Creatives Grab Coffee - Key Lessons Learned | Creatives Grab Coffee 2

Episode Date: September 15, 2020

“Hey we should grab coffee sometime.” This is one of the most frequently used phrases to set up a meeting and connect. Who knows how many ideas, plans and relationships have been built over a cup of coffee. This is why we decided to start Creatives Grab Coffee. A platform where we invite creatives and business professionals to come and discuss industry topics over a cup of coffee. As this is our first episode we’ll be talking about how we got our start! Make sure you subscribe because we'll have guests from the video production, marketing, and film industry in upcoming episodes!

Hey, we should grab coffee sometime. This is one of the most frequently used phrases by creatives seeking to set up a meeting and connect. Who knows how many ideas, plans, and relationships have been built over a cup of coffee. This is why we decided to start the Creatives Grab Coffee podcast. A platform where we invite creatives to come and discuss various topics about the industry, all over a cup of coffee. So let us start. all over a cup of coffee. So let us start. Today we're actually having coffee from one of the coffee shops of our former alma mater,

Balzac's. Have you ever had Balzac's before? No. It's actually really, well technically now you're having it. I think I like that Costco coffee a bit more. You think you like the Costco coffee more? Yeah. It's got to beco coffee more yeah what it's got to be costco that's what it is they just add that little flavor you know bulk coffee that just has that like it just tastes better for some reason whenever you get like boutique coffee it it tastes like it's supposed to be good it's like the idea of it but deep down you know it was not worth what you paid for it yeah yeah it definitely is not at the level that it should be otherwise but we should do different coffees each well that's that's kind of the idea right like that that was the whole point like i wanted to bring this one the

next one i want to bring on uh well we'll save it for the next podcast uh for when we share that but we'll do reviews at the end of each podcast yeah anyways uh so for today's topic we're going to be talking about uh starting a business and what what are some of the thoughts that you have going into it what are your what are your goals and expectations are versus what you learned down the road you know there i always found the classic interview question that people used to ask people was like where do you see yourself in five years you know and we're now actually at that point uh with the business where it's like this is five years on so where did we see ourselves five years ago you know like like where are we now you know and um i just wanted to uh if you if you want to start off you know like what were some of the

expectations you had going into starting the business? So I think going into it, I've just really had two ideas of where we're going to go with this. And number one was that we were going to be doing a lot of cool projects with high level businesses. So like not so large sized corporations. And then the other idea I had of it was that we were going to be pretty big by that by the five year mark to the point where we had like like an office. We had employees and we were just taking on like producing roles, something like that to that effect. Right. But looking back on it now, we should have actually sat down and written out our vision for the company. Cause I don't think we did that.

We just had our own personal ideas of where we're going, where it was going to go. Um, but it would have been good to actually just sit down and write it out. Uh, when you say cool types of projects, like what type of projects were you expecting us to kind of, uh, be taking on? Well, at the time, because we started off pretty strong right like um right when we were starting the company or right when we started the company we we started doing work with uh um ad agencies so we're doing work with like on projects like kfc pizza hut expedia and then we're also doing work with Scotiabank, right? So I thought that was going to continue even further.

So you're saying because we had such a strong start with such brand names, we were thinking, okay, you know, we have all these great brands. Right off the bat. Right off the bat. Like we can only go higher from here. Yeah, it's just exponential growth from here on out. It's funny because when we were starting it out,

I was originally thinking that we would be kind of trying to focus more on creating narrative work and then having the business projects and the corporate clients on the side to just kind of fuel it a little bit more. And I think one thing we quickly realized is that there's a need for a bigger focus on the corporate side. I wasn't exactly too sure how the growth would kind of go because when we were starting the business, I was still riding this wave, as I mentioned in the last podcast, where work was just kind of coming in

and I wasn't focusing too much on, you know, like when it goes in the lows, what do we do from there right you said narrative we we really didn't do any narrative work we we didn't but that's what we kind of were talking about wanting to do right that was something we discussed in the beginning that we wanted to kind of uh um start pushing forward and you know like try to create you know short films um features maybe down the road but um obviously that is a part of the business where there is no money being made right those are more

passion projects and in terms of the business we realize okay we need to shift it and focus more on the corporate uh on corporate clients that bring in the money yeah and luckily for us that's how we started we had the big names, as you mentioned. Not only did we have some big names starting off, but very quickly we made connections with several ad agencies. And those ad agencies started feeding us work with other brands such as Pizza Hut, KFC, Expedia, et cetera. But one thing I noticed later on was that there are highs and lows in the business, you know, it's almost as if it's seasonal. And that was one thing we did not really expect in the beginning. And not really many people mentioned it to us as we were starting out. For some companies, like people that we know, like they experience the seasonal ups and downs,

but other people we know don't experience it.'re constantly working all year round right so we were also too young to know like which one we were going to be right yeah well the other thing that we didn't realize is that we were comparing we were trying to compare ourselves with a lot of agencies that have also been established for a very long time a lot of these agencies and companies that have been, that are perceived to work a lot, they've been around for at least 15 to 20 years and they've had that line of business going for so long. So they're always going to have work coming in. And sorry, and the other thing too, is that even if they've just recently

started their company, and they get all that work, they have all the connections that they've built over that, like 20 year span, right? Yeah, these are people that have been working in the industry for 10 to 15 years, they have huge networks of people that they can reach out to, and they can find work. And that's why we were a bit surprised. I was like, oh, you just started the business a few months ago, but you already have this much work. You already have an office. You already have a team of five people just off the bat like that. We were a little bit surprised by that. And we were thinking, okay, maybe we have that potential, but we didn't really realize going into it is that, you know, we're really starting from scratch.

From zero. Yeah. Starting from scratch has other limitations. There are some benefits to it, of course. But that was one of the biggest challenges that we were facing. And to be honest, it's something we still face because, you know, we have seen a steady growth in the business every year, which on paper is great. You know, it's always good to see a business growing, but to get it to a level like that, where it's very majorly established with a lot of different networks, you know, it's, it just takes even a longer time. I see it almost coming maybe even another five years

before we can get it to that level mm-hmm if we really stick to it like that yeah yeah hundred percent so one thing I want to kind of go over is after five years now running the business what are three key things that you have learned the Ricky thing we'll do we'll do one at a time i wrote these down just so i wouldn't forget okay that we've learned right just start just start with one and then let's start the first one so number one is that it takes a long time to learn um the skills to a run a business and then be just being a creative at the same time right because we do both we run our business and then be just being a creative at the same time. Right.

Cause we do both. We run our business and then we also go shoot right now to shoot. You need to, you know, it, it takes a long time to learn, to learn how to compose your shots, light the scenes, edit the whole, uh, puzzle together, uh, to make it into something that takes a long time. Right. I feel like I've just recently finally figured that out. Uh, but up until then it was just like a learning, learning curve, like a giant learning curve. Right. And then on the business end of things, it's, it's the same thing, right? Like it, it takes a while to figure out how to, um, you know, reach out to your clients, how to, how the whole client management side of things, you know. So, yeah.

Yeah, it definitely is hard to find that work-life balance between the two because both are in a way full-time jobs. away full-time jobs you know you have your um in a lot of bigger agencies they have their chief operations uh officers who basically run the day-to-day they help the team find clients continuously network and continuously do sales whereas then there are the creative directors who are handling all the creative aspects with the clients and also you know helping organize the shoots with their producers and then just kind of managing that aspect. Those are two separate jobs. But when you're taking on both roles, it is hard to kind of, it is hard to find the balance where sometimes you are doing a lot of one and the other one suffers. one suffers um that's one thing i i think we ran into a lot is that we'd we'd become overwhelmed because it's hard to produce and then on the other side direct and dp the work um so when we'd focus

on one the other one would 100 suffer yeah and then like when we tried to focus on both it was like we're giving half of our attention so they they were both kind of like growing, but at a slower rate. So what do you think is like maybe the solution that we need to kind of continue with moving forward? Well, I think we were starting it this year, which was good, which was bringing on freelancers to shoots, right? So if I'm producing the project, I'll just bring a DP. And then I'll produce in direct for the most part. So you can focus on the bigger picture, right? The guy who's DPing, you can just get all the shots, and then you can just oversee it. And then you know, if he misses out on one or two, just get those as well. And then once that's done, And then, you know, if he misses out on one or two, just get those as well.

And then once that's done, you know, hire an editor and have them work on the project because editing takes a long time, man. It takes like 20 to 30 hours for like, what, a one to two minute promotional video. That's like, that's really half the week. If you're going to work on it, it might take the whole week too, right? So it's either you edit this project or you work on trying to find the next project right yeah it's definitely hard finding that balance and i remember one of the shoots that we did this year before the before the lockdown um with covid19 uh there was that project that we did for the ama where i went in to help produce and direct it and we

were interviewing about 17 marketing legends and I think if I was trying to do everything at that point you know also shoot it do the interview too much it would have been too much and that's why we hired one of our one of our freelancers Anthony Voltsinis likeus. Like he's a great shooter. Great editor too. Great shooter, great editor. And he really helped to make the process great because I knew I could trust him

with the shooting aspect of it. And then I could focus on, I could focus my attention with the client and with the interviewing of each person for the videos. So I think we're definitely on the right track right now going forward um trying to balance things out like that because that way we're also bringing in other creatives that have their own spin that they can bring to the table because sometimes you just need that in a business as well you need other people's

influence in there yeah it's like a fresh set of eyes, right? Yeah. So for me, one of the things that I learned is that whenever you're starting a business like this, try to do as much as you can in the beginning, because when you do that, you can learn a hell of a lot. You know, you have this idea that you want to do X, Y, only X, Y, y z type of work and you don't want to do anything else but you know when an opportunity comes in the beginning you have i i strongly believe that you need to take it because you never know where you can learn from it i mean in the beginning we weren't exactly planning to shoot weddings on the side you know that wasn't something that was in our plan but a lot of opportunities came up where we can, where you and I could freelance working with other companies that handled weddings specifically.

We can come in, shoot weddings for them. And we were learning a lot about how to be very flexible and nimble on sets. Obviously, weddings are a little bit different, but we found that those were very high-stress situations where if you were able to make a quick decision just like that, imagine how much simpler a corporate-type project would that you could gain a lot of social skills because um you're you're meeting so many people and you have to break the ice with each one of them and um that takes a lot of skill right so you need to be able to socialize get very comfortable with people and uh i think you could tell who shoots weddings when you do corporate work because they're way more outgoing and social on set people that don't do weddings they're a bit more reserved you know like not as social they're there to do their work they're there to do their work it's very noticeable to do their work. It's very noticeable. It's very noticeable. And I know like that, that's the biggest thing I've taken away from that. Like that's helped me a lot with, uh, dealing with clients and dealing with people. It's just,

it's, it's just naturally made me more outgoing and social. Yeah, of course. And like, definitely like from, from weddings, like, uh, the things that you learn, um, also on the fly, that's, that's the, that's the biggest, uh, takeaway is that with weddings, you learn um also on the fly that's that's the that's the biggest uh takeaway is that with weddings you learn how to make decisions like that on the spot because a lot of the time yeah like obviously on on sets on in big studio shoots or in corporate or corporate projects uh decisions need to be made and obviously there's more time to be made there but when you are confident enough to make it on the spot, you can help the production move along a lot more quickly and efficiently,

which is valued with a lot of people and agencies these days. I think it also makes you a bit more creative as well, because you'll get to a certain point when you do weddings that you've already seen it all, right? And to make it interesting for yourself and also better for the people that hire you right because you want to you do want to get more work you try to become more creative so when you get on the scene you're instantly thinking of like okay i know how to do the basic shots that i need to get but what can i do that's a bit more

interesting this time right so you're always thinking i had two steps going like oh maybe i could shoot through like that that glass so that will give me some cool distortion effects or whatever right so then you could take that uh creativity you could practice that creativity and then take that to other corporate shoots as well right so when you get to a set on a corporate project then you can also try to apply the same creativity right yeah it's basically training your brain to think outside the box uh in a more consistent basis and also trusting that because obviously if you haven't practiced being creative as often sometimes um it's it's harder to trust if uh what you're about to try out is going to work or not it's like a testing ground basically exactly and it's harder to trust if what you're about to try out is going to work or not.

It's like a testing ground, basically. Exactly. And it's interesting that that's kind of where we came from by doing weddings and then kind of applying it to laps as a whole and bringing that level of thinking to the business. Like I even went as far as like doing challenges, like challenging myself. All right, if I use just this one lens the whole day, what could I get with this? Yeah.

And sometimes you'd be surprised at how amazing the type of work that comes out from that, you know, because, you know, I'm also a strong believer, you know, where sometimes limitations can help bring out other types of creativity that you wouldn't have expected. Right. It's like unexpected creativity. Yeah. Yeah. Um, but anyways, so I'd say, um, the next thing that I learned starting the business was that, and I think it took us a couple of years to learn. This is learning when to say no. Hmm. That's a good one because yeah, like obviously like you want to make the client happy at the end, at the end, like obviously like you want to make the client happy at the end, at the end of the day, you want to make sure the client is happy. Uh, but there are always, there's going to be situations where, uh, they might end up asking

for things that, you know, are not possible, but you still want to try to help them. And in the beginning out of obligation, you know, you want to try to, uh, you want to try to make them happy. So you're saying, yeah, we could totally do this by the morning when they email you at 8 PM. Yeah. You know, like this is just a, uh, just an example. Would you say that also for, um, new clients coming up to us with a, with a proposal? Oh, a hundred percent. Like, especially you especially want to do that. Uh, people especially want to do want to do that when there is a new client coming in or a prospective client coming in, because you want to show to them that you are the problem solver, you want to help solve whatever issues they have. But sometimes there are some unrealistic things that are asked of that you just have to learn to confidently say no and they won't give you a bad response to that they will respect you for it they will they will ask you okay great what do you think is doable um like this is this is how it is most of the time there's some that'll just say okay whatever

moving on and i guess those are the red flags that thank god you kind of passed on them exactly that there there are many there's always going to be those uh one or two um outliers out there where they're going to try to ask for the world and try to take advantage of you and and you know you just have to learn when to say no like we've gone through those situations several times and we've tried to be as helpful as possible but you know you have to learn when to say no it's the other biggest reason for that is sometimes you could even experience burnout like imagine if you took on 10 gigs in in like a week and you just said yes i will do it myself all of it you're gonna burn out yeah and

it's worse if you take on a project knowing that uh you might you might under deliver based on what the expectations are it at least it makes you look worse exactly if you just said no exactly like you all should you should also always know where your abilities lie if someone comes to you say and they need uh a whole video done with just animations and you're not exactly an animator. Yeah. Either, either suggest someone who can help them with that or bring in people to the project that can,

uh, help take care of that aspect. You know, you always want to make sure the client is taken care of at the end of the day. But at the end of it, you just have to trust your gut, no matter what it is,

trust your gut. And it'll always be the right to say, you just have to trust your gut. No matter what it is, trust your gut and it'll always be the right decision. At least 99% of the time will be the right decision for you because if you can't trust your gut, then how can you make other decisions? Yeah. Okay, so my second takeaway is that

you really have to plan for growth because it doesn't happen naturally. It'll happen on its own if you're lucky but it won't be the the exponential type of growth that you really are looking for right and you'll plateau eventually if you don't if you don't plan for it right which i think we were experiencing as well like we had exponential growth the first two to three years and then it just kind of years yeah first two years maybe even third year and then it started to plateau after that we're still increasing but it was in it went like really fast and then

just slow slow marginal increases year after year like don't get us wrong we were working on some really cool projects we got to meet a lot of really interesting people but yeah in terms of the actual numbers like that that's what i said like over the last year and a half i started looking at the numbers from year to year it's like okay we we grew creatively we grew with experience but did the business grow in value with the money? I think we didn't notice it because we were doing work through laps. We were freelancing for other video production companies. As well. And we were freelancing for weddings.

So we had three income streams. Yeah, that's... So we then noticed that our primary most important income stream was, you know... Suffering in a way. Not doing as well as it should have been. Right. Yeah. If we were basically just focusing, if we were only on the business and we were only

relying on that with those numbers, we would have been sweating a lot earlier. We would have been sweating a lot earlier and maybe we would have had to have closed down the business even because like at the end of the day when you look at the numbers you have to also build the company in a way where if other people look at it and decided to join what they want to join you know uh and so now well first you got to do it like it's like that maslov's pyramid thing first you got to take up take care of your basic needs so it would have been uh my salary and your salary would have had to been covered right right? We could live comfortably off the business, right? And then after that, we could look into adding other people. And then after that, expanding to office and then go from there. But that goes back to what you were saying where you have to plan for everything right from the

get-go. We kind of planned it in the beginning you know um but you know i think it was just like like i said earlier on it was like an idea we both had in our heads yeah but it's kind of like when you have an idea for a story and in your head it's like this cinematic masterpiece that is going to make way more money than than tenant at the box office and then you start writing it down you're like oh, Oh, this is a garbagio, you know, it sucks. Like I got to fix this up. So I think if, again,

like if we wrote it down, so again, planning growth, uh, is paramount. And I think we're just in the process of doing that right now. We finally, like,

it's embarrassing to say this, but after five years we finally sat down and wrote out like, uh, a plan, a business plan, you know? Yeah, it's not the best business plan. We're still working on it, but we, we took that step and actually started writing it down. Right. Exactly. Yeah. I mean, like on the surface, like we've, we've always been helpful with whichever client has come our way. You know, we've always been able to do great work and, uh, with the

people around us, but, uh, in terms of on the back end like us ourselves we haven't taken care of ourselves that's basically we're driving without a speedometer basically basically yeah or that and also no maps you know we're just we just took the open road and just kind of shot right right through but um anyways um what would you say is the last thing or third thing that you've learned? The last thing I learned is that a lot of the big clients, the whales that everyone is gunning for, they're mostly with ad agencies. So you kind of have to, because we thought we were going to be able to get those guys. But at the end of the day, it's like you can't really get them because again what are you offering just the creative side of things right it's just one thing yeah just one thing just the video and for us video not even like the photography or whatever else they need right whereas like these companies

need a to z right and who's going to be able to provide that, but an ad agency, right? Or even like some, like not even like a big ad agency, maybe a smaller ad agency as well, but they have the capability to do that. We don't have that. So I think what we've started to plan out is collaborating more with ad agencies, but also trying to go after companies that maybe have been looked over by ad agencies, or that maybe weren't even thinking about getting into the space. Maybe they had an idea of getting into the creative field. That could be an opportunity for us. I think we already started doing that a bit. Yeah. Well, I mean, we have been planning for it. Like this, like 2020 was, I'd say, the start of when we really kind of sat down, reflected on the business and started planning it forward. It's almost like a five year review we did.

We should mention that we also kind of figured out our vision for the company. We're still trying to figure it out, too, but we didn't even have like... We had nothing set in stone. We just said... No mission statement, no vision for the company as we're still trying to figure it out too but we didn't even have like we had nothing set in stone we just said no mission statement no no vision for the company none of that right yeah we had some rinky-dink ones when we started the business because we did make a business plan when we started but it wasn't it wasn't very well thought out back then because you know we thought you know, we're creating video. It's such a huge demand. Yeah. What do we do?

We do video. That's it. Yeah, but I think other video production companies are in the same state that we're in. I'm not going to say all, but I'm pretty sure a good portion are because if you look at their mission statements or visions, it's the most generic stuff ever, right? It basically sums down to we do video. That's pretty much what every company says. That's what it sums down to. It's really hard to differentiate yourself from the rest of the competition when a lot of them are communicating similar messages on the type of

work that they do but that but that's hard but i think the reason for that is that you you kind of have to because uh unless you niche yourself into a particular thing that might eliminate a lot of income streams for you right yeah if you say i'm strictly focusing on this niche that might work out and you might become really good at that niche and live very comfortably. But you might not all you might not as well. Right. So if you if you say I'm strictly focusing on promotional videos, what about clients that need event coverage, interviews and all the rest? Right. What do you turn them away? Yeah. Right. So I guess that's also one thing that we were trying to determine and we figured you know we're kind of still learning we're still learning the business

we're still learning like you're always learning that's what i've learned is i've learned that you're always learning you learn to learn and you know especially now with with the whole covid19 situation um that pretty much derailed everything, but it allowed us to focus a little bit more on how our planning is going, right? So now it's just a matter of, not that we're waiting, but businesses aren't really lining up

to create a hell of a lot of content, right? And no one's in the position to turn away business, especially at this point. It's kind of like whatever comes, it's like I can't really say no unless I'm going to lose money on it, right? Exactly. And even then you kind of try to make it work because the people I've spoken to, they're taking on like other videographers in the field and who might have some companies on our level. Like from what I've heard heard like they're taking on some work and it when i heard what they were charging i'm like well that's very low compared to what i

know they charge and it's like hey man times are tough you know you got to do what you got to do everybody's just taking on whatever work they can whatever it is you know uh like i'm sure a lot of people are not being very um picky very picky with the pricing you know like um like i i did a project about a week ago like this was a freelance based one and uh they asked me what my rate is i told them and then they asked me is it possible to do it just for a little bit less and i said yep you know what whatever i'm not gonna argue like it's been like two months since we've done any any work the last project that we and that we um that we did any work for was that um cherry blossom the cherry blossoms project yeah when we uh worked with signal films for it um they took

on that project and they needed us to come in and help film and do the live stream and that was pretty much the only project we did during the whole lockdown it was a great project too yeah we're in an empty high park it's just us and the cops that was that was fun yeah no i definitely want to bring on the owner of signal films adam yeah i feel like he would be a great uh a great guest to bring on to the show and just kind of share his story because he has also a pretty interesting story of how he's gone into the business because i think he's been in it for a long time, right? At least a decade for sure. But anyways, so the last thing that I would say that I learned in the business is that every client is different. There is no one size fits all, you know, you can't just get like a simple hat and give it out to everyone, you know, like, yeah, typically that would, that would work. But

you know, when it comes to clients, every single one has different needs. I remember about two years ago, we were going through a stage where we realized, okay, we want to focus you and I more on the creative. We need to bring someone in to handle sales. We've tried this many times. And I think this was the last, this was kind of like, we tried it twice I'd say two or three times three twice no it was two times yeah but I think this last one was the one that kind of was the nail in the coffin we we met this one other kind of business development person who works with different wedding companies and

agencies and he just handles strictly sales for them and we thought great he's a little familiar with this business we can maybe bring him on board to kind of handle that aspect you know you know do a little bit more outreach because yeah we can do a little bit of it but we need someone to just be nice to have someone just do that you know yeah exactly and um with that we talked to him and he was open to doing it with us. But what we realized very quickly was that a lot of people who were handling sales, they were trying to create a templated pricing system.

Well, I think the reason was because that guy mainly worked on the wedding scene and weddings you have packages, right? Pricing packages. So he was trying to apply that formula to us. And I don't think that works in the video production field because every client's needs are different, right? So every estimate that we give to a client is tailor-made for that client's project. And for their needs, yeah.

And it'll never be the same. It'll always change. There'll always be something different. Well, he was basically creating a pricing system that was tiered around the client deciding what technical things they would need they would need yeah which clients don't know what they need don't know that clients the corporate clients and corporate clients typically come to companies like ours so that we just handle everything for them yeah they they give us the, and based on that budget, we give them a recommendation on the resources that are needed, how much it will cost,

and when they're happy with it, they sign off and then we move in. We're not gonna tell them, okay, if you want, for $2,500, you can get one videographer for XYZ money. You get one audio op. One audio. It doesn't work like that yeah like it doesn't like you can't like pick and choose like different creative um tools that are needed for

unless that client was an x video producer he won't know yeah and that i'm not saying because they're ignorant it's just because they just don't know the process right they don't they don't know the process and they don't want to know they they're not there i don't know how my accountant gives me back a return every year i just trust him to do his job exactly oh man that was here's a little bonus thing that we learned is that get yourself a good accountant right from the get-go because we had when we when we started the business we were doing all the taxes ourselves and we found a goofy guy for the first two years the first two years it makes sense that just messed up everything for us and when we finally found our accountant howard howard silverberg is the goat okay he is the goat of

accountants and when we went to him the first thing he he said he spent three hours with us the first time well no no the first time here's what happened we sat down for 30 minutes he looked over the stuff and he said come back come back next week he's like get your numbers right this makes no sense come back next week i think it took three tries for that yeah three three tries and i remember the second time we spent like three hours with him yeah he was expecting half an hour turn into three hour ordeal poor guy he was this close to like yelling at us i could see it i think i think he almost did it's like he was fighting the age that was that's how it was for like the first two years with him yeah and then finally you know we

all we get we're out in half an hour now yeah we figured out a system we know what he needs uh exactly and it just becomes it's it's become a very simple process so when we do our tax stuff I'm always like I don't want I don't want to upset him I just want to make sure he's proud of us this year see this is what it took for Dario to to be good with his taxes you know he didn't want our accountant to yell at him but yeah so I'd say those are at least that that's pretty much the the three main things that I've learned. Like we said, you know, when you're starting a business, you know, you might have some ideas of like what you want to do going forward. But there's a lot of things that you're going to learn after five years.

You're never going to be at exactly the place that you think you are starting out. That's why 2020 feels like a year where we rebooted the business in a way. It's a restart. It's a restart. We weren't thinking of a name change, but we're kind of holding off on that. We have too many of these cups that we bought. We've already invested in cups, so that's it. When you spend $700 on cups, that's when you're like, all right, this is it.

I'm not moving away from that. Especially during COVID season. We can't afford another eight hundred dollars in cups it's funny like we got the cups and then like a week later covid happened oh we haven't even been able to give them out the clients i know we're sitting on a box of maybe 70 mugs that are that that we've been meaning to give to some of our clients yeah you know i almost forgot i had them i went down in the basement i'm like what is this giant box and oh yeah it, yeah, it's the cups. It's the cups. So far, only Howard is a recipient of our mug and our family members. So. So, yeah, I guess just we restarted the business in a way. Yeah. We're trying to apply all the stuff that we learned

over these five years to the next five years, you know? Yeah. So I guess like for now, it's almost as if, you know, we're starting the business in new, maybe in five years, we'll check in again, see where we're at. You know, we're not going to do the classic, you know, where do you see yourself in five years? You know, it's, it's basically let's plan for growth. As you mentioned, you know, it's still a learning, uh uh it's still a learning experience for us as it goes you know i feel like everyone can kind of relate yeah and let's just kind of see where it goes month to month at this point we should actually uh time stamp this date and then like see in five years five five years to the date have another podcast or have another show episode and see where we're at yeah well that's basically what

it is like maybe we could even watch some of the things that we were saying and then we can look at ourselves being like oh look at us at 26 and 27 how naive we are back then you know but you know you never know what the you never know what the future holds and uh you know i'm kind of glad that we're also doing a show like this because it kind of solidifies and puts into the history books for us, you know, where we were. Yeah, like it's interesting because it's especially the first episode. And I guess this one, too, it's like an oral history lesson for our company. So, yeah, it's interesting stuff obviously with the show one thing we want to do going forward is bringing on other guests that can kind of share not only their experiences but also well using their experiences to kind of give their thoughts on certain topics that are popular within the

industry you know like for example finding a work-life balance uh when you're when you're running your own company you know where does the business stop and then the home life begins where we we all know this, though. That never happens, really, especially within the first five years. Yeah, if you're running a business, that's going to be really tricky. That's just one of the sacrifices you have to make. It's a sacrifice that you're going to have to make. We know how it has been for us.

We've been lucky that we've been doing this in our 20s, you know, when we don't have families yet. Whereas other people are trying to do this while balancing a family with wife and kids. You know, I can't imagine doing that yet, you know. So I'm obviously trying to hold off until as much as we can until, you know, at least the business is a little bit more sustainable. That's what I want to do. sustainable that's that's what i want to do we're starting we're starting to implement the steps for that though because we'll we'll start work at like 9 10 in the morning and then i think after five we don't call each other for work related stuff and then on the weekends those are like off days so we're but whereas before it was kind of like it was very random yeah we'd call we'd

call each other to start doing work at like i I remember like 7pm, 9pm at times. To be honest, I kind of enjoyed those. I'm more productive at night. So it works for me. I mean, everyone has productive times. But obviously, though, we have to. You can't. Yeah, you got to like, have time for work and then have time to just relax and unwind.

Yeah, because you really need to give yourself that time to rest. Because if you don't, then it's going you really need to give yourself that time to rest because if you don't, then it's gonna be harder to put in that effort to work. I mean, everyone has different productivity times. If you wanna schedule in evenings as the time that you work, great. But that's up to you and the people around you and your social life as well.

That's gonna help determine if that's applicable for you. I mean, back in the day, we would be doing our work from 7 p.m. till even 1 a.m. at times. I've even done things where I had to do an edit, a video edit for like three days. It was due within three days. I had an idea just as I was going to bed.

I had an idea for the video. I just wanted to throw on the timeline and it was around 12 o'clock at night and i went in to make that change and five hours later the video was done what time did you start i started at 12 o'clock at night and finished at 5 a.m and the video was done i just i like sometimes you get into like, how do you call it? You get in the zone. So, you know, with that being said, I think we can leave it at that.

You know, thank you for taking the time to listen to the second episode of the Creative Scrap Coffee Show. For all you, maybe two or three listeners out there at this point, you know, we have, we are not at the expectation that there are hundreds of thousands of people just our friends watching this just our close friends and and people we we we forced to watch this and people that we have said yeah you should check it out but anyways i think i think that's that and uh anything else you want to leave it at dario no i think we covered a lot great well this is it great well always a pleasure talking with you and uh thank you all for listening so

you're treating me like a stranger on some youtube show always a pleasure don't forget to like comment and subscribe well yeah comment, and subscribe, baby. You don't need to like, comment, and subscribe. That's for like normies. We don't want you to like, comment, and subscribe. If anything, don't do it. Just listen. Yeah.

Thank you for tuning in to the Creatives Grab Coffee podcast. You can find us on Spotify, YouTube, Instagram, and LinkedIn. Let us know if there are any topics you would like for us to cover in future episodes. You can reach out to us at creativesgrabcoffee at gmail.com.