical insights for filmmakers and entrepreneurs looking to grow their own creative empires.

Chapters

• 0:04 Connection Through Adversity and Triumph
• 12:43 Entrepreneurial Journey Through Pandemic
• 26:55 Niche Market Strategies for Business Growth
• 33:56 Scaling Production Efficiency and Value
• 45:57 Maximizing Production Value in Video
• 51:41 Production Costs and Redundancy Benefits
• 1:01:57 Exploring a Failed Business Model
• 1:07:24 Lessons in Building Passive Income
• 1:15:11 Investing in Video Production Gear
• 1:29:14 Building a Skilled Video Production Team
• 1:41:14 Invoicing and Payment Structures
• 1:49:35 Video Production Equipment and Pricing Strategies
• 1:58:07 Building Clients Through Reputation and Relationships
• 2:04:38 Navigating the Contractor Defense Space

Transcript

Vipul Bindra: 0:04

Jacob, my friend, thank you for coming, taking time off your busy schedule, like you're literally about to do this and fly to DC, so I appreciate you taking this time and coming out to chat with me.

Jacob Centeno: 0:15

Thank you, thank you thank you for having me. It's been two years or three years, something like that, at least two, and a lot happens in two years exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 0:25

I remember still it was again. I felt like this guy's name comes up a lot david's meetups, yep and um, we were sitting there. That's when we met and I think it was instantly hit off because I felt like we were trying to do similar things building a team, helping uh you know, clients with better branding, better content, right? Do you remember anything from that meeting?

Jacob Centeno: 0:47

Like it's been a while, yeah, I mean so I watched from afar, because you've been really involved with David Moorfield, and one thing that really piqued my interest was how you were taking care of the community. So you bought a box or a booth at a game I did, and you hosted everybody, uh all the creators, and it was really cool because you know, we're typically the ones who are like serving other people in their booths, right like we we do vip, right uh, incentive trips, and we we film other people getting spoiled. But then you did that for the creators here in Orlando and I was like, wow, like this guy is, he's got the right outlook, he's got like the right heart. So thank you, I appreciate it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:33

I've told that story before, but it was such an amazing experience. So, funny enough, I'm about to literally go to the third year of that event where I got that. So I attend, you know, a lot of business events and I try to be very active in the business community here in orlando and, um, it was one of those charity auctions where it's like, oh, you know for, and then you know, uh, solar bears or a partner, they're like, hey, we'll give you one of these exclusive kia boxes or whatever you know whoever wins the charity. And at first I'm like, okay, I don't have 30 friends like. And then I was like, hold on, I do. If I call the video people, I do. And then it was immediate. And then you know, obviously I bid. I didn't know if I was gonna win and you know how auctions are, you keep bidding and it keeps going higher and you know it's a very expensive thing.

Vipul Bindra: 2:16

Yeah, point is I won and then I was like holy crap, and then, as soon as, like David. So this is the date because you Cause you know you can't pick a date.

Vipul Bindra: 2:24

And I was like David, cause I'm not going to throw a meetup he, he's the one does it. So I was like let's partner, I got the space, let's bring people in. And it was an incredibly fun night. I don't think anyone cared about the actual hockey that was going on, but we were all just happy to be event. They said you want this and I put some number down, and then you know, keep kept coming back and somehow won this. And then I was just happy, like you said, and I'm like if I can bring 30 people in, it would be stupid of me to be like okay, here's three of my family, right?

Vipul Bindra: 3:01

yeah and then that's it, the the whole box. No, I'm gonna throw a party, and I'm gonna throw the party for my tribe, which is the filmmaker tribe, and so that's awesome. Were you there, and I don't know you. You say you watched from afar. That's kind of sad. I wish you were there, that would have been fun. So so you watched his vlogs and that's how you found out about us, I guess definitely so first one, two, three blogs his, you popped in relatively quickly and I never forgot you.

Jacob Centeno: 3:31

And then when we did the Winter Garden meetup I forget that taco place or whatever, but I made it a point to go and say what's up to you.

Vipul Bindra: 3:43

Yeah, and it was awesome. Immediately I was like, oh, this and say what's up to you. Yeah, and it was awesome. Immediately I was like, oh, this guy knows what he's talking about. Plus, you know you, like I said when, when talking to people you could tell, uh, I felt that energy where it was like, oh, you're going places and obviously you want to connect with other people, you want to go places together, right and um, and that was great and I'm so glad you approached me. So tell me, I want to talk. Obviously we have two hours. We can touch everything hopefully, but I want to talk then.

Vipul Bindra: 4:09

So where were you First of all? Hold on Before we start anything. You have, I think, the I don't know most interesting company names ever, because you know Pooh Bear. I get it Because every time I see your company. I just want to say pooh because you know, we all, we're in orlando, disney, but it's not pooh bear, it's poor bear. Yeah, please explain your company name to me yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 4:30

So it's funny because I did a podcast with somebody and he like introduced my company as pooh bear stories and I had this. I have this great reel where I was like, yeah, I basically risked the success of my company on being called Pooh Bear Stories for the rest of my life.

Vipul Bindra: 4:45

Basically, and it's come true. You have to make an effort to see that R. Yeah, you know. So why the name? And then what does it mean to you?

Jacob Centeno: 4:55

Yeah, so the short story is it's basically a nickname. I'm Mexican, raised in a Mexican family, and my nickname growing up was Pobrecito, or poor little boy or baby boy, and over my life to this day, my mom still calls me poor bear, her poor bear. But I adopted the name because I wanted to. For me, it has an underdog ring to it and, like I think one of the deep things about my story is that I never really had uh like a, a firm father, a firm it was really hard for me in my life to have like this fatherly role, uh, something that I just, I just like loved, wished I had.

Jacob Centeno: 5:46

Home alone is like one of my favorite movies, because it's like this quintessential Christmas with a family and presence. But, um, I, I, I grew up, uh, my birth father wasn't a part of the picture, and then my uh, who I called dad, was killed when I was 15. And so when I started my company, or actually just before there, there were a lot of things like legally I was never adopted by my father and so I didn't get benefits, I wasn't recognized by the federal government, by his service and his sacrifice, so I had to kind of like claw my way to success and I've had to learn everything. It hasn't all been handouts. I've certainly had help, incredible mentors in my life, but I really loved and embraced Poor Bear because I just just I felt like I'm an underdog and like I'm just fighting for my opportunity no, that's incredible.

Vipul Bindra: 6:52

Now that you explain, it makes sense that it's not pooh bear, it's you. You're the pillar bear. But but how take me back? I mean that I can't imagine, uh, being 15, having your, your dad, pass away and, I'm guessing, military right. Army. Yeah, okay, okay, he was a Navy SEAL, navy SEAL, okay. So you know, in service, right, I'm guessing? That happened, okay, so that must be traumatic. Yeah. Plus, like you said, the thing about your biological father. So now you have a father figure, you lose it at a young age, which to me at 15, I can't imagine, because the things we do at 15 are crazy.

Vipul Bindra: 7:31

Your brain is. I don't know about you, but I was thinking about everything right, all the good and the bad. So last thing you want to do is, you know, get into bad habits or whatever is what. I'll keep it at. Yeah, so how did you manage that? How do you keep yourself sane? And, like you said, I like the attitude of you're like I'm an underdog, uh, but how did you keep that mindset instead of leaning towards you know the other side of it yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 7:54

So in some ways I embraced kind of like the good values that my dad taught me, right, like he raised me on never give up, always try your best, um, kind of be a good, uh brother to your teammates, help out your, help out your family, help out your friends. So like I embraced a lot of those things. But then, like this other part of me was like crushed and just destroyed and so I actually like put the pedal to the metal and went 100 miles per hour into a brick wall. Um, I, I almost I got a dui when I was 19 and I almost killed my three best friends. Oh, wow, yeah. And uh, my mindset that that was four years after my dad was killed in my mindset for like literally from 16, 17, 18, 19, was like if God can take my dad, then I dare him to take me too. Like my dad was only 36 years old and it wasn't fair. So you know, I was like I had like this it's an unfair mindset and so when did that change happen?

Vipul Bindra: 9:07

Was it that DUI or that incident?

Jacob Centeno: 9:10

Yeah. So I mean, you know, teenagers can be pretty dumb I definitely was, and I feel like it took a while to really sink in. But the incident getting arrested and, you know, almost killing my three best friends it was just like a brick wall and it forced me to really gain perspective. Like I was in college, you know, I was on a scholarship. Do I want to honor the scholarship for the opportunity that it is, or am I going to throw this away? And so, for me, I was like, okay, it's time to make good decisions again.

Jacob Centeno: 9:56

And, um, I, I still partied, you know, I was still crazy. I, I, I didn't do incredibly stupid stuff, or the biggest thing is I totally didn't put others in harm's way. That was very selfish of me, right To put others in harm's way. But, um, I mean, that was the big one, 80 there. And then, uh, I would say, after graduating college was was really my opportunity for redemption. I started to do like a lot of giving back and paying forward, fundraising for nonprofits, mentoring other kids like me who lost their parent in the line of duty or as a result of their service, and so I, I was kind of hungry, I was actually starving to be a like a benefit to society, and so I literally spent 10 years doing that, and then I started video production.

Vipul Bindra: 10:52

That's so crazy, but at least that's a good thing I like. Obviously it's unfortunate that it was that incident that you had to get to to change things around, but I do like that you are able to find this path where you know all this energy, all this you know passion you're using to bring about a better, better change. So I want to now go back to where we were, which is when we met. Where was Purvair Stories or what? What stage were you in? I think you had some teammates right and tell me, tell me about where you were at that point in terms of video production.

Jacob Centeno: 11:29

Yeah, so if this is like two years ago, two and a half years ago, then I I'd say the biggest thing is I had the vision. I've always had the vision of like, okay, I want to build a video production company and I know that I shouldn't be looking small and I know that I should be building relationships now and I think that's like the key thing. So I've always had the vision and the approach of of that.

Vipul Bindra: 11:54

but, um, as far as like where we were and what we were doing. How many years were you into at that point into the company?

Jacob Centeno: 12:01

so we started new yeah, we started in 2020 in kobe okay yeah crazy, yeah. No, I think we talked about that too.

Vipul Bindra: 12:08

The first time, so interesting to start. Yeah, and I was just a few years before that my company. I was doing freelance for a long time, but my company company started like september 2018, so I was just a couple years into when that whole but you were, you were prepped for live.

Jacob Centeno: 12:22

thank goodness, I know, I know that saved me.

Vipul Bindra: 12:25

Otherwise, who knows where I would be and, like I said, that's just a crazy story that that happened. So you had started in pandemic, which is also a crazy decision. What was it? Did you lose a job or something like most people, or just there wasn't work? What caused you to immediately go? Let me start a company.

Jacob Centeno: 12:43

Yeah, so I was working for your brand voice here in in orlando and dr phillips it's a digital ad agency kind of boutique and I I was um, I had been there two and a half years, maybe a little bit over. I had edited, I had produced pre-produced, produced, post-produced over like 500 videos for this ad agency. So my, I felt incredibly competent and confident in my craft, like I was making decisions, creative decisions for myself, like I didn't need anybody's validation.

Vipul Bindra: 13:18

So you got your, your skill, which is important, down the thing yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 13:22

Yeah, you, you have to have confidence in delivering something Exactly, cause you know obviously business skills are important, which is important down the thing.

Vipul Bindra: 13:26

Yeah, yeah, you, you have to have confidence in delivering something exactly. Yeah, because you know, obviously business skills are important, which is what we're going to talk mostly about. But if your craft isn't there, and then it doesn't matter how good your business skills are, they're never going to call you back and that's why I tell people your skills have to be there, which helps obviously.

Vipul Bindra: 13:40

They don't have to be there because then, but then you need to hire people whose skills are there. You cannot not have skills and then be just trying to do it yourself for paid clients, because you're gonna just fail no matter what. Yeah, so that's great. So you have an advantage because you gained all these skills. You made over 500 videos, which is a lot of videos, and at what point do you go like do I? Did you quit or did they lay off or what happened?

Jacob Centeno: 14:03

yeah. So in the middle of the pandemic, um, everybody's the uncertainty is crazy. He comes out, my boss comes out, and he's like I don't know if I'm gonna have to let you guys off or or what, and I was like hold on, pump the brakes. I was like what if I can figure out a product? Because I think one client was like hey, we're gonna back up now.

Vipul Bindra: 14:23

Hey we're gonna let you guys go and so I was like let me.

Jacob Centeno: 14:24

I was like let me. Client was like, hey, we're going to back up now, hey, we're going to let you guys go. And so I was like, let me. I was like let me. It was like immediate. I was like let's do public service announcements for our clients. So let's literally just if you're a restaurant or if you're a dentist or if you're, you know, oh man, real estate agency, basically once a month will come to you and we'll do your psa. So all of our well, like 85 of our portfolio bought the idea and kept us on all the retainers look at that.

Vipul Bindra: 14:55

So saving single-handedly, yeah in the company yeah, so we all stayed on.

Jacob Centeno: 15:00

And then, funny, we were just talking about buying our houses. So it's like, it's like may june and we're thinking, me and my wife. My wife is like I want a house. I'm like, oh my gosh, we're in a pandemic, what?

Vipul Bindra: 15:13

like are you crazy?

Jacob Centeno: 15:14

which is good timing, though, if you did buy and buy, yeah, and so my, my wife has like really strong faith, and so I was like, okay, we'll do it, like we'll do it, and uh, so we looked and we ended up buying in october of 2020 oh my goodness lucky bastard I know, yes oh, man, I still remember because you know, I was in alabama that time and I was looking to come back because I was an idiot left for a few years.

Vipul Bindra: 15:38

And I'm telling you, I was just like oh, this price is a great, I, I'm gonna move, and I'm gonna move. And literally six months later, when I did end up moving, the market was like this and I was like crap.

Jacob Centeno: 15:48

I'm screwed it happened so quick, nobody could know.

Vipul Bindra: 15:51

Like you said, you had faith, though I do like that. You both came together. You had faith, you made a good decision At that time. You may not have known, but in hindsight, hindsight that that's an amazing decision to buy in central florida a property. Then, yeah, it's crazy.

Jacob Centeno: 16:06

No, we're super blessed. And so we were looking at the housing market. We ended up buying and I told my wife uh, the truth is I had been asking for equity in my company, my boss's company so I knew that I was handling the clients, the relationships.

Vipul Bindra: 16:23

I could execute the deliverables right, like by myself so was it you or you had other people with you doing video side of it?

Jacob Centeno: 16:31

yeah, so I would typically convince him to have anywhere from like two to three videographers on staff, and then he had an entire other like marketing management, ad buying and then a web design team as well. So, um, I was, like, you know, half or one third of the video production side, but I, uh, I had been asking for equity, cause I knew that I I was at the point where I didn't, I couldn't just do everything, or I could do everything that we offered, but I could also start offering this to more people, including my network, and I didn't want to, you know, bring my network to the fold without equity. And so, and I think that's just like I don't know, that's like an entrepreneurial thing and so he, he kind of pushed it off for a year and, um, I asked again on, like, uh, I got a raise and I asked for equity again and it just it wasn't cement the idea. I mean, in hindsight I could have probably came up with an idea presented to him and I didn't.

Jacob Centeno: 17:36

But, um, I felt like it started to kind of get squeezed for my labor rate and uh, at the time we were about it's about a month, two after buying the house, so my credit was good, like it's clear, right, yeah, and uh, like I could quit my job and not lose the house yeah, exactly right.

Vipul Bindra: 17:53

A lot of people don't know that yeah, and generally your credit technically shoots up to having a real estate property show up on there. But either way, yes, you can quit your job because now you've had, you have the house right, yeah, right, as long as you get paid for it, obviously yeah, yep, and so I.

Jacob Centeno: 18:09

I had the house and I told my wife. I said, hey, my goal is to save up three months of like our expenses and mortgage, and then I'm I'm going to like anything after that is icing and so I had surpassed the three months savings and um, and then, like one day he just like kind of said something I didn't like and I was like, hey, I'm putting in my notice.

Vipul Bindra: 18:33

That was it, you know that was it, and then you started. Did you bring any of the staff with them, or did you so? Was it you? Did you immediately then go poor bear stories, or did you talk to someone, or what was that process?

Jacob Centeno: 18:46

So great question because I've left a couple of things out. But I had already founded Poor Bear Stories because I was being paid as a contractor and I wasn't claiming any write offs and I knew that I could be like I just knew filing taxes after two years of filing my own taxes, right, like that's another thing. Like if you file your own taxes, you kind of learn things and you see like, oh wait, like that's a write off, oh, I could like lower my taxable income. So I started to learn that and I I was like, ok, well, I'm going to start my LLC and then I'm going to claim more, I'm going to start my business bank account and I'm going to claim more write-offs. And so I had done that months before leaving.

Jacob Centeno: 19:36

And then after two, three months so after about two months of having my own company, I was volunteering at a church here in Orlando called LifeBridge and this is again in the pandemic, and so they're trying to figure out live production or meeting safely.

Jacob Centeno: 19:59

And so they were like, okay, we're going to. They were really unique in that they had a drive-in church, so they had a big LED screen and then they filled their grass lot, but the first week they did it, nobody found out. And so I was like, well, let's do videos to show what it looks like and I'll make a little highlight video and then we can blast it out and show people what it looks like, and they can. So, anyways, I did behind the scenes videos during covid for my church and, uh, it really helped them. But in doing that, their production team, who are like all freelancers, had other jobs they were doing and they actually brought me on to, uh, a gary sin, gary Sinise Foundation project as a freelancer, and so At that time are you just charging like a day rate, pretty much hourly, like I was, like I was like getting paid like 25 bucks an hour to work for the ad agency.

Jacob Centeno: 20:56

And then I was like they were like, okay, Jake, what's your freelancer rate? And I was like, uh, like well, I don't know, Like I get paid 25 an hour right now. And they were like, well, what if we do 35 an hour?

Vipul Bindra: 21:06

And I was like that's incredible, yeah, so, so that's why business skills are so important, which is why we're having this conversation, cause you're going to learn slowly when you, when you learn that was, that was not a good idea, but that.

Vipul Bindra: 21:20

Like, look in the beginning. I've done that too. When I was freelancing I was like, hey, whatever, I'll take it Because you know. You don't know what you don't know. No, so at least you got a project. That's also key. A lot of people who are, you know, new to this don't even know where to go find that first project. Yeah, it's only 35 an hour.

Jacob Centeno: 21:38

So you know, I learned something. I think another key lesson during that time was and this is like quintessential freelance contractor, right. So you have like a day rate right. So like, let's say, your day rate is 1500 bucks and everybody goes, whoa, that's crazy, you make $1,500 a day, right. But what I learned on that 35 an hour job right, was my billable hours were like horrible. They were just horrible because, because in the freelance world it's like OK, we only need you for four hours today. Ok, we only need you for six hours, right. Hey, we need, we have a pre-production call with the team, we need to talk about this. And so I was like on the phone and on video calls for 10, 15 hours a month during covid, not getting paid for any of it and then getting 350 days.

Vipul Bindra: 22:34

It does not add up, it's horrible and living in central florida, that's very hard. Yeah, even pre-pandemic house rates, it's very hard to survive. Yeah, um, so when did you learn to charge the correct rates? Did it happen? You know, obviously just general or did somebody tell you what the rates should be? How'd you find that out?

Jacob Centeno: 22:55

yeah, so there I, I've had three big level ups in my business, pricing, um, and each time it's like with totally different deliverables and like demands for a project and, honestly, most of my production company has evolved organically, just like out of necessity. It's like we have a project that comes to us and I take my best guess at like a quote, and then I learn the hard way that we didn't bill for this or this or this, and so next time I can more accurately bill for that. But in the meantime I improved my portfolio, right, so and I've been it's been three or four years of that. It's like, okay, we get this unique project with unique demands. Here's our estimation. Okay, we learn lessons. Okay, we bill more for it next time around, but a lot of it has been custom and so it's.

Vipul Bindra: 23:47

It's harder when you're doing these custom projects yeah, because then you have to figure out all your expenses, all your rates, the your profit, obviously, of the company, each person's rates. Um, so when I met you, which is two and a half years ago, uh, as a company, what was the revenue? You guys were pulling roughly. You don't have to give exact numbers if you remember yeah, so it I'd say three years ago.

Vipul Bindra: 24:13

Three years ago we were about 125 revenue and then today or 2024, let's not talk today. Last year, roughly what did you close the revenue top line?

Jacob Centeno: 24:27

I think we finished at about 300, but that's pretty good, that's pretty huge, the crazy part, though. The crazy part is we had six months of no jobs, oh last year 2024? 2024.

Vipul Bindra: 24:41

Wow, that's crazy so what happened, I mean for six months 300 yeah, okay, it's pretty good. That's actually even really good. Yeah, so. Is it just because I know you and maybe and maybe this we tackle later otherwise, because don't you do more military style jobs, right? Maybe it's because of that. Is it the market that you're serving? Is it that so?

Jacob Centeno: 25:01

so yeah actually, but it wasn't like intentional at all it was actually we were kind of reactive, so we niched down this year, so, going into 2025, we basically came out and said we are exclusively like department of defense and intelligence, which is, like you know, all the infrastructure, cyber security. Right, that's where the money's at. Yeah, smart niche. We're smart.

Vipul Bindra: 25:26

Yeah, the government always writes their checks, that's one thing I've learned yes, yeah, you know, by the way, I never do anything. I don't care, I don't care who you are. It could be Disney. You know big Hollywood studio. Pay me up front, except for the government. I know that check will always come, so you are very smart in niching down there, so go ahead. Yes, so so is that what? What would you attribute to not having six months, or roughly six months, of no work?

Jacob Centeno: 25:56

so I would I mean for for me I would say it's god, because it it gave me clarity, like the, the clients we were losing, just kind of like in weird ways, like one of our biggest clients for the first two years of my company. Start they let us go kind of really soft and slow, um, just like, hey, we're not going to do this this year.

Vipul Bindra: 26:20

Hey, we're not going to do video production for this did they switch to a company, different company, or they just not do video? They didn't do video.

Jacob Centeno: 26:28

Um billion dollar company or half. So half a billion dollar company, going to a billion this year, has all the room in the world for video production. But um, they had a business development guy come in and basically say if it's not sales, we're not paying for it and that's a bad strategy.

Vipul Bindra: 26:46

But that's what a business guy would do. Yeah, because they can show immediate return. Yeah, but that's not good long-term strategy. We both know branding but. But let's not go there. So point is so you have had decent scale. In my opinion, in two, two and a half years to triple, almost right, almost well, almost 2.5x your business. Uh, what do you attribute that to? Like just being better your craft or better your business scale, a scale level or what?

Jacob Centeno: 27:13

well, there's one other thing too. So like that six months I didn't just like sit on my couch and play games, right, like I took all that time to go after way bigger business and like build client relationships and like go to networking events, travel around the country and like meet people and spend time like doing a lot of the stuff that video production owners do that you never see, right. Yeah, so like I didn't just sit at home not working, I was like doing a lot of business development stuff by myself. So I think that's key to say. But I would say what's attributed to the growth is niching down. So like niching down and showing your work.

Jacob Centeno: 28:02

There's a little book that I only remember the title, but it's show your work and it's that's the book, right. And so we typically you know, we have these companies come to us, we work with that company, we do a great video, do great photos, whatever, and then we share it, we show it, and what I find is that our network, my network, right, and the word of mouth within my niche they see us and follow us and look at us from afar for sometimes a year to two years before calling us or referring us, sometimes a year to two years before calling us or referring us. So a lot of people are like, oh, you know, I don't it, I'm not seeing anything. Why do I do social media? Like there's people are not.

Jacob Centeno: 28:50

When I post this, somebody doesn't call me and say, hey, I want to book your services, right. It's like you post, uh, eight times a month, 12, you know, 12 months a year, and then next year in February somebody will say, hey, I've been following you guys for a year. I love what you're doing, and my company is in a spot to do video and so we want to do something like attribute a lot of our success to that Nitching down and finding our audience, the people that we want to serve, that we know a lot about and there's a lot of familiarity in that community with our work. Or it's easier to get household right, like, oh, I don't know you, but I know this company you've worked for and I know some people on that team who I could call them and I trust them and I can ask them about you. That's the power of the niche, and so that is very smart.

Vipul Bindra: 29:51

I tell people and I haven't and I'm one of the lucky. I don't believe in luck but to be real, I am lucky to have a decently successful company without niching down, because everyone I know who's successful in video has picked a niche, because otherwise it's very hard to market. Because if it's just like saying so, that's smart of you to do that, because otherwise it's like I'm a video company, it's like a billion of you. How does people know to work with you? And, like you said, if you down, it becomes very easy for them to find you. And when they find you they start to follow you. And when they follow you, when the time is right, they know they're going to reach out because you're presenting yourself as an expert and not as a generalist, if that makes sense. So that is the right move to do and I'm so glad you know, you're doing that and you figured it out.

Vipul Bindra: 30:42

Um, what's the structure of your company? Is it just you as the owner and with contractors, or do you have, like business partners who have equity or whatever?

Jacob Centeno: 30:51

so 2024 was definitely like a trial we had. We had two full-time staff uh, leaving 23 and two kind of part-time, full-time contractors on the team, and then we contracted out another two video operators, videographers and video editors. So the same two, Everybody on my team. I prefer to have their, their, a photo or a video operator, and they can edit right, Like, um, that's for for my company and for our client size and everything that's just like it's. We can't really afford to. Uh, oh, you're just my DOP.

Vipul Bindra: 31:34

Like you know, we're too small, so so, basically, they're a shooter or a shredder, I think is the word shooter editor, you know whatever. There's another thing in there, but whatever the shooter, photographer, editor, right, everything, which is what most likely your deliverables look like, right? So an average um, what's your project size and what deliverables are there?

Jacob Centeno: 31:55

roughly again, you have to go specific, but yeah, again, you don't have to go specific, but yeah, so we have typically between five to eight really big projects a year where they're like $25,000 to $50,000 jobs, sometimes $100,000 jobs. That's pretty good. Yeah, um, where you know we need a crew of like five to 10 people for seven, eight days and it's very bespoke, like there's a ton of research in the company, ton of pre-production, and then the post-production in this space is typically very bespoke, because you know most people are like I want as little amount of revisions as possible. But in the defense space, in the intelligence space, um, you know, I've I've had video projects wait to go through public affairs for two years.

Jacob Centeno: 32:55

We've had videos that haven't seen the light of day for two years because it has to get scrubbed by 12, 15 different public affairs officers. It's, it's insane, um and and it can be frustrating for people too, and a lot of people are like I can't run a business like that, but um, so those are kind of some of the bigger projects that we have. And then we do uh, all the way down to like I'm doing a dp job next this week, this week, uh, for like 1500 bucks, like I'm just going in and kind of capturing 10 hours I mean that's pretty good dp rate.

Vipul Bindra: 33:33

yeah, yeah, yeah. So so basically everything from you individual as a DP to very big jobs where you bring in obviously a crew and you know, get to whatever the deliverable is Like you said, custom, basically video jobs and is it like 25K on average? Like how many deliverables are there? Is it one big deliverable or is it like multiple deliverables that are part of a package? Like a 25, 50 K will give you five videos or whatever. Is that like how? What does an average number of deliverables look like in that range?

Jacob Centeno: 34:14

So I would say so we have two retainers. So we have two retainers. We've we've kind of uh fluctuated between three to five uh on average. Right now we're at two, so we're a little bit slow, but I mean that's still pretty good.

Vipul Bindra: 34:31

Yeah, that was. You know, you're not worried about where the bills are.

Jacob Centeno: 34:34

Yes, I mean because when you have a payroll, when your money walks out the door really, really fast, and so that was kind of a big lesson for 2024 for me was I had like four people on staff at one point and it was like 12 000 walking out the door every single month and if you don't have six months of work, then yeah, yeah, yeah you can, like I said, you can go work in business.

Vipul Bindra: 34:56

You know growth and all that, because I know you're not the type to sit, but the the staff usually is not the type to you know growth and all that? Yeah, because I know you are not the type to sit, but the staff usually is not the type to you know do that. So you had to let people go then, I'm guessing. Yeah so they were just contractors, or they were full-time W-9 or whatever.

Jacob Centeno: 35:10

So fortunately, you know, thank God, w-2, sorry. Yeah, I've been able to keep on my W-2s, who are also gold stars, so they also both lost their dads in military service and we hired, through organizations that we've worked with that I've spoke, you know, for raised money for for decades, right and so strong relationships, even hired some of their recipients, you know, and so I've been able to keep on my W-2s. We had a contractor for a year who was on a visa from Bolivia and her visa expired but she did incredible. And then we had another part-time contractor in the first half of the year who joined the military, and so she ended up leaving as well.

Vipul Bindra: 35:59

So at least you didn't have to have the hard conversation of, like we have to let you go.

Jacob Centeno: 36:03

That's a tough conversation to have, right, yeah, and so it's and I'm more comfortable at two, like when I was at four. I felt kind of out of control Because you can always bring in contractors right.

Vipul Bindra: 36:14

Yeah, as needed. That way, you're not committed to like payroll Because, as to like payroll because that's somebody who has done that, that can be a nightmare, because you're like, oh, I need to have this much cash flow coming in, no matter what.

Vipul Bindra: 36:25

Yeah, and it starts to you know our video, our business is like up and down. Sometimes you're like, uh, you know I need more, you know more clients, or else you know and you don't want to miss payroll. Obviously that's just terrible, which is why, at least for me, I found my stride is post-production staff payroll all shooters, contractors Makes life so much easier. I can custom it for each job and never worry about like because you know for me, like you said, shooters, otherwise they're just sitting doing nothing. So I'd rather just bring in contractors, pay them what they want to get paid. Plus you get higher level talent because they're shooting all the time.

Vipul Bindra: 37:00

Pay them what they want to get paid plus you get higher level talent because they're shooting all the time.

Vipul Bindra: 37:02

And then, um, post-production at least for me, what I, the way I try to again, I don't know if this will work with dod, but at least with my clients it's like we can go back and be like hey, because you know we own all the footage, they own the deliverables. So it's like hey, uh, we can repurpose this to get more. You know social edits, so or we can do this to make an update or whatever. Right, you can repurpose the contest. I can always have the editors working, but I can't have the shooters working.

Vipul Bindra: 37:28

At least that's the final strategy I've landed on that seems to be working for me, which is like contracted shooters based on the job, so they fit the job better too. And then, but post-production staff you know it makes it a little easy to every month to go because like hey, if I don't have work, then I don't have shooters. You know like extra payroll that I'd have to worry about. Um, at least that's where I I figured finally have settled so far as of now, 2025 and it's all going to change, because you just got a grip truck, yeah, I know, who knows.

Vipul Bindra: 38:02

And see, funny enough, the, the idea of that was same thing. I want to be more efficient, so my costs balloon out of nothing. And so I was like I have all this gear because you know I like to do high level production, but not all out of there. Just to be real, just like you, I'll go for 1500, be the dp and go shoot something. That's okay. You know, it doesn't have to be always fancy, uh, and you never know the 1500 maybe shit fancy.

Vipul Bindra: 38:25

I'm just part of the cog in a big shoot, yeah, um, anyway, so, uh, but mainly I'm trying to do my own productions and over the years I'm trying to level them up. So I've acquired enough gear and I was like, okay, so now I'm not, I don't have a shoot, and maybe I have a couple of a week and a lot of them even are flying, so I don't even bring my gear. So I'm like all this gear is sitting, not getting used. How can I get more ROI out of it? And plus, for years I sold my trailer. We talked about that and I was like I have to find a way, a better, efficient use of it.

Jacob Centeno: 39:10

So anyway, that's coming from la or whatever van, by the way it's gorgeous all right, let's not peddle things. We don't do that.

Vipul Bindra: 39:16

I don't want people to think we're promoting things here we're just giving free knowledge, but yes, I mean that was the goal right To be more effective and hopefully I'll get more ROI out of it and again, we're not peddling here, but the offering is so much more like just the value.

Jacob Centeno: 39:37

It's always been obvious that you are like let me give more value. Like you, it's always been obvious that you are like let me give more value. And I think that's a fault to us in the creator, yeah, community, because we love what we do so much that we're dropping our rates, uh, which is retiring a lot of the old creators and producers and grip guys, because we're cutting down our rates. But hey, man, like it's amazing to see you really trying to give so much more value with camera, with grip, with lighting, you know to to the creators out there, like you're in a.

Vipul Bindra: 40:13

In that way, you're very selfless with how much value you're trying to pump into the community exactly no, and I completely agree with you and this is why I'm so glad you bring this point the. The point is not to devalue the the community because at the same time, like you said, if if I'm like a client here, you go for 50 bucks, you know we'll bring the whole world to you obviously the devalue is the business.

Vipul Bindra: 40:36

So my goal with this was absolutely that, hey, for my clients and you know, your most clients they don't care the equipment we bring.

Vipul Bindra: 40:43

We bring the equipment based on the level of the job that it needs, right to do the job right. So I'm like I'm going to bring it anyway and I'm already charging a healthy margin in there for that. But here's how I can help level up the community. Like I'm like, hey, buddy of mine, on this group chat that I think you're a member of, right, the Orlando Filmmaker group chat, I'm like look, I have this van. I'm purposefully not putting branding on it.

Vipul Bindra: 41:07

Now you, since I'm sitting here, look, it's a give and take relationship. It's not fully altruistic. I don't want to be like some. I am going to make ROI. But I'm like look, my rate is very low for the level of skill I bring and most of them hire me anyway. So I'm like you're hiring me already at this rate. Let me give you a bonus. I'll bring this whole van. You save thousands and thousands of dollars on rental costs. And now you can go to your client and say, look, we got this, we can level up. Let me charge you more, and if my friends can make more money from it, then all for them.

Vipul Bindra: 41:47

And, at the same time, if I can be on more productions, I'll be happy because I like to be on set and they make more money than both of us are winning. Plus, my company now can pull in that extra revenue because it's like, hey, these days what Vipo was doing was nothing, or maybe like we shouldn't say nothing. I'd be probably working on some form of the business, but those are still days I'd rather be out shooting than doing whatever else I was going to be doing. So I win um, you know the company. My company wins from revenue.

Vipul Bindra: 42:14

I win from being on more sets and all my friends, creator friends in the local community win by being able to offer now look, we got this package If it helps them in any way, and plus there's no cost to it, because if you're not using it the days for them, there's no cost. So that was my perspective on it and let's see obviously how it goes this year, because I'm not charging any extra. I'm like, look, you know, obviously if a production comes and they want the truck, it has its own rate. That's not my rate.

Vipul Bindra: 42:41

And then I have to pay my rate and the crew rates, or whatever. But, this is just for our community. I'm like, hey look, I'll just bring the truck with me or my van with me, so you win. You go advertise to the client that it's your stuff. Who cares?

Vipul Bindra: 42:55

Because at the end, the client gets better videos, you make more money and I make more money. We all win. That's what I'm saying. The whole point is we all win together, yeah, so anyway, at least that's the business that's in my brain. I don't know if it's gonna work. You know, in 12 months I'm pretty sure we'll be able to sit for season two and kind of remiss if the it was a good decision or not.

Vipul Bindra: 43:14

I know for a fact that just with my productions, I'll be able to, you know, get enough use out of it. It's just ideally. I don't want that to be the only use, because, you know, if it sits for 80, 90 of the year, yeah it's, I don't know, it doesn't just seem right to me, yeah so, but at least there will be no loss for it, like I'll make my money back because I'm literally taking it out in a few days. So you know what I mean. Like that's what I'm saying. It's already working, yeah yeah, yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 43:41

No, it's helping if it's helping you get more jobs, right like the curb appeal is helping you get more jobs and it's paying you back in roi in one way or another. That's how I've looked at a lot of my, my assets and growth. But, um, I think just you know it's hard as video, as company owners, with like a ton of grip and a ton of lighting in different cameras and camera packages. It's really hard to walk the line and I feel like this year has humbled me to say, hey, look, you can't itemize everything. Right, you should be so grateful that you are working in this industry.

Jacob Centeno: 44:24

And so when your client calls you for a job, it shouldn't be okay, you know the FX6, line item 350, whatever. It shouldn't be like. It should be like wow, okay, what's your budget? Okay, man, you know what we can do this. I can bring in an operator, and you know what we can do this. I can bring in an operator and you know what. I'm just gonna bring in these lights, because I think they're gonna make a big difference for your shoe, and so like, don't worry about the extra cost in the budget, and then that gives you so much more leverage because, they're like whoa I, I, you know I couldn't afford that, it's my budget, but you brought it anyways.

Jacob Centeno: 44:58

And then you're building a relationship and so you know, changing your mindset to to be like more. How can I give ultra value to my clients?

Vipul Bindra: 45:09

but also gauging them. You bring a very good point. You want to help your clients but at the same time it is a business, right, because you got to be able to make profit. So being able to gauge where the budget is and where there's a production land Cause I have this happen where clients go and and you know they're like oh, we want this.

Vipul Bindra: 45:27

And then I'm like what's your budget? And they're like we don't have a budget. Tell us so I'm like well, I can do it for you know 200,000. And then immediately, well, that's not a. So you have a budget, let's get to the number. Because here's the thing I can bring half my friends, we can do an awesome job here, but that's not what you need. I will tell you Like I can help you figure out, but I know you have a number and we can get there. But don't say like give me a number, because that could mean anything. Right, like you said, you can happily go take 1500 bucks, take a camera, go shoot it, give them the footage and be done right, that's 1500.

Jacob Centeno: 46:04

That's what's so crazy about our industry is you can you can pay somebody 750 to go do an incredible day of work and then it's like, oh, but we want this and we kind of want like this and this is the vibe we want, and that can easily be a $25,000 day, exactly and same job crazy and and and it.

Vipul Bindra: 46:24

And then people go uh, I've had people and that's a very good thing you bring up, because a lot of people in the video I'm taking forget clients. Obviously they don't get it their businesses. But so many people in the video industry who are playing at this level don't get it like. I've had people go hey, I've been able to charge, like my rate is like, not my rate, but their rate is. They say I have picked a day rate, it's 1200. Now clients are happily paying me. I'm doing my camera package, I charge 1200, I'm happy, they're happy.

Vipul Bindra: 46:53

I don't understand like they're. They're like they don't understand how you could even charge $25,000 for the same type of shoot. And I'm like because you have to understand the change that's happening, because it's not. Obviously, if you brought two camera operators and charged them $25,000, you wouldn't stay in business for long, right, but $25,000, you're bringing more gear, you're bringing more lighting, more people. Maybe they want the same day at it.

Vipul Bindra: 47:21

I don't know what the project is, but what I'm saying is that 25 000 number is not arbitrary, right, it's all accounted for specific things, uh, and that's how you get to that number. If you don't understand it meaning you're not thinking from the production company's point of view and that brand's point of view, because I'm not saying they're doing a great bad work. Like you say, you can find incredible people for $600, $700 to make you good video, but when you get that high level, everything matters. And it matters with that brand's level. Like, yes, disney can afford a $1,200 camera operator, but so can they afford a $50,000 camera operator, and they can afford Steven Spielberg if they want it. Yes, and they're all going to be different costs. It's not like they're doing different things, but they are doing different things, you know anyway how would you explain?

Vipul Bindra: 48:11

Yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 48:12

So I have a story so great example I've been consulting a new nonprofit for the last year and they have an incredible mission and impact, right, so there's, there's these old uh guys. They're dying off now. Um, I don't want that to sound insensitive, but they are these legendary uh sort of special operators who accomplished this kind of like uh, this manual uh, that's still used in the military today. It's called MACV SOC, but these guys are like some of the most capable killers in the last hundred years for this country and this organization had an opportunity to invite and interview, like a lot of the last living ones and so incredible, like, like you know opportunity and you immediately are like man, what do we need to do to make sure this is told?

Vipul Bindra: 49:08

right, yeah, right like you're not going to get another chance yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 49:12

So they had a ultra limited budget, but I knew the severity of, like this problem that they had that if you're going to be inviting these guys who are like dying and they this is like the last opportunity to tell these stories. You don't want to mess it up and this is a great point in the whole arbitrary number of video production. So they could only pay for one of my dps to go up and he's like my most competent dp, right. But everybody has a limit. And so we had him drive up with because they wanted to run two sets and I I like highly encouraged him not to run two sets.

Jacob Centeno: 49:53

I was like you have one guy who knows what he's doing on set. You have another guy who's a hobbyist, right, who says, who says that he can kind of monitor a set, and then you have nobody else who has any grip, you know experience or anything, and yet you want to light two sets and I was like, don't do it, they did it anyway. So my buddy gets up there and he's like, oh, we're doing it and I'm like, all right, do you just give it your best shot? But like tell them right now, you're not liable if any like cards get corrupted if any media is lost.

Jacob Centeno: 50:26

So they were using your equipment to make two sets two sets, yeah, so I I sent up enough equipment for for two sets, simultaneously, with two interviewers and um, so he drove up all this stuff. He ended up setting up both sets and breaking down both sets by himself like longest day ever for one guy, um two days of recording. But it's a miracle that it's an absolute miracle that nothing went wrong, because batteries could have died, microphones could have went out, um, you know, you don't have like an audio engineer listening, monitoring sound levels, um, lights could have. We could have blown a light, like just there are, there are like a thousand things that can go wrong on a video production set, that have gone wrong on my sets, and to have like one person like playing all these jobs is actually a massive liability to losing what you, what your entire investment in your reputation.

Vipul Bindra: 51:27

Yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 51:27

Right, and so it's like, yeah, that was maybe like a $3,000 job or something all in, but it's like it could cost you 20,. You know easily doing it Right.

Vipul Bindra: 51:40

I do that. That I did. I did multiple interviews in 2024, which is what I'm saying, the contrast of it. I had multiple days where it was just me, fifteen hundred dollars, that you know, multi-camera and just interview, and obviously we still kill it at them. But then I had like multiple fifty thousand days, same thing, literally talking head, yeah, and, funny enough, you get paid more because we have, uh, setup days where all we do is set up. That's the difference, right, versus on the cheaper job. You come in, you have to set up, you have to record, you have to film, you have to check sound and you go now on the higher end set, we have a setup day and then the on the actual interview we have people, sound person, right camera person, camera person, the cameras are better. And whoever says cameras don't matter, they totally matter. Now, obviously they don't matter in that low level, but they do matter at the high level.

Vipul Bindra: 52:30

The skin tone we had Alexa Mini LFs oh my goodness, with Coke lenses. It looked so beautiful, so creamy. Anyway, point is.

Vipul Bindra: 52:39

And then you, you know the people look good. And then what? Anyway, the and I had multiples of those, I even held a buddy, um, do one of those anyway. And then you know, you put a big source, you put like an eight by eight. Uh, the people look good. People with glasses don't have reflections. The point I'm trying to make is same thing, not the problem. The difference is when you look at this footage, the first footage, incredible.

Vipul Bindra: 53:01

You know, $1,500, incredible talking heads. I can show a bunch of examples of those and they look good. But then you look at those and they look like, oh, they couldn't be on Netflix, they couldn't be on you know, disney or wherever. Like, there's a level difference. But that's why it costs and it wasn't just me. I can't take credit for it, because it's a whole team of people that it takes and a whole load of equipment and time and, like you said, liability.

Vipul Bindra: 53:26

You need people there because if you break one of those lenses, that's 40 grand and they're always rented nobody, most people don't own them and it's silly to own them because you know we're changing lenses all the time on those type of jobs. But can you imagine breaking a 40 50 000 lens and a 50 000 camera? And we had two of each, uh, so it's like you could easily break, you know, a couple hundred thousand dollars if you just tip over slightly on a dana dolly. You know it's, it's pointless. You bring competent operators because you don't want just anyone handling that level of equipment, because it's a liability as a production company owner, because if anything's broken it's on me, not on you know, uh, the people that I bring. So I have to make sure that I bring the right, right people, uh, but yeah, but like, but at the end technical interviews, but vastly different time and setup requirements and right. That's why you build them differently too you don't build them the same.

Vipul Bindra: 54:19

You don't bill them the same because you don't put in the same. I don't know.

Jacob Centeno: 54:25

Well, like, for instance, I mean for me, I've always called it redundancy, so you know, a DIT having a DIT on set. Well, what's the difference? Who's this guy that I don't even know what they do? Or this guy or girl that, like, what's a DIT? Right, it's like, it's like a very valuable position Talk about.

Vipul Bindra: 54:47

Here's the story I want to talk about DIT, the same shoot. Funny enough, I'm talking about my buddy, very good guy. I would love, love to have him on a shoot. He asked me to come help him um a shoot. I think it was philadelphia. I'm gonna say philly. Sorry, it's been a six, eight months so I would say philly. So, yeah, I flew there. Very high-end interview. Same thing cook lenses. I think we had minis, not million lf, sorry, very nice. So he spared no expense. It was a very good shoot, yeah, and I was helping with lighting and audio. He had his own dp, so I wasn't deeping that, but some point between them. So, like I said, I take no responsibility lighting and sound was me db, but they didn't have a dit.

Vipul Bindra: 55:27

It's so funny. We had like all expenses paid, meaning like not like very high end, I would say interview setup. That's all we did. Uh, because they had a different agency doing the actual event. But, funny enough, between the first DP and his I guess, second cam op or whatever, some kind of disconnect happened. I don't care whose blame it is, but at some point one interview is lost and there's no way to ever get it back Because the card, you know, because the director was having to dump the cards because we didn't have DIT my buddy.

Vipul Bindra: 55:58

So at some point, because the director was having to dump the cards because we didn't have dit my buddy, so at some point the card was given to him. That was like oh, it's been dumped, okay, yeah, you know, here it goes back. All right, clear the card. And you know, alex says you have to format every time, every interview. You can't just keep doing it like these small mirrorless cameras. Point is, at some point a card was deleted and now it's too late because we only get one chance with these people, right. The people that were interviewing them telling their emotional story.

Vipul Bindra: 56:21

They're crying Like you can't just repeat that Point is an interview is fully lost and will never be recovered because somebody mistakenly thought the card had been dumped and cleared it and a DIT would have been a lifesaver. And I was like, oh my goodness, why is there not a DIT have been a lifesaver? And I was like, oh my goodness, why is there not a?

Jacob Centeno: 56:38

DIT. Weren't they worth a $750 a day? Then, brother, yeah, exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 56:41

Maybe we didn't have that budget, I don't know. Obviously I would love to have my buddy here and talk through the situation, because he knows the budget right. I don't, but either way, I saw firsthand. I was like holy crap, now the only thing I always have a DIT. So yeah, so very important to have a DIT on those type of sets.

Jacob Centeno: 57:03

And it's and like that's how you build trust with your, your prospective clients in your community. You, you build trust by doing and delivering jobs consistently. And you know, sometimes your clients see things go wrong. But, like, if you're like, oh, I built in redundancy for that and here's what we did and here's how we pivoted right and everything's good to go, they're gonna be like, oh, okay, like glad I hired you guys.

Vipul Bindra: 57:24

So, yeah, redundancy is everything you know, and that's why you can charge more, because you can be like look, I'm the reliable guy.

Jacob Centeno: 57:31

Yeah, you have to, because it costs more well, like that's the reason in the beginning, we went from one camera to two cameras. That's the reason we went from one cf express type a to two cf express type a's right, and those are four hundred dollar cards or eight hundred dollar cards, right and so. And then you have your bodies, like five thousand to ten thousand, and then you have your operators who need a monitor. Then you have your sound and do you have two? You have a lav and you have a shotgun, and who's monitoring both of those? And you know, because when you start saying, hey, you can do both those jobs, right to your video operator, it's like yeah, but then yeah, but then cut in half their attention span and it's not the operator.

Vipul Bindra: 58:15

A lot of people think, oh, not a good, no operator is good, you just divide their attention in half and you don't want to do that. And anytime your budget, um, you know you can have a dedicated sound guy and a and a camera guy. They're going to do a better job than not saying I mean, nowadays we're expected to do both sound and camera a lot of times, yes, can a camera operator do that absolutely, but they have half their attention here. Half their attention here clearly doesn't mean that they can get it perfect. You know because reality, you know so.

Vipul Bindra: 58:46

So, yeah, but no, the costs add up. You you're saying it exactly how I think. Sometimes. I'm so glad you know we talk, because it's like you're thinking exactly what I'm thinking because you know all these costs add up, and that's. You're thinking exactly what I'm thinking Because you know all these costs add up. And that's why you're the right choice, because you're accounting for all that and that's what I want people to know. It's very easy to charge more because, as long as you take care of the client, you figure out all the problems that could go wrong and are ready to solve them on set because they will go wrong Quite literally, like two days ago I was on set where they will go wrong, quite literally, like two days ago, like I was on set where, um, we did the audio. Day one went great. Day two the audio doesn't work, in the morning it's crazy and the the, the thing is happening.

Vipul Bindra: 59:25

There's nothing we can do because you know it's not like the.

Jacob Centeno: 59:29

Again it's an event, it's live production yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Vipul Bindra: 59:32

So it's like oh, gotta scramble to figure it out, which we did, thank goodness and then guess, then guess what. Day three happened again and I'm like, come on this AV people that were giving us sound Remember, we're not responsible for sound, responsible for bringing it in, but anyway, yeah, so what I'm like? So I'm glad I'm here because I can solve this problem, but I'm running like a chicken every morning for the first 15 minutes trying to figure out what happened. Now, it should be the same signal. What are they doing in their backend to fix it? And then somehow, last day three, we ended up with two XLR cables from their team and I'm like, which one is it? And nobody knows. So it's like, you know, like this event, like I can't not record it Anyway. So, yeah, so that's why we were paid. I'm like, yes, could they have anyone there to hit record? Yes, but why I am there is to solve this problem.

Jacob Centeno: 1:00:22

Cause, cause, the competent people are not really competent, cause this is a big AV company and that's why you that's what freelancers or contractors are really great for is problem solving, because you know is problem solving, because you know we. There are some bad contractors out there who don't care about solving problems. But you know I I've seen a lot of those just like bigger companies, who like pay hourly, they really don't care that you know the signal's gone and that it might be a bad cable and that they have to run downstairs to get a new one, like they'll just sit on that. You know they'll walk slowly. Contractors, it's like we have equity, we have, we have incentive to make sure that this goes off to the best it possibly can it's our reputation.

Jacob Centeno: 1:01:05

Yeah, you know and that we way over delivered and overperformed, that we saved the day right, and so, yeah, that's definitely just a random little thought I had like no, that's very smart.

Vipul Bindra: 1:01:16

Uh, like I said, I have my opinion. I think we think very like and which is why the other thing I was going to ask you. So, so we had another high level conversation, so we met. Then, uh, funny enough, we haven't collaborated. I would love to collaborate with you on a project, but then the next time we spoke I think it was in a coffee shop you hit me up what was going through and then you know because I know we were talking about retainer clients and everything uh, do you remember any of that? That talk that?

Vipul Bindra: 1:01:43

we had, I remember being very high level that that was one of my these talks that led to these where I was like, oh, we should have recorded it because we were talking about, like, um, you know, social media content and, uh, you know, retainer clients it was just very just very high level. I was like this is so good.

Jacob Centeno: 1:01:58

Yeah, so I do remember two of the big moves you were having, and then actually I did try to get you to help out on a job with Cole Hauser. Oh, yeah, I remember that that didn't pan out. Just the nature of celebrities working with celebrities, but we. I remember two things we talked about, which was one? Uh, we were. We were talking about retainers, but you were talking about like an entirely new business model that you wanted to scale for orlando and I was like dude, that's not gonna work no, it didn't work.

Vipul Bindra: 1:02:30

It didn't work. That's okay. By the way, I own my success and I own my failures. That's okay. We tried, though yeah, that did not work. That was a monster of an idea.

Jacob Centeno: 1:02:38

No, it was a monster, it was a crazy idea and you know what I found?

Vipul Bindra: 1:02:42

what killed it. So we we gave it full shot. We had actual, actual paying clients, right?

Vipul Bindra: 1:02:47

right right so no, me and I think emmanuel did it, who's been on the podcast. So anyway, like I said, we went out. Uh, we killed it. I talked to you about it. The idea was to make make an entire month of content, and I mean every single day. Most people come here and they say you know, we make a month of content, it's three times 12, you know, like 12 pieces of content, whatever, three times a week. My idea was every single day there will be something photo or video to post for 30 or 31 days in the month, whatever number of days.

Vipul Bindra: 1:03:16

And we'll do it for like an absolutely crazy price. And you know, the idea was to get people long-term retainers and the idea was to build a team. Now, could I do it? No, obviously, at my rate, that would not work financially for my company. But I was like, if I can build a team around it these young creators who are really good at social media content they're not good at the long-form content that we do. It was like, if I build this right team, the perfect team, at the right rates, we can execute. I had the whole business model worked out. However, here's what I did, in picture that I built years and years Binder Productions to be the Ferrari, a form of video production, right, right, and so I. The clients they were approaching and I realized all these people that I hired weren't good at sales. They were doing these old-school strategies of calling and door knock and I was like yeah it's not how you do sales anyway, at least to me.

Vipul Bindra: 1:04:13

And then I was like my sales are, you know, these boots on the ground, shake hand, networking, yeah. But so when I tried to do any sales, I remember having this conversation. Finally, I think what put final nail in the coffin was, yeah, I, I talked to one of my clients and we're having this high level conversation and talked about um, the program, and I was like look for, you know this new program 1k, we can make you a whole month of social content. And they were like whoa, this sounds incredible. We've been thinking about getting a testimonial. You know what are your rates for those? I was like, well, I don't know again, you know blind kid. I was like we could do a typical one, four to seven k roughly. And they were like, okay, let's do it. And I was like, okay, well, let me send you a proposal, let's make it happen. Then I'm like I just try to to sell them 1K for 30 pieces of content. They completely ran past that and here they easily were willing to pay me 4 to 7K for a testimonial. Same half day shoot, edit and then done Because the shoot was half day for the whole month of content.

Vipul Bindra: 1:05:11

Point I'm trying to make is I was like I'm in the wrong space. How much I want this to succeed. For me, that wasn't the right market, because people don't want to give me 1k, they want to give me 7k. So I finally was like, okay, well, I will take more money. I was trying to offer you a cheaper solution, uh, but I will happily be the higher and better solution. Um, and that was for me the final thing, like look, people don't want to buy cheap things for me, they want to buy higher end stuff, which is fine.

Vipul Bindra: 1:05:39

I'm happy for it. I was just trying to get off for market a lower end product. Uh, I think bender productions was the wrong company to do it from, which is my own undoing. I think that's what killed it. But anyway, what was your opinion? I want to know your side of it, uh, because clearly you were right. Um, what made you think that? And uh, yeah, the whole thing yeah, I mean.

Jacob Centeno: 1:05:59

So it's all about like pipeline, like you would have had. It's kind of like you said, like bendra is different, it would. It would have had to been like you know, monthly media productions like 30 for 30, right, or like the company name would have had to been like the product or service. And then you would have had to yeah, right idea, get a bunch of full cell grads who can do photo video even today, like ai generation, like totally easy to get 30 days of content right. And then, if you have procedures, standard operating procedure for you know five kids that can do five clients each right. Now you're looking at 25 clients, okay, now we're bringing in 25 K a month, right, and their time is managed pretty efficiently. So, yeah, your pipeline is good, but then you need sales. To get 25 who are playing one K, your sales has to be almost 50% of your strength and your company, so it's like building.

Jacob Centeno: 1:06:58

I mean it can be done yeah no, I completely agree with you.

Vipul Bindra: 1:07:01

I I obviously I worked out the business model before and the sops before I ever, ever reached the and then I had the numbers. I think I sorry it's been long you remember? I think you said 50. Yeah, whatever it was.

Vipul Bindra: 1:07:13

I had a number. I was like, yeah, this is the number we reached and we're good. You know, we had a minimum number too, which is like if we reach this number, it's a break-even point, and then this number is we're good. And that was my goal to build. I was trying to build passive income, unfortunately that didn't work.

Vipul Bindra: 1:07:30

I have to be active in the business. I've learned my lesson. I will still try for more other things. You know, we're entrepreneurs, we can't just sit still. But my idea was to finally use this brain to build a video company that worked on its own, you know, and I was just gonna hire leaders because I even had a leader. I had somebody who was gonna lead the team. I wasn't, I was gonna just build it and then step out. That was the goal with that right. But, like you said, I think the the.

Vipul Bindra: 1:07:55

In my opinion, the bad move is just the branding, because the branding had to go through a separate company yeah and going through binder productions, which I thought would be a help because you know we have uh existing uh you know reputation and you know, and clients locally.

Vipul Bindra: 1:08:10

But I think what it did was harm it because it was like, oh, we want higher end content, yeah, uh, which is fine. Like I said, I'm happy to do what I do with bindra, but that that whole thing didn't work, which is fine. Like I said, I'm so glad I didn't go into the social media space, the cheap I should say cheap social media content space yeah, um, uh, but no, like I said, you're right, that's a great way to put it cheap.

Jacob Centeno: 1:08:33

Social media space like, like you, a lot, of, a lot of performers like working alongside performers, right, so if you hold yourself to a certain standard, you typically hold the people you work with to a certain standard, and so it's really hard to change your like inside. At least for me, it is to be like okay, okay, I like working with you know midsize companies, right, like a hundred people, 50, a hundred people, 250 people, and I know that these size companies have like a director of comms or user experience, like executives, c-suite or something Right, and then below them they have some social or they have some marketing or comms, right, and they typically can help manage the relationship or manage the posting of your content and stuff like that. But as you service smaller business businesses right, like like local, family owned, there are more of the people who are like posting, you know, five times, seven times a week or 21 times a week, right, three times a day, and it's it's just. It's different when you're working with these midsize companies and products and services out there who are incredible, that you love, that do incredible things, um, they are not interested in like your 21 pieces a week Like they're more interested in bespoke, premium, beautiful, competitive against their competitors, looks incredible, communicates their message well that they can brag about, that they can tell their clients about.

Jacob Centeno: 1:10:13

And so they're not really looking like they have sales operations, they have marketing operations. They they're out there like spending money everywhere else. They they don't. You know they're not interested in like getting sales or clients through social media. Like they're. They make the 20, 50, a hundred thousand dollar video and then they prospect, you know several million dollars with it, right thousand dollar video and then they prospect you know several million dollars with it, right. Or they sell a new project for millions of dollars for the next two years and then they do another one exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:10:44

So, yeah, and then that's the space I was in before and obviously have stayed there since. And, uh, did you know 2024 was a record year for me? It's awesome.

Vipul Bindra: 1:10:54

So but, like I said that, I think it was 23.

Vipul Bindra: 1:10:58

When I did that, beginning of 23 or mid 23, I think it was as a good lesson, uh, because, um, sometimes you know the business strategy that you can fully formulate the numbers and everything. And, like I said, build sops around it doesn't mean the market is ready for it. You know what I mean? And um, and the the funny thing is, like I said, I main thing for me was look, people are happy to pay me. I'm increasing my revenue. Let me just keep doing what I'm doing great and build upon that and, um, instead of trying to build this low level product for these low level businesses or or not low level, but you know people, businesses with that type of budget, because, at the end of the day, there's already every year hundreds of graduates coming out of full sale and ucf willing to fulfill that market where they'll take that bottom level jobs, not that I want them to, I want them to take higher, you know, make more money. That's the point of this podcast. But either way, I, like I said it, was those new businesses.

Jacob Centeno: 1:11:58

That's what they're looking for, those small businesses they like, oftentimes their first. You know I get this all the time but like, hey, we're kind of looking for like a hobbyist, you know, a hobbyist who it's like dude, it doesn't really exist, like yeah hey, do you know somebody who, like, has their evenings free, that could you know?

Jacob Centeno: 1:12:15

do this on the side for a couple of hours? Like yeah, that's that's the grads, right, like that's their market, that's what they have the capacity to do, and the key thing is they do not have like the overhead, the expenses, the risk, the liability that I have right. Yeah, we have a lot more yeah, so to be able to.

Vipul Bindra: 1:12:31

And then that fits because, like you said, they're, they don't. They don't need that fancy equipment, they don't need that experience because they are very green. But if that's what the business demands, then that's what it is and, like I said, it was fun. The good thing is there was not money invested into it, it was time right and it was my time and Emmanuel's time, and I think we learned quite a bit from it. What I also did love was it strengthened my, uh, belief in what I was doing because, um, you know, ultimately what I wanted to offer was initially, when I started the company, was to offer people high level production at prices they could afford. Not that I wanted to do cheap production, but I wasn't here trying to do, you know, multi-million dollar Super Bowl commercials either.

Vipul Bindra: 1:13:18

I was like I want to bring the like you said that mid typical my clients. I do have some Fortune 50 companies as my clients, but most of my clients are those mid to small businesses and I want to offer them better production than they had access to. At least when I started. That was the goal in 2018. At least when I started, right, that was the goal in 2018. And to 23 was, in that way, a very good year for me because I had to. You know, look back and be like my mission is good. It's still working.

Vipul Bindra: 1:13:47

It doesn't need to change Cause you know it's been five years, you go. Why do I need to do different? Do I need to change my business model and stuff and and it was good to go. You know what?

Vipul Bindra: 1:13:57

uh, it's working yeah it's working better than ever. Yeah, so we need to just double down on what we're good at and, uh, and you know, like I said, that's why the revenue increase happened in 2024 and it was, uh, totally worth it. But you have to kind of realize that, hey, my initial vision worked because it was good. That's what the market wants and it still wants it. And, like I said, you know me, I'm trying new things with the van right, I'm always trying something different, so we'll see how that goes. What about you? What are you trying to do different this year?

Jacob Centeno: 1:14:31

Yeah, so I'm building a one ton grip package as well. It's just something that I've wanted to do and we haven't had a super demand. But we had two projects last year where we ended up having to to use like everything we had and I was like, dude, we needed more um and and those.

Vipul Bindra: 1:14:51

That's kind of what I'm building for, so do you think it's worth it, since it's only two yeah, are you, are you going to be able to get any ROI out of it, or is it worth it just to rent it that two times Because it'd be one thing, you know. If you're like, okay, 20 times we needed it. But two times is the ROI there, Because a lot of this stuff is hard to get rid of. Like good luck getting rid of a triple riser rolling baby.

Jacob Centeno: 1:15:15

Yeah, yeah.

Vipul Bindra: 1:15:19

Yeah, getting rid of a triple riser rolling baby, yeah, yeah, yeah, you know it's funny. In central florida the market is one of one who already has it, so I don't know.

Jacob Centeno: 1:15:24

Yeah, no, I'm going to dc tomorrow to pick up two triple risers.

Vipul Bindra: 1:15:27

Really see that's funny, you're going to dc to pick it up.

Jacob Centeno: 1:15:32

That's so little little tip, um, you know, because I'm I'm kind of done spending money for a while, but there's an auction up in DC, an auction house. We have them, they're all around the country, but DC has a lot of broadcast companies that are going out of business and liquidating, and so this is my second auction that I've gone up and basically like pillaged yeah.

Vipul Bindra: 1:15:55

No, auctions are great, especially group gear, because that's one thing I do tell people camera and lighting equipment terrible investments they will go outdated six months a year, six months yeah, and then.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:06

But audio equipment, especially the microphones themselves, because you know, recorders, I get it, they still come out, but like microphones, 40 years later, top microphones are still the top microphones. And then grip gear, c-stand is the same, c-stand from 30 years ago yeah, so you're good like if you buy, especially a good brand like avenger or you know, not avenger american, american or matthews, yeah any of the good stuff, or modern, you know.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:31

Uh, does modern make c-stands? I don't even know. But you know anyway, any of these top three three companies, anything from modern, matthews or american, you're gonna. It's gonna last you a lifetime you never have to buy again. It's never gonna get old. They're not redesigning them every year. So, like you said, like option, it's probably gonna be the same as what you buy brand new, so, uh, so that's pretty smart, but how are you gonna? You're gonna drive it back, because good luck flying with it. I'm driving it, yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 1:16:57

That makes more sense.

Vipul Bindra: 1:16:58

Is. Was it that cheap that it's worth to drive from DC?

Jacob Centeno: 1:17:00

Yeah. So, like I got my, I got my combos. I got two triple risers, one for 170 and one for 130.

Vipul Bindra: 1:17:10

Okay, that's pretty cheap.

Jacob Centeno: 1:17:11

And then I got like a 12 by 12 butterfly like a Matthews, with diffusion for like a matthews with diffusion for like uh 250 or something okay, that's really good yeah and then I got some c.

Vipul Bindra: 1:17:21

I just picked up some c stands for fun and that's awesome some other stuff yeah, okay, so it's not just a yeah, so you're gonna basically get a a decent amount of grip.

Jacob Centeno: 1:17:29

Then it makes sense to drive down okay for me, I just I enjoy the drive like it's fine, it's 12 hours, but like and it's, it's like, like if you, if you add my 1500 day rate, it makes no sense at all. But um, for me it's just like. Like I love investing in my capabilities, which you probably do too it's it's like hey, we can fly a 12 by 12 and an 8 by 8. We can? You know, we can fly by color or r like it's capabilities.

Jacob Centeno: 1:18:00

Like you love being able to say hey, we, we could do this, we can, we could do this incredible vibe, like we could throw a snood on and make a background pop or whatever. And and I think I I love bringing that to my clients, like saying hey, here's what else we can do or have you thought of this and so, yeah, so like.

Jacob Centeno: 1:18:18

one of the weirdest, probably dumbest, investments I've made over the last several years is I bought two you know those Ari Tungsten kits with the silver cases that were like $3,000 each. Right, yeah, not anymore, no, no Like 50 bucks now. Yeah.

Vipul Bindra: 1:18:34

If somebody wants it, I mean I would love to have one Dude. I mean I would love to have one Dude, I work.

Jacob Centeno: 1:18:38

Because it's just a pretty little thing I know I would love to just have one, maybe just to put back there.

Vipul Bindra: 1:18:43

Because I was literally talking, val. I think I had this conversation on the podcast where I was talking about hot lights man. I don't remember the last time I remember never being able to be on set without gloves. I don't remember the last time I put on gloves at a set. It's been that long. It's crazy how our industry just changed, and especially for what we do. I still think they use still some stuff M40s or whatever.

Jacob Centeno: 1:19:10

Yes, the M18s and all those.

Vipul Bindra: 1:19:13

But for what we do, the corporate and commercial work there is no need for hot lights anymore at all Except on music videos. Music videos really like the look Just like you want to prop it up right here. Yeah, but music videos don't have a budget, no right, exactly so free.

Jacob Centeno: 1:19:31

They want it, but we're not making any money. Exactly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:19:34

They'll give you hey, I've got a deal of a lifetime. Can you shoot my music video and and it's? You can edit it too, and you're lucky, I'll pay you 300 bucks oh my, yeah, that's the type of calls music videos people get.

Vipul Bindra: 1:19:48

I'm like I don't know how you survive. I can't wait to have my buddy. Um, I have a friend, uh, who's not going to be on this season, but I can't wait to have him on next season because he does high-end music videos. I want to bring somebody here who actually is from the industry, who can come talk about it, because I'm telling you, even at the high level it ain't good. So I want somebody who's at that level filming for top artists, can still come tell. Like music video industry is terrible, like for money-making. You go in there because you love the art, yeah, but most people aren't like making a good living doing music videos, even though they're very fun creatively. Having done a few myself, I'm like I love it but then you make no money from it at all.

Jacob Centeno: 1:20:29

Yeah, I mean, that's why most of those guys who are kind of still in that hollywood era or mtv music video patronage era, they had, they figured out how to diversify and so they not only buy their uh mini lf right or their red rafter, but they they rent it. It sits at a rental house when it's not working. They um own a studio space that they lease out to small time creators throughout the month. They sell stock footage right. They have literally a library of like 10,000 clips on on stock. There's just like those guys. They kind of they got incredibly creative with multiple streams of income and that's why they still are fighting to this day, right.

Vipul Bindra: 1:21:18

But you had to do that right because that was the only way to make a killer living, because before what 10, 15 years ago? Corporate video wasn't even a thing.

Jacob Centeno: 1:21:27

No, right, it is only yeah five, five years yeah, even then.

Vipul Bindra: 1:21:31

I mean 10 years ago, yeah, but maybe five years before then, yeah, it's like your choices were those limited. And then the hollywood track is even more crazy. Uh, because you know you have to go through so much political nonsense and all that. I mean they have an advantage you've union, you've set rates if you join one, so you know you're not worried about rates and stuff. You know they're already kind of decided for you, at least below the line, yeah. But again, there's too much political nonsense in in hollywood that you have to go through. But this is new avenue and that's why I'm like I want listeners to know you can make a killer living. You're a prime example of that building a company pulling in over 300k of revenue and and with that and that's with six months of content, I can't wait for your hopefully 2025 to be fully booked and that would be double minimum and that's crazy to think about that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:22:25

You can pull that type of number just doing video, which is a creative endeavor, but you can make money from it as long as you are smart and you offer the right solutions.

Jacob Centeno: 1:22:36

Yeah, well, what I've found out is that 250 000 a year is with inflation is the new 40k.

Vipul Bindra: 1:22:42

yeah, that is true. I still remember, dude oh, you don't talk about 100. Okay, so I came to america 2010. I would say my first uh video experience at real would be 2012, where I was trying to do freelance video while I worked at disney wow, so that's what I'm saying.

Vipul Bindra: 1:22:58

So this is me, you know young, because you know when you go I'm gonna change the world anyway I would love to see a picture of oh, you don't want to see I look so skinny anyway, but but the point is so I'm working at disney, you know I which I finally, I had a good job at that point. When you start terrible right but at least I had a good job at disney that was paying my bills. I did video. On the side point is I was like dreaming. I was like one day if I could just make six figures, dude the homes were so cheap 100.

Vipul Bindra: 1:23:28

I was like if I could be you know. But and that's why I want to break this barrier so many people get so hyped up about six figures. Yeah, it's nothing nowadays, no with inflation, because I was like, if I could only make 100k, my life would be set dude. Right now 100k, but also like, like you said, it's like the new 10k but yeah, and revenue right like, revenues like different than profit, that too yeah, like profit.

Jacob Centeno: 1:23:51

I I don't know what I know, but inflation's crazy.

Vipul Bindra: 1:23:54

But tell me if that's true. I remember going to walmart like this it's so vivid in my brain Going to Walmart, which was stupid. I was a young, single guy. You know, first time ever being on my own and you know what I bought. I did the right thing. You know your parents go to the. We have to buy eggs, milk, bread. So I'm Walmart Pop-Tarts no, no, I at pop tarts.

Vipul Bindra: 1:24:19

Then, remember, I'm new to america. I am in walmart with my cart buying milk, eggs and you know, bread, shit that I was never gonna eat, but I didn't know that. Then I'm just going with people, buy groceries. So I'm just literally like, and that's too. I was just first time on my own, you know. I'm just like, oh, this is what people buy, so I gotta put some eggs, milk. Then I go, I don't fucking drink milk. Why am I anyway? But that realization came later. Point is but that whole cart like I'm talking cart full of shit was 20 bucks or something, and this is not that long ago. This is like 2010,. I'm talking. And now, good luck, I go to Walmart, I buy two things. It's over 100 bucks. So, anyway, inflation's crazy. Point is six figures don't mean anything. 100. 100k is nothing nowadays, at least in central florida. It may still matter if you're in a smaller tier two, tier, three town and that you can have a good life where you know your rent isn't that high.

Jacob Centeno: 1:25:07

but out here 100k very hard to survive or or at least have a good life. Oh yeah, any metro area is any metro. You know dc new york like, or you know los angeles like, or anything coastal for that matter in california. Um, anything within 40 minutes of the coastline like 100k is. Honestly, it won't last you too long, it's not livable and and it's it's crazy, yeah, the inflation is crazy, so you got to shoot higher.

Vipul Bindra: 1:25:31

But the point is you can go charge clients easily. Um, you know, if you, if you're trying to be a dp which is harder, I think, because there's a sea of dps, but but as long as you're good, you can go charge 1200, 1500, 2000 day rates. But and then if you're a production company, there's nothing stopping you from going and trying to sell 5, 10k videos, and there's so many companies that will happily pay for it. As long as you have the right solution, right, the offer matters, I think yeah, I think, something that you know.

Jacob Centeno: 1:26:02

We're in the era of communications where it's changing from. You know it used to only be high level production where you needed 10 jobs on set and now you have companies that are requesting like ugc level. You know, iphone or action camera, uh, like quality of content and uh, with dji mics right and slip howls and magnets and stuff and so but, but and so I have a lot of dps getting discouraged, like I see a lot of dps are that are like um, dude, where's the work going? Like people aren't pricing me in anymore. Even my dp is like I hate the landscape. All my buddies who are in shows or tv or what broadcast or whatever they are like it's.

Vipul Bindra: 1:26:54

It's really uh, glim, right and and I think that's why you gotta evolve, right, yeah, because, yes, yeah, you have to change with the market. You're absolutely right. Here's what I've noticed the trend in the industry. In 2010, I could have still charged a 1500 day rate. I could have brought a camera and shot the video given them, and they would have had to have a sound guide, a gaffer grip whatever right it wasn't.

Vipul Bindra: 1:27:20

Now they'll happily give me the same 1500, but now I have to do sound lighting, uh, stands, grip everything and guess what? That 1500 doesn't mean as much as it did back in the, so the rates aren't really going down, but the value of that money is barely anything. And now you're expected to do 10x the work than you were back in the day, and which also means it's hard to survive, and especially if you were somebody like in the traditional media who was making those day rates. Now goes what I got to learn, because you know, if you're not flexible, you're like I don't want to learn sound, I don't want to learn lighting, or whatever.

Vipul Bindra: 1:28:05

And then you go.

Jacob Centeno: 1:28:05

You know, know you don't want to be that dinosaur either, which is hard, I get it, but it's like you have to change with the environment. Uh, you know, because that's just how it's changing. Yeah, the realization jobs are being removed every year. So don't think like, oh, you know, um, my dp job is what is great this year. It won't be removed in the future.

Vipul Bindra: 1:28:32

Like no, like trust me, like yeah, you don't you don't know what the future could bring, and that's why you need to widen your skill set, you need to better your network and better your reach, because the truth is, everyone calls themselves a dp, at least in this town, where we produce hundreds of graduates every day, right, every year, sorry. And so you have to basically stand out and you have to be good at your craft, because, guess what, anytime I'm trying to hire and tell me if you notice this when you actually start to look at these people, you go it's hollow, it's like they don't know, they don't have the skills or the knowledge.

Jacob Centeno: 1:29:08

It's like they're being educated in college on the old landscape. That doesn't work, it's in the landscape. Today is changing like monthly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:29:17

Funny enough in the group today is changing like monthly. Yeah, funny enough. In the group. I'll sometimes post I'm like, hey, I need somebody for this job and I'll get 10 replies or whatever in my dms and I'm like, perfect, you know a lot of options, issues where I'm like, okay, um, you know, I'm looking for this is this? Do you have any experience? Relevant experience no, I've never been on a video set before. Okay, so done. Well, I mean, I don't mind teaching people, but like this is a paid job, I can't bring you as a dp, maybe a bts guy or whatever not dp, right anyway, or come for free. Yeah, exactly, come for free.

Vipul Bindra: 1:29:45

Yeah, exactly as long as you know, we can vet you, and they're they're not gonna. That's still us teaching you, right exactly but then you go to the next one and then it's like oh yeah, I've been on video guy for years. And then you go to the. I was like okay, that's great, I see content on your page. Have you lit any scene ever? No, I don't work with lighting. I don't do that. I'm like you're not a DP then You're a camera operator.

Vipul Bindra: 1:30:06

Skip, you know what I mean. So it becomes like a process and I'm like and you not in a group, learning from other film what they're going through, because it's like you have to also work on your craft. You didn't get there because you just got out of your seat and said I'm going to be a video guy. You perfected your craft, you made hundreds of videos and then you try to build your company and you found success. So what I'm saying is people are also trying to find shortcut to your craft.

Vipul Bindra: 1:30:39

The only shortcut there is and tell me if I'm wrong is you can hire somebody who has good craft. They can come to you and be like hey, I've got a good project, jacob, will you please DP for me? I'll give you a rate and then now you can go charge the client 10K. You give Jacob $1,500. You go pay I don't know an editor 1500 bucks. You can make 7k. That I see is doable without having a skill. But if you don't have the skill, I don't know otherwise how else you can go make the content yeah, I mean it's interesting.

Jacob Centeno: 1:31:11

I don't look at video production like a lot of these other agency owners out there who are like you know, there's there's social media management agencies SMMA or there's a lead gen, right, or video sales letters via sales, right, and there's people out there who are making like millions, tens of millions of dollars, $25 million a year, uh, on kind of this arbitrage of like ads and profit sharing, right. But that's not like video production. And we work in video production because we freaking love it. Like we love. We love being able to bring things to life, to communicate on behalf of clients, be an integral part of their communication, their story pivotal, feel useful, feel appreciated and, at the day, make a livable wage. And so that's that's why we do it.

Jacob Centeno: 1:32:03

But don't think for a second that, like you're going to come in here and like make a lot of money because you're in the wrong industry, in my opinion. And if you're like, oh, I want to get in video production but I'm just going to hire people around me to do everything, I think it's not built for longevity because you, you then can't vet right, like you vetted your, your dps and your grips and gaffers and stuff like you're. If a guy's like, yeah, you set up, your she's staying like this and you know, aim it this way and like, throw a sandbag on top like you're gonna be like, yeah, man, looks good to me right, like if you haven't done it before.

Vipul Bindra: 1:32:36

I don't know.

Jacob Centeno: 1:32:37

So, like in video production, I think you have to be dangerous, at least in like one or two things like you have to be incredibly dangerous, like you have to be that person who has set up a thousand c stands or set up a thousand lights, or you know, to kind of go out and then hire and like, hey, hire editing, hey, hire, yeah for this, yeah I, I, uh, yeah, a little.

Vipul Bindra: 1:33:00

I come kind of agree with most things, but slightly different. I do think you can learn um by hiring competitive people. Yes, that is going to be the hardest thing is to vet um. You know who to hire because, again, 100 people. When you say, okay, I don't know how to be a dp or I'm not a good dp, let me go hire a dp. But then now you find 500 options. You have to be able to pick the right option. But if you're smart enough, I do think, and you put together a good crew and obviously that doesn't displace learning you still have to learn then you can on your set learn, because to me, I make the most money when I touch no equipment I make my most money when I interact with a client and I solve their business problem.

Vipul Bindra: 1:33:41

I have an offer. I go to them and I say, look, let's talk. And then you figure out their problem. And then you give them an offer. Right, whatever the package is right, hey, here's the deliverables, whatever, whatever. And they buy.

Vipul Bindra: 1:33:53

And then I go on set, I bring people with me, not because I can't be a gaffer, I can't be a DP, I can do all of those things, but I want to focus on making sure that offer is met. And then they go tell their friends and they hire me. So you're absolutely right. What makes me killer is because I can vet all the people that I'm going to bring with me. Plus, I trust them. They're going to make me look good and hopefully I can.

Vipul Bindra: 1:34:21

But yeah, if I could, if you can't vet them, as long as you, you know, be smart and you actually bring in people who are kind of good and then you pay attention around, you obviously solve the client's problem. But if you look around you and see, okay, so I know, this is a good DP, what are they doing? This is a good, you know good assistant, what are they doing? And then and then obviously it doesn't mean do that all the time. You can then go to the same people be like. Hey, thank you for coming out. Here's your pay. Next time on your set I would love to come, you know, be your pa and learn what I'm saying is you can do it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:34:53

I think you can do it without having any skills, as long as you are smart about it. But there's no replacement for business skills. No, if you cannot go talk to a client and solve their problem, I don't think they can find any success. Well, I mean, it's going to be very hard, or otherwise?

Jacob Centeno: 1:35:10

I think I was more thinking about the post-production side. Right because, like, for instance, vfx- yeah, you can't do that.

Jacob Centeno: 1:35:18

It's like if you don't, yeah, if you don't know vfx, but like we charge for vfx and motion graphics, right, but if you're not dangerous like your editor could be taking 40 hours a week to produce something that you are like you don't know, takes two hours to do something, exactly no editors are the bane of why our companies exist, because finding good editors is a pain, but once you do, keep them because, like you said, that's why I don't like charging hourly.

Vipul Bindra: 1:35:50

So tell me so the way I okay. This is what I figured out with editors that I'd rather just give them per project. For same reason, because I don't like, even though, yes to my clients, we build them by the hour sometimes. So the way I'll do it is initial project. I'm just giving you an example project that I would sell to a client 15K is the better option, you know, good, better, best pricing. They take that, they get four deliverables, perfect, we film the deliverables, they get the deliverables, edit price is included.

Vipul Bindra: 1:36:15

But then when we go to either go do something back or whatever they're like, oh, we want extra divisions or something, then I'll build them by the hour. I'll say, okay, it's gonna take us 10 hours, so 75 or 150 times, whatever, that's your price. But then to my editors, I don't do that personally, I'd rather go to my editors and I'd be like okay, so what it's gonna take, can you do it? What's the price? Okay, or sometimes it's the initial one where where I would have just given them a price. Here's the price edit these, because then I'm like I don't care if they edit in five hours or they order in 50 hours because, like you said right, you can be very easily taken advantage of where somebody goes. Oh yeah, I spent 40 hours on this.

Vipul Bindra: 1:36:56

Now you have no way to know yes unless, at least for you, if you have somebody you could put in an office, you know what they worked on, but most of my editors work from their home. They're remote, so it's like I don't know and I'm not going to put a camera. That's too much then at that point you're not the type of person I want to work with anyway. So you're absolutely right, you got to be very careful with vfx people, with editors, and you need to understand their work a little bit yeah right to know what, know whatever time it should take when you're selecting people to hire.

Vipul Bindra: 1:37:29

No, you're very smart and see, I wasn't even thinking that side. You're absolutely right. So at least that's how I've tried to do it. I just do flat rate based on what needs to be done. That was I know that I won't be taken advantage of because I don't care if you take 50 hours. I want it done and you agreed to it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:37:44

Like I make sure I get there by and before you know we commit to it and I find that at least it kind of works, especially with remote people, because you know, and if they can do it faster, then they can do it faster. That's on them, that's good for them.

Jacob Centeno: 1:37:57

Yeah, so it's definitely something like you said. It's the bane of our existence figuring it out. There's software tools out there, but they're not really great at storytelling. Like, you have autopod, which will cut a podcast really quick, but then you still have to watch the whole thing over. Look at all the mess ups that it made. Correct them, watch it over again, revise it. So there are things out there that kind of speed up the workflow of editing.

Jacob Centeno: 1:38:24

As you create SOPs for products, right, like oh, we do reels, then you can offer a competitive product on that and then you can charge hourly for that. And so our editors we have two full-time editors and what works best for them is me presenting cost-effective retainers to my clients, and so they. It's a value proposition. I know how long it takes to get through a certain product. But then we have bespoke right when we it's a headache to get into Like you have to manage the footage. Like you have to go in, you have to organize it. You have to create the project, you have to, you know, upload it to the cloud for redundancy. Then you got to get a version on frame IO. Then you got to, you know, render it out rough. Then you, you know, and all clients have different like wants and needs, and then it has to be reviewed by their certain executive team and stuff.

Vipul Bindra: 1:39:22

And 500 people have five different, 100 different opinions on it so.

Jacob Centeno: 1:39:26

So editing is when it's bespoke like that. Uh it's I have. What worked for me for two years was a 750 day rate.

Vipul Bindra: 1:39:36

I got uh, one of my buddies that's pretty good rate, by the way, for an editor.

Jacob Centeno: 1:39:42

Yeah yeah, no, it's a great rate, but we typically that was just what I priced at because I knew that we were spending a lot of money in pre-production and in post production, not editing, focusing on other things to get ready it's the same thing with the freelancer rate, like 1500 bucks.

Jacob Centeno: 1:39:59

But then we have, like, you know, we have to communicate, have a meeting call sheet, you know, hour-long meeting here, and then we have to go. You have a meeting call sheet, you know, hour long meeting here, and then we have to go, you know, deliver the footage this day. Like it's a lot of stuff that doesn't go into, um, the sort of day rate but, um, with editing the seven, 50,. What it allowed me to do was kind of put a little bit of fluff in there for all of those things, um that would come up and bite me in the butt and um, even with my editors, like just giving them a little bit of extra space for delivery, like even if I bid it as like a five-day editing project, but then it took us two weeks. It's like okay, well, I as a business owner lost money, but my client's still happy, so I'm really glad that I and so and is that what you were talking about earlier?

Vipul Bindra: 1:40:48

trying to figure out how to price things where that doesn't happen? Cause, at the end of the day, you know you're a business, you don't want to lose money, so is that what, what your goal is to figure out? Or have you already cause I know you kind of said that figured out how to price it where?

Jacob Centeno: 1:41:13

you know that won't happen, so yeah. So I think the big move, big shift this year was we are doing a lot of LinkedIn, short form, and then and then repurposing that for YouTube uh, short form and long-term or long form and uh, just all organic, no, no paid media, all unpaid. And so, based on those three products right there, we have streamlined SOPs and then we are offering retainers that are built around those. So we the filming is super straightforward. It's like we come in once a quarter or once a month, we generate several hours of footage uh, some of it scripted, some of it not scripted and then we come home and we have our library that we can basically deliver for the next three months and so and what are you pricing these uh retainers at?

Jacob Centeno: 1:42:02

so they're totally separate products, right? So youtube is not linkedin.

Vipul Bindra: 1:42:06

So, uh, youtube, you know it's like so your client has to pick which platform. Or yeah, do they okay? Yeah, so let's do linkedin, because I think that's far more valuable for clients. Yeah, um, so what? What are you roughly um aiming the the retainer at and what's the payment frequency?

Jacob Centeno: 1:42:24

yeah, so we just upped our prices this year. I think we were doing 2k for five to seven reels last year. This year we're at like 2500 for five reels, and then we have a long form video two to three minutes in length.

Vipul Bindra: 1:42:40

That is like 3750, and then that's on top of the 2500 yeah it's a totally separate product, so 3750 if they want a long form video, three minute long and then uh, five reels 25.

Jacob Centeno: 1:42:52

They can go to 10 reels, they can go to 50 reels. So it's easy for them to multiply.

Vipul Bindra: 1:42:55

Easy math, yeah and then, uh, what's the frequency? So do you just offer them to pick the frequency, or do you just have a standard like, oh, it's three months, six months, 12 months, whatever retainer? Or you're letting them pick, like how we'll do, we'll try it one time, or, oh well, let's sign up for three months, or whatever. How are you?

Jacob Centeno: 1:43:14

yeah. So, uh, I let clients build trust in us, in the product with a three-month recommendation. Uh, there's no point in in us doing a one month or two month, like it's just doing all a cart. Like hire us to do your production, we'll give you deliverable and I'll charge you more for that. But if you want to partner with us so that we can learn your brand, learn your your, you know your corporate culture, your people, spend time with them, jump on calls with them, invest that time getting to know you right in your language, and then invest that time getting to know you right in your language and then and then acclimate our client or our client content for the next three months, then we we just we're more positioned to bring you success and so minimum for sure is three month engagement and then, once that three month is up, it should be a six or nine month or a year.

Jacob Centeno: 1:44:02

But six or nine month is good because you know they work in quarters and you know make city. They evaluate the budget at the end of the year and stuff. So six to nine yeah exactly it makes it easier for them at the end of the year.

Vipul Bindra: 1:44:13

And how are you doing billing? Are you doing all three months? So let's say they started, they love it, which I think it's good. Pricing 7,500 bucks Do you charge 25 per month? Are you going you gonna take 7500 all up front? Like, how are you doing your payment structure?

Jacob Centeno: 1:44:28

yeah, so we, typically we it's funny, I still invoice via canva. Um, I am like so frugal, oh wow, that's like I, I hold on that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:44:39

That right there nobody got is like a huge like what? Oh okay, please speak, tell me more.

Jacob Centeno: 1:44:49

I've done I. I spent my first year of business messing with proposify and proposals on there and then I I actually pay for like premium quickbooks and like all the services and it's everything is so integrated. But, um, I I only have like two clients that I invoice through quickbooks because they just want to pay with the credit card and then everybody else. I actually just send them my bank information with a canva sort of invoice yeah, and then they just what?

Vipul Bindra: 1:45:16

wire transfer you the money. Yeah, I mean, wire transfer is fine. A bunch of my clients, especially when you get to that high range, they have to wire transfer you the money. That's fine, yeah, but you're making your invoices in canva, so it's a manual process. Yeah, that's crazy to me. Why aren't you using quickbook invoices? Because they don't have to pay through credit card.

Jacob Centeno: 1:45:34

Yeah, yeah no, I I I think I do want to pivot over to quickbooks. I've been looking at it. I think the biggest thing is like the pain points for me weren't worth it, but, um, I think it's something that I want to do more of. Like I paid all, all my expenses and everything was through quickbooks this year. So all my contractors, right like all my 1099s excuse me, my w2s everything was through quickbooks, uh, their payroll, and so I paid a premium for that all year long it's like why wouldn't I just invoice through QuickBooks as well?

Jacob Centeno: 1:46:07

Yeah it makes sense.

Vipul Bindra: 1:46:08

Yeah, but, but that's hey. What's working is working. So that's very interesting to me Also, just to make sure you're, all your employees are technically W-9s, right? None of them are W-2 anymore. So you're just okay. Yeah, okay, I get it. So you're invoicing them to quickbooks. It works. But for your clients a lot of them you're just manually doing it and they'll wire transfer you the money, which is good, I mean less cost of business.

Jacob Centeno: 1:46:31

Trust me, the bad, worst thing the biggest pain point is is sending them an invoice every month and then following up. Most of my clients are really great and we haven't had any issues like. I've seen a lot of horror stories online, but I have so much trust and reputation built up with a lot of my industry and niche and so I've you know, knock on wood, I've never had any issues with that's good.

Vipul Bindra: 1:46:53

So just so I get it. So you're charging them, which that invoice thing was amazing, by the way. Are you planning to switch to all QuickBooks or other type of invoice system, or you're just going to stick to Canva, just because it works, which there's nothing wrong with that If it works, it works yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 1:47:08

Yeah, I mean the other thing. We had other clients like request bill, or was it billcom. Yeah, I've had to do that, yeah, and then.

Vipul Bindra: 1:47:16

So the other crazy thing is like we're, we're we've been wedding you, your company, for two years, two years wow, two years we um.

Jacob Centeno: 1:47:34

We talked about doing that's gonna be huge business yeah I mean, so we've literally to go through their onboarding process to get approved as a vendor and then, and then, like it's, it's insane, like they, they have like a brand university where, like all of their assets and they're like every font, if it's this type of video, it has to be this color. If it's this type, you have to use this mascot. Like all all kinds of like insane uh branding, uh rules and um, they have, they have their own.

Jacob Centeno: 1:48:08

They have their own invoicing payment process that you have to sign up for you have to yeah you have to get vetted your bank accounts, your uh your tax statements for the last two years, all kinds of stuff it's like unique to that client.

Vipul Bindra: 1:48:22

Like I have to go through an entire system yeah, but I mean, if there's enough business, it's worth it, right? Yeah, I mean, that's this what it is well, it could be like it's.

Jacob Centeno: 1:48:30

It's one of those things where like it could be your only client, yeah, yeah yeah, that's, that's pretty cool, so I'm well, I'm happy for you on that.

Vipul Bindra: 1:48:37

So, coming back to so, are you going to charge them all 7500 in one invoice, or you you do give them the option to pay you every month, um, even though it's a three-month commitment. Um, are they paying you 25, 25, 25, or are they paying you 75? How are you?

Jacob Centeno: 1:48:52

yeah, so that payment. So we um, we typically, I typically invoice like production services with editing in one bill um and then on retainer it's it'll. If we're not shooting that month, it'll just be like editing deliverables in one. So if it's a highlight video, it'll have it's 3750, if it's the five reels or short form videos it'll. You know, for linkedin it'll be the 2500 and then at the end of it it'll just be that total. Yeah. Yeah, check out, check out. Okay.

Vipul Bindra: 1:49:29

Awesome and then I love that. So that's the 3750. That's our typical long form video, right? What a role like interview, b role, you know, type of stuff. Or is there something different in there that you would include? No?

Jacob Centeno: 1:49:43

I mean, we we've kind of. If you look at our portfolio, it's just like our bread and butter. We typically have people come to us or like hey, we want a testimonial video. We don't know what it's going to look like, we don't, and that's just our easy way of being like okay, it's going to be 37, 50 and we'll just come and we'll do it this way. We'll execute it like this. We um, we have a couple of clients who are like okay, we need three of those, you know, and then they come to us that makes it easy for you to invoice them two times.

Vipul Bindra: 1:50:09

Three, there you go. There's an invoice. So simple, and I love this conversation. By the way. Not only am I learning, but I think people need to. The whole point of this is what to charge what? To offer right.

Vipul Bindra: 1:50:40

For sure people would be curious now. So you charge them 3750, you're gonna get make them a video, right, and let's say, okay, we're making a hypothetical client here. I signed up for your services. I want two 3750 style videos and I want five reels. That's the package. So what equipment do you show up with? What cameras lighting? Because you know it's simple content. It's not like high-end. What are you using for those typical type of jobs?

Jacob Centeno: 1:51:10

Yeah, so a lot of it depends on travel, right Unless it's local, Local right. So if we're local, we're showing up with two matching like Sony Alpha or FX cameras and, honestly, that's to protect us, because we want redundancy, like we can deliver one video and make it look super amazing fire.

Vipul Bindra: 1:51:28

But it's good to have A and B angles. Yeah, Like you said, a good option to cut to. So what's your FX? What FX3? Is that what you?

Jacob Centeno: 1:51:38

want? Yeah, we'll perform on the 3s. How?

Vipul Bindra: 1:51:41

many cameras do you own right now or do you rent them?

Jacob Centeno: 1:51:45

So we have so we have five sonys. We have five sonys and then we have, uh, two cannons. Um, that's crazy seven cameras yeah, so we do with a lot of the cannons that we it's a photography focused deliverables like or um, we'll do a lot of our time lapse as well, so we love, uh, which cannons are those? Eos r6, uh, the eos r? Uh, yeah, oh my gosh, I don't even know how many cameras we have um yeah, but yeah, some canon, uh mirrorless.

Vipul Bindra: 1:52:32

What about sony? Are they all mirrorless? You got any fx69?

Jacob Centeno: 1:52:35

yeah, so we love, we love.

Vipul Bindra: 1:52:37

I, I love the fx3 um oh yeah, that's like, I think, the favorite camera so far. People, it's just, it's.

Jacob Centeno: 1:52:43

You look at it and you're like, yeah, this is gonna suck. And then you like pull the results and you're like this is nuts. It's just ridiculous every single time. So I love the fx3s. We, we do. We actually still work on the a7s3 a lot. We work. Uh, I brought the a7IV today shooting a vlog on that, because it's photo video like packs a punch and I never expected that. I bought it because I was like, oh, you know, I just want like a decent full frame sensor but it's like over delivered for like the last two years, so that's crazy.

Jacob Centeno: 1:53:17

Yeah it's ridiculous. Sony, sony is amazing. I'm waiting for the new whatever Mark II they're coming out with on the FX line. Waiting for the new, uh, whatever mark 2 they're coming out with on the fx line. Uh, hopefully at nav this year I'm gonna I'll probably pick up two matching sensors, whatever it is okay, awesome, so that's pretty cool.

Vipul Bindra: 1:53:34

And then any lighting preferences. What do you use or own for stuff like that?

Jacob Centeno: 1:53:39

so lighting um. So I have uh 12 different re tungsten lights oh, you're still on tungsten. You have gloves and all that crap that people don't. Oh wow, so you're.

Vipul Bindra: 1:53:52

You're old school still, which is I mean, hey, there's nothing wrong, here's what I'll tell you. Led lights are still just chasing the quality of the tungstens. So quality was never an issue, it was just the heat.

Jacob Centeno: 1:54:03

And the, the, you know, which is more than enough to jump onto leds.

Vipul Bindra: 1:54:07

Yeah, so so you are still on re tungsten, do you know so?

Jacob Centeno: 1:54:11

so, so I just have those because oh, you have them I was like. So like I love for those like music videos and stuff, I love blasting like a 2k or 1k through the window because it's just beautiful looking light exactly but for this type of corporate, no.

Vipul Bindra: 1:54:25

What are you bringing?

Jacob Centeno: 1:54:25

we're. We're using like 600d, 600c, all you know a lot of aperture ecosystem. I used to plan the nan light uh system before that go docks and then I was just like, yeah, aperture is where I want to be.

Vipul Bindra: 1:54:39

So we were, you know once you'll just do it like a dome with some kind of aperture light Pretty standard stuff. So any mic of choice. What mic are you planting on people?

Jacob Centeno: 1:54:50

So the Rhodes, have you know, they're worth their weight in gold. We love the Rhodes. The wireless stuff, yeah, oh yeah, we love that. And then what about?

Vipul Bindra: 1:54:57

do you do a boom for those type of ones?

Jacob Centeno: 1:55:00

or no, because they're 3750. Sennheiser 600, 416.

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:08

know, because they're 37.

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:08

Sennheiser 600 416 look at that, those you know, so people know exactly how to replicate the poor bear stories.

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:11

Look, yeah, I mean. Hey, I mean, I know it's not that easy, but you know that's my idea. I want people to know exactly what gear professionals are using, what rates they're charging, because I feel like a lot of people don't know. Like when I started believe it or not I, after being a freelancer for years, I was like I don't know what to charge. You know what I mean. And then I would talk to people. I was like they would be like oh, you can't charge a thousand bucks. And I'm like, but that doesn't seem. You know, because I've always been that entrepreneurial mindset, I'm doing calculations and I'm like yeah that makes no sense I will go

Jacob Centeno: 1:55:40

out of business if I do not charge this. Yeah, exactly. You know, I will be able to buy next year's camera if I charge this, and I won't be able to buy next year's camera if I charge.

Vipul Bindra: 1:55:50

Yeah, exactly and then I'm like so and so. People need to be able to understand also the cost that you don't realize when you're starting. Like you said, quickbooks cost freaking money oh my gosh. Uh, I have a better proposal software that costs money and hundreds of other freaking subscription sites that cost money. Yeah, it's like also v transfer.

Jacob Centeno: 1:56:08

I mean the amount of websites that cost money and once you add, start to add and you don't think that music which has been in the last three years, they love charging 500 to a thousand dollars a year now.

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:20

So, uh, what service are you licked, or whatever? Is that what you're using?

Jacob Centeno: 1:56:24

so we use like a lot we use like artlist we use you know, uh, like pond, five, like I don't know. I think we have like seven different. Yeah, like music subscriptions. So many.

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:35

I'm just editing a project right now. That's just stock footage, which is great. Yeah, you know, in a way I like that we can make money without having to even go shooting. But then it's been a problem because it's like oh, there's so many websites to pull freaking content from.

Vipul Bindra: 1:56:48

So then, we give the final deliverable to clients like where did all the rows? Because you know that also matters knowing for licensing where all the footage came from, right. So it's like a hard thing to keep track of. Anything else I can't believe it's already been freaking. Two hours. It's ridiculous. And I have so many things I haven't even barely touched with you yet. But before we go, I want to know more no-transcript niche down.

Jacob Centeno: 1:57:38

Figure it, figure it out Like it should be the thing that makes you happy, that gives you energy when you're there. The people that you're shooting or creating content for should give you energy. Right, you should go home at the end of the day not wanting to like, just conk out Like you should be, like that was incredible. I love what I do. So find that niche in your life and pursue that. Do free content for that. I fully support that right. Like, once you know what makes you happy, creating for it. Like, do as much free stuff as they will let you do until you have a portfolio, until people are like hey, like I need to pay for your time. Hey, I want to block off this time. Right, and so that's like the number one thing that transformed my business. And I think the second thing yeah, I lost it.

Vipul Bindra: 1:58:33

Happens, you get so passionate about the first one, which is what. I'm like you know, if you do every day what you love and it no longer feels like work and I remember you're going to do it for X the number of hours, but it's no longer work because you're just so happy.

Jacob Centeno: 1:58:48

I know what I was going to say Perfect, invest in yourself, educate yourself, right. So I didn't have six months of of like premium businesses here, but during those months I figured out how to go out and get my SBA cert Right, like it's certified as a small business, which takes a lot of time and a lot of paperwork and stuff Right. But that unlocks a new door for you. Um, I registered in my, you know, for federal contracts, right, like you have city state um contracts available and so you have to jump through a lot of hoops to do that. So, like, I spent an entire month like registering for these platforms, proving I'm a real person, submitting like really sensitive documents about my personal life, my taxes, my home, my assets, all this stuff. But like it takes so much time, and so I took that time to invest in and so I could have been pursuing a master's or an editing course.

Vipul Bindra: 1:59:47

But you know, for for this season, for me it was like I'm going to no, and that's so valuable because now you can access if you can access dod contracts, man, that's people. You have no idea how much money there is.

Jacob Centeno: 1:59:59

It's a massive headache and you don't want to be in it. I don't recommend jumping.

Vipul Bindra: 2:00:02

Yeah, but once you do like, if you want to make money, man, like I'm telling you, even small, like I work with states, state-owned university or just state in general, like tourism departments, whatever anything you know it's, the money is there and they're willing to pay for it and the check's always clear. But, like you said, there is always loopholes, there's always hurdles, and I think next time when I bring, I would love to talk that whole journey Plus you would have been through this year of you know all this that you're you're going through. I would love to know the results. But here's one thing I do want to talk about before you go and I know you have a flight to catch, but please tell us, how do you find your clients?

Jacob Centeno: 2:00:40

Yeah, so my clients I've. You know I did 10, 10 years of working in a nonprofit right For around military families and I built up a lot of connections and that gave me a certain amount of reputation when I started my business and I had a service to offer people. For some people you got to start in weddings. For some people you got to start in weddings, um, but for me I I find a lot of my clients in my reputation. People are like oh, he is, this is his story, this is what he's done and this is what he's now offering. So it's either it's easier for them to sell my story to other people.

Jacob Centeno: 2:01:22

And so I get referrals like that all the time, where people are like hey, I saw you at this event, hey, I saw you at this fundraiser, hey, I saw you working for this nonprofit and I shot your contact over to so-and-so and a word of mouth on set, being on set with people, you know I get two referrals, three referrals on some of my sets.

Jacob Centeno: 2:01:44

You know, working with their partners, their executive team, I just you get exposure like that when you're doing an incredible job on set, uh, delivering an awesome product, right, and then, um, yeah, I mean that's, and then giving my time, like my time is free, like I'm not. I'm not one of those like-holes who's like oh you know, I'll charge you 500 bucks an hour, like, like a powerful product. I make calculated risk and I say hey, I want to come on and consult, I don't care if it's one year or two years, but I believe in your product, service or mission. And so I have like three or four of those where I've been consulting them as like a video production, media content creator, right Consultant, and then they, in that two year span, have hired us to do 50, a hundred, you know, thousand dollars in business and this is why you don't need an MBA.

Vipul Bindra: 2:02:59

You just need a Jacob of your own. So I would highly recommend reaching out to him or other people in the area. I just do want to people. I don't know who's listening. I'm hoping it's people like us. But the other thing I don't want people to go is obsessed somewhere, like you have to talk to one of us or anyone else who's been on this podcast. Just find people. Obviously, if you're local, we're happy to meet you, but find just people around you who are doing what you want to be doing already. Go ask them for coffee, go hang out on their sets, because I think you've said this ending.

Vipul Bindra: 2:03:30

I love what everything you just said now about finding clients. It's all about just meeting people, being more on set. If you don't have clients, it's because you're not on set. Just go on set, be available, meet the people around you who are already on those high level sets. Go there, build your skill level until you can have those higher positions. And I think, if you do just good work, if you're a nice person to hang out with, finding clients not that hard because, at the end of the day, if you believe in something and you genuinely try to help them.

Vipul Bindra: 2:04:03

They want you to be part of it and people and you genuinely try to help them they want you to be part of it and people and organizations are happy to pay you for it. Right, yeah, all right, absolutely. This has been incredible talks there. Before we go, do you want to share people, your I don't know Instagram website, whatever? Yeah.

Jacob Centeno: 2:04:16

So poor bear stories. P P O O R B E A R S T O R I E Scom. We also have socials personally on LinkedIn, jacob Centeno Facebook Instagram. You can connect with me and follow me on YouTube. We have the business and the personal. So I'm super happy to. If you're thinking about getting in the contractor defense space, you want to learn a little bit more about that stuff. It's super complicated to navigate, but if anybody's interested, interested, I'm happy to chat with you guys. Dm me awesome, perfect.

Vipul Bindra: 2:04:50

Yes, please, uh, reach out to jacob if you have any questions. But here's what I'd like. Like I said, I'm pretty sure hopefully we find an audience and if we do, I'd love to do a season two where we can be more chilled on a couch or whatever you know like relax more, and I would love to bring you back and I would love to uh, to hear back your story with this whole process and um, you know, so that's so everyone can learn about this process and, uh, you know, find success. So, thank you again, thank you for taking time and I wish you a safe flight, sir. Thank you. Thank you, bingera, I'll be back anytime.