Creatives Grab Coffee - Managing & Scaling Your Business (ft. August Media) | Creatives Grab Coffee 10

Episode Date: November 26, 2020

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Kyrill Lazarov & Dario Nouri. CGC is a platform where creatives and business professionals discuss industry topics and share experiences. Today we welcome our guest Sasha Ulyanov.Sasha is a serial entrepreneur passionate about building communities for creative people. He is a Managing Partner at Purple Tree Photography, Mint Room Studios, August Media, and Indigo Visual Co.Subscribe and follow for future episodes!Produced by LAPSE PRODUCTIONS - www.lapseproductions.com

Welcome to Creatives Grab Coffee, hosted by Kirill Lazarov and Dario Nuri. CGC is a show where we invite business professionals to discuss industry topics and share experiences. Today we welcome our guest Sasha Ulyanov. Sasha is a serial entrepreneur who's passionate about building communities for creative people. He is a managing partner at Purple Tree Photography, Mintroom Studios, August Media and Indigo Visual Co. We hope you enjoy our discussion, so let us start. Just for the audiences who don't know you, Sasha, tell us a little bit about yourself and a little bit about Purple Tree and August Media.

So August Media was never the original plan. August it was a baby of many other businesses and the creative people behind those businesses so we originally started as a wedding photography company back in 2011 so purple tree was the original company still called parent company so there are three partners uh kind of you you know, just like any, most of the wedding businesses start, it's a side gig. You know, we're passionate about photography, we love shooting weddings, great way to make some money on the side. So we never thought that it was going to grow into anything big or it would become like top, top wedding photographers in the city or in the country and then you know fast forward three or four years at this point we have about seven or eight full-time employees we're doing this all full-time we're shooting roughly around 250 weddings a season yeah and as I mentioned so

we had employees not the contractors so that was the biggest difference between us and our competitors that you know we wanted to do it long term once we realized that he can be something bigger than just a side gig and we started firing those photographers on the full-time basis so and then very fast we realized that you know wedding weddings are seasonal and come December January once you kind of caught up with the post-production there's literally not that much to do for our full-time staff and then besides that you know as you know in the wedding industry most most people are not strictly wedding photographers they have other passions they work on other photography projects so kind of started figuring it out to

see what everyone's strengths are and how we can utilize everyone's best skills to make sure that their morale is up, that they're busy all year round. So this is when the idea of doing something outside of weddings first came up and we got ourselves into the corporate gigs. So anything from corporate portraits to corporate events,

we'll do some stuff for social media as well. And that was all cool. But then we realized very fast that even that wasn't enough to kind of feed our creative juices. And, you know, out of all the service that we were offering at that time, we enjoyed shooting the branding sessions and different campaigns definitely stuff for social media as well the most and you know for some of our corporate clients they were cool and they were excited about the fact that we're kind of one-stop shop for all their photography geography needs for some other clients they were a little bit confused or there would be clients would be looking for you know photographers to do their campaigns or do something a little bit more creative but then it would go on our website and

most of the work on our website was kind of events and events photography so they thought that this was our only specialty and then it would kind of move on and end up hiring somebody else so we decided to remove the creative component from the events photography business and kind of do a little bit of a spinoff. And that's how August Media kind of came around. So it wasn't until probably about seven years after we opened our original company,

which was specializing in weddings. Yeah. Okay, so what does August Media specifically work on then? Is it just branded campaigns? So August Media is a creative content production and management company. So basically, you know, it can be a simple branding photo session or you just launched a new website or you need some content for for the website and a little bit for the

social media so we can do that or we can help you with the whole thing so starting from you know brand development website design logo design content creation and then social media management so on the social media side we deal mostly with Instagram and Facebook accounts so we will come up with a strategy for the company we will create shoot the content we'll take that content to the layouts monthly content so we'll write the copy as well so we'll post everything on the clients behalf we'll do the copy as well so we'll post everything on the client's behalf we'll do all the engagement um and for for many of them we would also run their

facebook ads and and social media campaigns and then provide them with all the analytics and reports at the end of the month as well all right that's great and and um one quick question though um starting august, because you guys were going working on a wedding photography specific business and opening this kind of multimedia kind of company that handles a lot of the social media aspect, video content creation, photo content creation, how did you guys go about learning that process? Because that's a completely different skill set and mindset even for all three of your partners. Like, did you guys divide up for example,

like who would be learning certain roles or did you guys have to bring in people that knew that type of business? It's a great question. So I think one, one thing I forgot to mention, you know, every, every time we hire a new person, so be it a photographer and this executive assistant or somebody to help us with our own social media, you know, I love looking at the resumes or just talking to people to figure out what are some other skills that they have that were not their original requirements, right? That we're not necessarily interested in at the beginning, but

you know, I would look at it and see whether this is something that we again I could either spin off or is this something that we can build around so first of all I believe that you know every person can only stay inspired and motivated if they're doing something that they truly love right so again you know everyone a lot of people can be amazing wedding photographers but if that's not their only or the true passion you know everyone a lot of people can be amazing wedding photographers but if that's not their only or the true passion you know then most more often than not that would only be able to last for so many uh for so many seasons of so many years before they kind of lose that passion completely because you know um so so yes every time we'll bring on board somebody bring a

new photographer or just a new employee like we'll have this in-depth conversation about other things that they want to do in life or that they're really good at and I would like literally create those opportunities and those tasks in the company so the way it started with offering social media services is when we onboarded a creative director to help with some campaigns, but we realized that she has a very good background and passion around managing social media accounts as well. So basically, we made her head of department and let her run pretty much like her own shop. we made her head of department and let her run pretty much like her own shop.

Right. So she was in charge of, of selling the service to the clients, kind of hiring the team to help her with the day to day with the social media management. Later we had to bring somebody in who was running the Facebook ads. Then later we realized that that person is also passionate and excited about the design. So, you you know we added the design as a service and kind of you know so every time we bring somebody on board to help us with something what we really do is we create an opportunity for that person to you know leverage their skills and

create something that we have not done before as a company yeah you mentioned you hired a creative director to run the social media aspect of your business, but coming from a photography... Just a correction. So we didn't hire the creative director to run the social media. We hired the creative director to help us with the production and the campaign shoots. And it just happened, she just happened to be very passionate about social media as well. So we said, hey, listen, if this is what you wanna do, you know, we can make it happen. So who's the person running marketing?

Who's the person running marketing on the August Media side? Yeah. So that will be Svetlana. So my partner Svetlana, she's also the regional partner from Purple Tree Photography. So she'll be overlooking the marketing, but there's a whole team now.

Did you guys kind of divide up some of the responsibilities between the three of you partners? One handles a bit more managing August Media versus the other one managing more of Purple Tree? Is there some kind of division of responsibility there? That's a great question. So probably backtrack a little bit and start from the beginning.

So when we first started Purple Tree, where we really got lucky is that all three of us brought completely different set of skills to this business. So I have more of a business slash accounting background, you know, B. So I have more of a business slash accounting background, be calm and I'm also a CPA.

So right away, my main responsibility was like literally starting from day one, when we had to incorporate the business, it was just banking, accounting, taxes, billing clients. By default, I also started taking care of the HR and legal stuff. So I was like more of a numbers guy like more wearing like that corporate hat yeah so Eugene came from the marketing background he actually used to work for a big SEO company back in the days so he was in charge of everything that was going on online so our seo or our website

design stuff like that he was doing it all himself so he was more of our it department i would say and then sitlana uh was definitely or still is definitely the most creative person in the company so she was in charge of the overall company aesthetics, the brand division, so meaning like training photographers, figuring out the post-production overall style of the brand. And that kind of transitioned from Purple Tree to all the new brands or the companies that we opened later on. So we had our very defined responsibilities. But eventually that wasn't

enough because you can't be a CFO and a legal person, a sharp person for multiple organizations. There's just not enough time in the day. So Purple Tree being the oldest business out of all and having the team that has been there for so long. And it really helped us that we have very low turnover. It's pretty much zero. Most people who have ever joined us, they're still around in some capacity. So Purple Tree is very autonomous right now. We're able to automate so many processes we're able to delegate so many of our own responsibilities that you know like we're at the point where if we were to leave for

a month or even two to go on like an extensive vacation or to get ourselves into the new venture and start a new business like we wouldn't have to worry about anything. So the team is taking care of very much day to day. And the business is running itself at this point. Yeah. So with that additional time that has opened up because of an amazing team, you know, we're able to spend that time on managing or creating the processes in this new organizations. And yeah,

so August media is probably taking up most of our time at this point. Yeah it's pretty good that you have three partners including yourself and they all focus on a specific thing because that does allow you to grow pretty well right because with Joel and myself we kind of have the same hats so we kind of split the roles right so right now for example we're trying to transition into more of a digital marketing type of agency, but we don't have the digital marketing background background So we're trying to understand We're trying to learn just the basics so we can eventually Outsource that work to other agencies that that can handle it right just to know the capabilities basically. Yeah, no way

Yeah, yeah, right and but we do need the basics. So now we're trying to learn that. So it's like, we have to like, we can't just focus on one thing. Yeah. So it's good that you were able to figure that out early on. Yeah. At some point, you realize that you don't know everything. And even, you know, those responsibilities that we had before, we realized that we might not be the best people to do those to work on those tasks so eventually you need to realize that you want to hire somebody who's better and smarter than you are yeah like it's great that we're wearing all these different hats but you know jack of all trades master of none at the end of the day we thought about like maybe

partnering up with a with a digital marketing agency, but again, like we don't know enough about the field to be able to choose one. And again, it's still early on. So maybe we'll find someone later on. Right. But at the same, like right now we just, we just got to know what the playing field is like. What I'm actually curious about is because you guys jumped into August Media and even

though you didn't know all the necessary skills or August Media and even though you didn't know all the necessary skills or like the even though you didn't know all the aspects of the business, you hired people that knew it. But how did you go about, you know, pitching that to clients, especially when you're bringing in someone who is not one of your three partners, you know, who has the skill set, who knows the capabilities? How did you go about, you know, bringing their skill set to the negotiation table, to the pitching table? That is, I think, something that a lot of people always don't know how to wrap their head around.

It's like bringing... How do you book your first client when you don't necessarily have... Exactly. ...to provide the service? Is that... Something similar to that, especially if you've already established yourselves

as a very different type of business. Cause it's different from, cause you went from content creation to digital marketing. Right. So it's a pretty big switch from going, I started off with selling photography services. I'm going to add video to my roster. Marketing is a little bit. Did that too at some point. So first of all, transparency. So you have to be very honest and transparent with your client

you have to find a perfect client who is not in a rush who is okay to wait who is okay to deal with some kinks in the process obviously in return you know you're probably not charging them through the roof you're giving them a few freebies so um you're literally using them as an early adapt adapter um so and then and then you kind of work it out so i don't know if you guys read this book called um lean startup lean startup yeah i've heard about it so the way it worked for us, I would say I'm a big advocate of the concept called lean startup. It's basically saying that before you put the product out there in the market,

you don't want it to be 100% ready. You just want to share the concept and share the idea with your potential clients and then get as much feedback as possible and then see what is it that you need to optimize and change. And then also what is it that your potential client really cares about? So the idea that you might have in your head and then the real problems that your clients are dealing with might be two completely different things.

So when we started offering this new services and you're absolutely right like we might have not had the right people on on our team to do the job but we're very honest and transparent with our clients we said hey you know knowing what you guys been doing what you've been up to and and knowing the services that you've been getting from us, you know, it might be really good for you as a next step to also, you know, to have a company that will help you with the social media management. And then right away they would say, well, don't you guys do it? And then we'll be completely honest with them and we'll say, not yet, but if you guys are not in a rush, then we can try together with you.

So we would do exactly that. So we'll either approach the clients that we have a very good existing relationship with already because we've done a bunch of other work for them. And then we would know exactly what kind of goals and needs they have and whether they're okay to grow a little bit slower and grow together with us or they need somebody else. So in many instances, you know, we would say, hey, look, we're not the right fit for you. We're not there yet. Like you need somebody who is bigger and better than us. Of course, you're going to pay more, but you're still better off to contact them.

And we would literally like share the contact information uh of you know now our competitors but others will say you know what like this is something that we can manage ourselves save you some money and then probably do a better service because you know that's like especially like when when when you're new to any industry like you care like nobody else you know because every project project is your baby. Yes, again, like going back to your question, like transparency, like being honest with your clients and telling them what exactly you can do versus what exactly you can't do. Well, one thing that they like about doing that as well is because you guys have basically become

a one-stop shop. Even if we were to even get services like that, I'd want to do everything from one place. It would be very frustrating to work with three different creative agencies. How do you manage that aspect? Whereas you guys are offering that by doing it. So they probably will be more willing to experiment with you guys and grow with you just to get that convenience as well. 100%. That's a really good point. And again, especially because on all this media side, most of our clients are still small to medium sized businesses. So most of the time they're run by like one or two

individuals who are busy day in and day out, and they don't have the capacity to deal with multiple vendors. They don't have the experience of dealing with big agencies so yes absolutely how did you deal with the outsourcing of the marketing services at the beginning like were you uh still the middle middleman for for that or did you just hand it off to that marketing agency and say okay we'll give you this but just hire us for the content creation aspect right so this this is the second alternative.

So the whole idea of August Media is really to eliminate or reduce the number of middlemen. So we didn't want to be subcontractors or we didn't want to manage another contractor either. So in case we're not able to provide a specific service or we think that we're not the right fit, we would just refer our clients to the company that can manage it for them. So then at what point did you decide, okay, I'm done with the training wheels, we can start offering this? So as soon as we would get comfortable, as soon as we would start getting

like positive feedback from our existing clients that would, you know, confirm that we're doing a good job. As soon as we would get a hundred percent comfortable, but even now, you know, we can offer a full social media services to medium sized business, but for our bigger corporate clients, like we still tell them that, Hey, we're still not the right not the right fit for you guys and you're still we're still not there yet so it's just hang on we know that you like us we know we know that you like how we do everything on time but there is a there is a reason right that we have we've never failed before just because we don't take on more work that we can

manage typically those much larger companies like the the of the world, it's very hard to be the one stop shop for them because they they a lot of them have compliances with the head offices that they have all over the world. And it's very difficult to manage all that aspect. I remember when we were doing work with one of the big banks many years ago, I remember just to get revisions, you know, sometimes revisions take a long time because a lot of people need to look at it. And that is just for a lot of the time, internal video to have stuff that needs to get out there for other people to see. It has to pass through so many different offices. And to be honest, I wouldn't want to be the one managing that aspect, at least not yet. If something goes wrong. Oh my God. So that's the exact story of today right and and most other days as well

so how do you manage then if they want if one of those clients says like oh we want you to handle more of this aspect like well he just passes it on oh right yeah yeah yeah so we'll be very transparent we'll be like you know what can't can't handle it so i don't i want to set the expectations right. And what was the process of going from okay, we're going to offer digital marketing to these small companies. And now we're comfortable enough to go to medium sized businesses. What was the turning point? Did you just add more team members more experienced people to your team? Or was there something else?

I think just fine tuning the processes and becoming a lot more comfortable dealing with the small size businesses and basically, you know, becoming the top service provider for the small business. And then, but I would say it didn't happen like that. It wasn't like we turned on the switch

and we were like, well, you know what? Now we're ready. Like it's always like every time with our marketing and our sales, we never push our services. It's always a full strategy. So clients come to us. So, you know, no different from the weddings, like a lot of the business comes from referral and the word of mouth and the social media accounts. you know so somebody sees

the work that we do or interesting one actually so a lot of our clients are in the beauty industry so you know those clinics that do injections makeup hair salons so all small relatively small businesses one store not multinational and then so that was the biggest chunk of our of our clients at the very beginning and we got all comfortable and started doing a really good job with them and at some point their suppliers so started reaching out to us and I'll be like hey I saw you doing some work for our client and we actually really enjoyed it we want you to come and shoot some videos and then they would start asking if we do anything else besides that and then we would just offer it to them but again

like with this being just as transparent as before it would say you know this is how much we can do if you need anything more than we're not so would would you say that a majority of the leads that you get are more from referral based? Because you're saying you don't do a lot of push strategy. It's a lot of pull. It sounds like a lot of the projects and opportunities that come your way are from either existing clients or from people that those existing clients know. Is that typically where most of your leads come from? I would say 80% of business for sure. And then whenever we feel like, Hey,

there is a little bit of capacity and we can take it a few more clients and you know, there's not too many inquiries coming in, then we'll just turn on the Facebook ads or run some ads on Instagram as well. Maybe for a bit, just a few days. And, uh, that would generate a few leads that we would start working on Instagram as well, maybe for just a few days. And that would generate a few leads that we would start working on. And yeah, so 80% referrals and word of mouth, 20% is Facebook ads. So 20%, you get all of your leads

from Facebook advertising specifically? Correct. You're actually the first business that we've talked to that relies on Facebook advertising specifically. A lot of other people either rely on Google SEO mostly, but no one specifically had Facebook. Referrals in Google SEO. When I say Facebook, I mean Facebook slash Instagram would run ads simultaneously on both platforms. But I don't know why people wouldn't use it more.

Like honestly, if you wanna grow your business aggressively, that's the way to go. Sometimes Elizabeth was our creative director who basically runs the social media division. Like she would literally call me, I'd be like Sasha, turn off Facebook. We're getting too many inquiries like i can't handle it and then i'm only talking about like spending maybe like 200 bucks a week so this is

this is for the august media uh side of thing uh for august media yeah i mean we use we use facebook and and uh instagram ads for all our businesses. So Purple Tree Photography, Mintrum Studios, Indigo Events, August Media. So like literally like if the phone is not ringing and if we have the capacity, like all we do is just, you know, let's do $300 into the Facebook ads and you're back in business.

But the majority of the clients you're getting are in the beauty space, right? the august media side yes so our demographic our demographic is very much beauty um lifestyle um health uh very female driven so i would say like 80% of our clients are female entrepreneurs. Yeah. I guess like when you're running any type of ads online, like you have to really think about what type of client or customer you're trying to target. I was going to ask you why, if you had, if you guys had considered, for example, LinkedIn, because that's where a lot of like corporate clients and, you know, business heads typically spend most of their time on not as not so much Instagram and Facebook.

But if a lot of your clients are in the beauty sector, then Instagram and Facebook are definitely the booming business for that. Are you trying to niche yourself into the beauty space though? What's that? Are you trying to niche yourself into the beauty space? Again, just like with many other things

in my business career, it wasn't the plan, but it just naturally happened to be so. And, you know, again, main reason would be because most of our photographers come from fashion slash wedding background. You know, most of the girls who, most of the girls, most of the people who ran the operations, they're female. So, you know, most of them would be using the services that our clients provide. So it just naturally happened that, you know, majority of our clients are in that sector. So do you think one big factor that has to do with you kind of niching into that direction is the certain interests of your staff and crew.

Like, obviously, like you guys have done a lot of, you know, spec shoots and beauty shoots, you know, to just kind of beef up the portfolio. Like we've seen that over the years on Instagram and Facebook. And clearly those are the types of projects your team likes to lean into, right? 100%. And, you know, you have to, again, you have to be passionate about about things that that you sell or things that you offer and again again it was more of a lean startup concept where we had to almost reverse engineer everything so first hire a person see what kind of talents and skill set they have then build around those talents and then see who you know that that service would attract and then again build on that as opposed to having all these crazy ideas and working day and night to to build a very perfect product or a perfect service that

you think is going to work just because there is a demand. And then just to find out that nobody cares, or again, like what you have in your head and what the market wants are two different things, right? How do you go about building your team on the, on the marketing end? Because it's a little different from hiring videographers or video crews and, and photography crews, right? Because again, in that field, first of all, you have experience and like again like a photographer after a while you kind of figure out how they how they shoot like what

the standard type of uh personnel should be like right but when it comes to marketing it seems like it's a little different and you can't just hire like a creative director and quickly put them on a project right like how do you how do you know this is the right person for me right uh good question but probably a question for the next conversation with one of my partners so uh i like to be a part of all the interviews and at least kind of the final stages again just to kind of probe and see what else uh this person is capable of or is excited about. But when it comes to hiring people in marketing or social media, I wouldn't be the one who goes through the resumes and makes the final decision. Okay, so I'll give you another one then. What was the biggest hurdle going from

a content creation agency to a digital marketing agency? What was the biggest hurdle? content creation agency to a digital marketing agency? What was the biggest hurdle? Just kind of letting it go. You know, being a small business owner, again, like you're so used to wearing all these different hats and being in control and being in charge and making all the decisions yourself. So, you know, once you venture into something

that is not your forte, again, it's important to hire that first person and then you just have to trust them. And then, and then, you know, this scenario, like I, I'm more of a coach and mentor, but I'm definitely not a subject matter expert. I'm definitely not the one like making those key important decisions. So I'm there to support that person in case, you know, uh, they're going through some tough times and they're dealing with, with stuff that they never dealt with before, because obviously been there, done that many times.

Um, but when it comes to like specific key decisions, I, they have my full trust. So one, one really cool thing about you guys that I think is really amazing is you guys running Purple Tree and August Media and you guys also a few years ago decided to open up your own rental studio space, Mint Room. What was the idea of choosing to go into that direction? Because it's a very different direction

compared to running a digital marketing agency. You're trying to lift that up off the ground. What made you guys think, OK, let's also open up a rental studio space, you know, for photographers, videographers, music videos, et cetera. Like what was the creative behind that? The idea behind it was to solve a big problem in this community. So most other like every other business that we open it wasn't revolutionary. You know there

were wedding photographers there before us, there were creative agencies, corporate photographers, people who would shoot headshots. So obviously we're all passionate about all these things but we were not the first ones we're not really solving a big problem but with the studio rentals it was a big issue so even when we're the wedding photographers and i know you guys just sometimes now we should shoot weddings as well uh where do you go in winter when and then you know when the weather is nasty when it's raining raining, snowing outside, when it's cold, there are only so many indoor options in a city like Toronto, even though it is so big, but there are only maybe like two or three places

where you can go. And same thing with the content creation shoes. You can't do everything at a local park. You can't always rent a big production studio because it's way too expensive you don't necessarily need it for the full day uh you need to bring all the equipment because the production studio only offers you like that white canvas and and the equipment um yeah so we were we were dealing with multiple issues ourselves and the only natural way to solve it was to kind of build our own sandbox where we would be able to play um yeah and like knowing that you know we're

dealing with these issues it was a no-brainer and we understood that every other creative person is dealing with with the same challenge doesn't matter if they're family photographers, wedding photographers, if they shoot branding products, even at times, you know. It really takes a certain kind of mindset to be able to identify not only problems that you particularly have in a business. I mean, we're always trying to solve our own issues in business,

but it's very lucky that you were able to identify that it's like, this may be an issue that we have, but this is also an issue that everyone else has. What if we were to create that kind of opportunity that other people can also benefit from and you know now as a result you guys are probably one of the top uh studio rental uh companies in the city well mint room is specifically but uh how have you guys gone about you know with growth like once once you got that attention like um how have you guys been looking to diversify or or even expand because like a lot of copycats have started to kind of pop up lately as well because of your concept right 100 no uh we're joking about it

there's at least one a month now oh wow uh yeah some are some some some some some of them are pretty creative and i love seeing like new spaces uh that complement you know the studios that already exist so the photographers don't have to shoot with the same backdrop uh twice um and then there are others who like literally just copying the design completely but um sorry caroline your question was what's our plan in the future or how how are you kind of trying to go off expanding you know and kind of diversifying it you know compared to all the other ones that are out there with with the mint room yeah with the mint room yeah okay so lean startup again uh so the way the new ideas come around uh is from our existing client so we're constantly out there on the floor uh trying to collect as much feedback as possible

uh staying in touch with all the photographers videographers who utilize our space uh and then literally just asking them those questions hey like what would you want to see next what is it that you're missing in your day-to-day like you know why would you go shoot content somewhere else or is this something that mintram cannot offer you at this point you know like there's like literally a list of at least 20 different room designs that we currently have like ready to they're working on them and we just we just don't have the right space um so yeah no lack of ideas but again most of them come from our clients from other creatives who use our space uh not so much from you know

looking at the competitors be it here in Toronto or like at the ideas like outside of outside of Canada yeah okay so you have you started off with Purple Tree then you got you started Mintroom and then you started the event management company and then you started August Media not event management it was still events photography. Events photography. Yeah. That's four ventures. How do you even manage all four ventures? It's just three partners. I don't know how you guys-

He was just putting out several fires this morning. You think it was just one business? But it's four. It's a lot to handle, right? So do you have... I don't even know how you go about it. Just tell me how you go about it. So on mintrum side since i haven't mentioned it yet so we do have other partners there as well uh so it's the three of us and then there is another site

um and for basically equal partners there uh and they've been great help since since since day one like it would have not been possible if it was just the three of us, you know, building and managing Mintrum ourselves. So, yeah, so with the help of partners on the Mintrum side. But again, with the help of our own people and our team, like I can't stress that enough. enough. You know, just learning, it took some time for us to learn how to delegate and how to trust somebody else making those key important decisions other than yourself. But there is no other way. You think it's a lot easier now for you guys? You know, like once you did it with one business, you know, you were able to delegate a lot of the roles and responsibilities. Do you feel more and more comfortable with each venture that now you guys have been dipping your toes into uh certain things yes uh but with each new business there

come you know new new new problems that you never had before but for the most part yes you're right so it is a lot easier and um you know every single person who who is a part of purple tree or who started as a purple tree employee uh they play a very big part in at least one other business so literally don't have anyone on purple tree side who would only be responsible for uh activities around weddings and then we also but that also works for them because that's almost like a like they know that there is life after weddings there's hope right so you know so they know that they'll be able to transition out completely at some point and they don't need to worry about being like 45 50 years old and and walking around with two cameras for 12 hours

straight every Saturday and Sunday. Yeah, no, so it's not us, it's the team. Like I can't take any credits. The only thing that I can take credit for is just not having any fear and just, just going all in and that's, that's, that's about it. Everything else is the team, but you know, if I didn't have the team, then maybe I wouldn't have the courage to take on so much.

Of course. You know, you mentioned though, like, like it's, it, it's normal for like you and all your partners to, you know, divvy up the responsibilities with some of the companies, but you all still play important roles within each business. Now that, that makes sense to me for sure. And definitely also makes sense to us that, you know, that, you know, you, some of the other people from your team are able to handle a lot of those roles and responsibilities from multiple companies. But my question is like, how do you determine, you know, like which fires to put out first? Because if you're handling, uh, like, uh, work from one business, it makes sense what, uh, the work that you need to do and accomplish.

But if you have business one telling you, you need to get something done for tomorrow, then all of a sudden business two or three comes in and says, Oh, you also need to get this done by the next day. How do you manage the, uh, you also need to get this done by the next day. How do you manage those roles with each of your team members? So again, with Purple Tree, they're very little, they're not as many fires that I have to deal with myself. So that's kind of easy. So most of the fires come either from your people directly. So I would say I wear HR hats more often than any other hat.

Oh, wow. Speaking about hats, I don't know if you have what, a collection of 10 in the background there? Yeah. So yeah, I probably have about the same number of hats that I wear on a daily basis. But the one I wear the most is definitely the HR. So my people is the main priority. So, you know, if there's somebody on the team who's not taken care of, then, you know, everything else will fall apart. I have to take care of

my own people first. And then again, clients, you know, team deals with clients quite well. There are some mostly corporate clients that I have to deal with either because it's an escalation or because I'm pretty much the only person on the team who speaks corporate language. And so sometimes it's easier for me to understand their expectations and their own challenges and issues because I used to work in the corporate world I used to work in the banking industry so you know when some creatives are dealing with a big corporate client a lot of things for them just don't make sense and they get annoyed a lot easier a lot faster or they can't again understand the challenges on the other side or they can't express their own uh kind of

position in this so so yes i deal with a lot of corporate clients but number one is all the hr issues what are some of the you keep talking about like uh you were a lot you're like the hr person basically and you're putting out a lot of fires uh what is what are some of the examples uh well this year the talks well there's been one big fire for all of us this year we all know what that is the pandemic and having uh you know around 30 employees just the amount of different forms that i had to employees just the amount of different forms that i had to fill out oh man i didn't even think of that subsidies uh that we had to apply for uh you know all kind of paperwork and then just dealing with everyone's questions around uncertainties like everyone's concerns like you know it's one thing to address that in a big meeting kind of to everyone but not everyone is comfortable asking questions

you know concerning them so yeah just kind of being that support for everyone at this point making sure that everybody stays the same that all their questions are answered that they know that there is there is job security uh so both both both when it comes to like health and uh financial security um so that was the biggest part that just keeps on giving and uh you know as much as i try to stay on top of it like there's always something that that comes out you you know, so that that's that that took a big toll. Well, I would say it took a big toll, but it took a big chunk of my time just just dealing

with all the uncertainties and making sure that people are confident and calm and can concentrate on their day to day as opposed to worrying about what's happening. You mentioned your team very often and how they've helped you grow. But how do you, when you're dealing with such a big team, how do you help them grow? And what are some of the challenges you find in trying to get your team member to get to that next level or that next position? Communication, first of all, and just having that culture where, you know,

we make a point to make sure that everybody knows that every skill is important, that every passion needs to be nurtured. So again, we just create the environment for them where they feel welcome to express their ideas and you know express their honest opinion about the current task that they're working on and so you know everybody knows that there is a game plan for them and how far they're going to advance how fast they're going to get there you know how big it's going to get for them and for their organization. That depends on them, really.

So we have the platform, we have all the tools available to everyone, so it's up to them to figure out how and whether they want to use them or not. Is there an element where you leave your team members of leave uh your team members to kind of to their own devices to handle certain projects is there no you don't have like a typical hierarchy approach you know it's like oh like so and so has to report to so and so is is that you don't have that type of system no it's very collaborative we don't even have proper titles i mean there are certain people who have nominal managers, but, you know, it's still everybody's idea is important. And when we get together in the meetings, like there is there is no seniority, really. So there can be somebody who is a little bit more experienced and then they will take the lead role.

So there will be meetings where I'm just sitting back and I'm just the doer. And then there's somebody, again, in that room who is more experienced and who is taking the leadership role in that meeting. So I can be a big boss in one meeting and then the next meeting, I'm just there. It's a little boss. Yeah, time to do it.

So you really value people's expertise and experience. You just really, like if someone knows more than you, you just let them be, you know, you know, they have the best interest for the business at heart. So, you know, you can trust them. And I guess once you're in that inner purple tree, August media circle, you know, that's a point where, you know, you don't have to worry so much about, you know, whether they'll get the job done right. You know, you know that they'll, they'll take care of that aspect, right?

It's a hundred percent, a hundred percent. And that's kind of, you know, before, before even purple tree, I had a pretty extensive career in the financial world and I just remember what inspired and motivated me the most was, you know, getting that freedom, not only to voice your idea and opinion, but then getting, going ahead and just implementing and executing it and seeing it work in real life. And I also believe that,

you know, there's nothing wrong with somebody trying and failing, but you know, when you don't get a chance to try that, you're going to burn out really, really fast. You won't grow. No,

no. And it's everyone's, you know, just as much they want to grow, like I want them to grow as well, right? Because that's going to benefit them, going to benefit me, and then it's going to benefit all everyone around us. But you mentioned, okay, so you mentioned that, let's say you're in a meeting and one

of your team members has more more expertise and in that project you'll let them take the lead but sometimes like some people they might have a lot of expertise in something but they don't have the managerial skills to lead the project right so what do you do when you have someone that does have the expertise but they don't have the management skills to go along with it I was probably saying it happens more often when people don't have the management skills to go along with it um i would probably say it happens more often when people don't have the experience to manage people managing project when you're a subject matter expert like you can learn that skill a lot faster than learning how

to manage and motivate people uh so again like the only that I can offer is kind of, you know, myself. So I do coach and mentor people in those roles as much as I can. But again, like I don't tell them how to do things. I just watch them and then I wait for them to come to me. And then I will kind of share what I would have done in this in this scenario so and again this is how I learned as well having lots of great mentors in my life but I learned the best when I was making mistakes myself so no matter how many books I read no matter how many courses I attended no matter how many smart people I talked to like I only learned when I screwed something out myself so you really let your team members um you leave them to their own devices and you

just let them recognize when they need help and when they need constructive criticism do you feel like that's a very important skill as well uh to teach them you know uh to know when you need to seek out constructive criticism and advice? I would say, I don't know if there is one right way or wrong way. That's just my style. So, you know, Sultana might have a very different style from mine. So again, like a lot of my bosses who did a phenomenal job, you know they they did it completely different from from how i'm doing this um so i'm doing it how it worked for me um i tried to give everyone the freedom and autonomy to learn themselves before you know i will come and introduce the process

and then and then at the same time like i've seen people coming up with some amazing processes and things that i would have not thought myself it's interesting though that again with when you're talking about your team like you've had the same people uh that you've had when you first started they're still there to this day whereas like a lot of the other people we've spoken to they're actually trimming down and lean uh like um trimming down their organization so they have less team members right so they're more skeletal but it seems like in your case you're actually growing your team it's interesting to see yeah so we're definitely optimizing the processes and if there's something that we can fully automate optimize or even outsource I will definitely do that

like I would rather again have a person working on something creative that they're passionate about as opposed to working on some sort of a routine activities yeah yeah so every time there's an opportunity to automate where we're all in but that just just means that, you know, the capacity that we create, like we can use that capacity towards the new growth or towards the development. How long did it, you said that within like a first few years

when you started PurpleTree, you were able to get a team going like pretty quickly. Obviously, like there were three of you there with vast experiences and backgrounds in your respective fields and that you brought to the table but uh did you find that it was a lot it was a little difficult to start bringing in team members early on or versus later on uh i would say that that is still the biggest challenge of running this business or businesses uh it's finding finding right, the talent.

So that's one thing that I still haven't figured out. If you ask me how and where to find the best people for the role, I'd tell you, I still don't know. How did you find the team that you have now? Like where did you find? Like the first, yeah. Maybe not even the first, but the one you currently have now,

how did you find them i would say that majority of uh majority of them we found them still through referral um so i would say probably 60 percent of people either like knocked on our door or or somebody somebody brought them here like whether you know they're one one of the people who already works here or could be like one of the previous clients um yeah so not through linkedin or not through i don't know what are the what are those job sites that oh indeed monster monster yeah oh they're they're horrific like there's this is one of my biggest nightmares doing the job posting on indeed and then just going through all the resumes uh it's a bad day i guess i guess i didn't appreciate it. When I used to work in the bank industry, I was a hiring manager for many positions. And I never appreciated the fact that the HR department scans all these resumes and we only get maybe 1% of what they have to go through like, obviously, there's also pretty good technology out there. But, you know, small business doesn't really have access or just not worth it.

It's just way too expensive. But, yeah, I definitely miss the times when I was at the bank and I only had to go for maybe like three or four resumes and then pick two out of them, do two interviews and hire one amazing candidate. Very different in small business yeah i mean like we made a call for freelancers just so we could increase our roster of of people and we did it on facebook we did it with the video producer group on on facebook and oh my god it was just a mess i think for like the editing position we had like 60 applicants and we narrowed it down to like three three people that we would reach out to. And we still haven't used them yet. We're still using our current people now.

But man, it was brutal. Some emails would just be like, one of them said, yo. And I was like, yo, what? Who are you? Yo, I got you. I got that in an email once too. Like a lot of the times they would forget

to send their portfolio. And I'm like, I'm not gonna follow up with you. I got like 60 more people to go through, right? And it was brutal. It was like this for every position. Finding talent like that is only like a small percentage of the people that you'll ever work with. All the freelancers and people that we've worked with in the past have all been through recommendations through other people like yourself, as you mentioned, you know, it's either been someone from your team that knew them or someone who is like a real go getter that really like pursued to kind of like become a part of the team or even someone that, you know, that was a client, you know, that you formerly started working with. Those are the types of people that you really can connect with a little bit easier compared to a Facebook post.

Or just kind of like, you know, when you're in this industry and it's still pretty small, like you kind of know people and then started paying attention to certain people. And like, sometimes you just go straight to them and just, just talk and see, you know, whether they can be like a good synergy and whether there might be something that you can interest them with as well. So that happened probably more often than not, but yeah, no, still,

still big challenge. Remember how I said, if you feel like you're not getting enough inquiries or you could take on a little bit more business, you just, you just run Facebook ads for a day or two and then that's it. Like you cover it. Like if you, if you need, if you need help on the other side and if you need help with supply, then it takes months to to find and onboard somebody yeah uh in terms of scalability how were you able to scale all of the four

ventures that you have um so i think with wedding photography like we i feel like we pretty much hit the ceiling uh still we want to stay uh i want to offer boutique services so we don't really care to grow it more. Like right now we shoot about 200 weddings a season with the exception of this year obviously. But we're pretty happy where we are. I feel like you know adding more photographers or shooting more events would just kind of diminish our service. So happy there. I think we scaled it to the max. I've yet to see the company that would be able to offer wedding photography services in multiple geographical locations. I don't think that's sustainable.

On the Minsham side, so the studio rentals, I think that we're still at the very early stage. And we have big plans to go internationally and definitely open a few more locations here in Toronto. So the challenge with that business, so with many other businesses, it's finding the right people. With the studio rentals, it's finding the right people with the studio rentals. It's finding the right space with good light and an interesting, interesting building. So again, very limited in Toronto.

I remember you and I had a conversation sometime last year. I think this was when you were still looking for the second space. You guys found a place that you liked in the photos. But when you got there you guys noticed that there was a a strange smell of meat that could not be removed like what was your first thoughts when you walked in there was it in a meat factory yeah so so i'm not gonna name any names but there's actually a photography studio right there like in that space that's what we're looking at you think they got the meat smell out uh i mean it comes and goes no amount of febreze will help they're doing an exceptional job though like the guys who

run the space uh they do they do a really good job like this this is not a coffee can studio, but like they're really enjoy watching them grow as well. But yeah, so, you know, we're constantly looking for new spaces, just like we're constantly looking for new people. But, you know, having been in this business for a few years now, it's just like we see like all this red flags and, you know, as much as I am a risk taker when it comes to this kind of investment opening

in your studio, like I'm very careful. Yeah. What are some red flags aside from weird meat smells? When it comes to, when it comes to the studio, HVAC would be the worst. So sometimes you come into a great space, beautiful light, great factory windows, and you just know that it's going to be such a bitch in winter. Oh, yeah. And then, you know, there's certain things that, you know, just not worth it.

Unless elevator is a big one. Like I know people who would watch and listen, who are familiar with Minchum, they'll be like, yeah, yeah. Like elevator at Minchum is not perfect either. I know. Those stairs are not too easy to go up you guys had to carry any of your gear oh my god oh boy it's it's it's a walk but it's worth it folks okay the space is really nice remember minchum was the first location so we didn't know everything back then. So definitely, you know, parking, HVAC, landlord, permits is a big one.

We see so many spaces opening up and we're like, well, you guys didn't even look into zoning. Oh, my God. You know, somebody from the city to come visit you. And yeah, so landlords neighborhoods but the biggest one is always hvac elevator parking deal breakers and obviously the light that's another thing i see so many studios opening up right now and i just look at the quality of light and the windows and i'm i just i just feel bad for these folks.

I speak like Doug Ford. I feel like they're not doomed to fail, but that's like a big crutch when- You've got so much time and money in the space that doesn't have like decent natural light, but you position yourself as a natural light studio. Oh really? That's how they're positioning themselves.

Wow, yeah, that doesn't work then. So what is some of the next steps for you guys you know like obviously now what about scalability for the other because oh right yeah yeah so the indigo events uh so this is our our events corporate events business um as of right now everything is kind of pause in that industry. So kind of concentrating on the growth of other businesses. With August Media, there are a few things that we are adding right now. So we're bringing a lead designer on board. So we're going to offer website design. We're going to offer 3D models.

So we do want to get into construction and work with construction companies a little bit more. So offer 3D and 3D models. But the goal with August Media is definitely to go, you know, across the country and then potentially, like, you know, the goal is to open something on the West Coast. We do have a few people that we work with in Vancouver and Calgary, but would love to open a satellite office eventually there. We are getting inquiries from clients south of the border now as well.

I guess it helps that Canadian dollar is not as strong, so there is ways for them to save. So eventually, as of right now, we only have one client from the States, but I would love to scale it and take on more work with our American neighbors. yourselves to move into different countries and regions is it kind of like opening up offices for one of the businesses or more so kind of like operating as both indigo and august media like both simultaneously is it kind of a little bit like that or is it more so one dominating more for certain regions versus the other that's a great question because obviously there's a lot of cross-selling that's happening you know a lot of August media couple of clients or purple tree couples would need to rent minchum a lot of minchum clients you know some brands who don't necessarily

have a photographer and they come across minchum page you know they need to hire branding photographer or photographer for their campaign um so 100 there is a really good synergy here in toronto that's working really really well i guess i should have mentioned it as one of the ways how we find new leads and and new clients so potentially yes but uh i personally see how mint room is going to move physically move south of the border before august media and do you think have you guys kind of then set yourselves up as uh not necessarily relying on mint room as like the physical representation of the businesses uh like either across the border or on the other or on the west Coast. Do you see Mintroom being that solidifying kind of starting point to know how you guys can expand further?

So again, I would still treat Mintroom and August Media as independent companies. There's a different set of partners on the Mintroom side. And it's just easier to open a new mintrum in the brand new geographical location and get the clients right away as opposed to bringing yet another creative agency to i don't know a city like boston or chicago or or even vancouver so if you open a satellite office on the west coast for august media how would you go about that like would you would one of the partners end up going there or would you have people that you know just uh being

sent there yeah it would probably be important for at least one of us to go there for at least a short period of time let's say uh we talked about this uh about the studio. So if we were to open the studio, for example, outside of GT or outside of Ontario, I'll probably have to spend, one of us would probably have to spend good like six months to a year there. Opening August Media Satellite office, I think it's gonna be a little bit easier

just because, you know, we're, especially after this year when we're so used to working remotely and like managing teams remotely and each other and there is so much work that can be you know like I don't even know if we're going to come back to the office in the same capacity as we used to work here yeah so for August media probably be just to kind of meet the person who you can trust and who would be kind of like managing that that local uh satellite office but more so so that they can manage the clients over there but all the processes and the majority of the work is still going to be done from Toronto. Do you feel like

this pandemic has kind of forced you guys to to develop this remote uh working skill because like it seems like uh like the way you're kind of going about it is that because you guys have been forced to work from home and remotely, it has given you guys the skill to be able to be confident enough to expand to different regions without needing to physically be there all the time. Do you feel like the pandemic has kind of, in a way, been a little bit of a benefit in that sense?

I think not in the sense of optimizing your processes and adjusting the workflows. So that's where we're, I would say we're very well prepared for, but in terms of the diversification and, you know, what kind of clients do you really wanna bring and onboard to make sure that, you know, you're not affected by the second, third, fourth wave,

or even if it goes into like 2025. So in that sense, a hundred percent we learned a lot and we changed our strategy quite a bit. Again, in terms of the type of clients that we're targeting now. Do you feel like you guys are shifting a little bit more in needing to change what type of clients that you want to reach out to? Like, obviously, you mentioned that beauty, the beauty clients are your main niche now. Do you feel like because of the pandemic and because of your expansion ideas that you guys will have to kind of start targeting

new types of clients? So any clients who offer some type of products, not as opposed to just services. So again, so we want to have the clients that whose business doesn't depend on having the doors open, you know, seven days a week. Again, with, with beauty salons and clinics, especially most of them have their online stores and they sell they sell tons of different products that they can just ship to us and we can photograph it you

know doesn't matter if it's more of a traditional product photography or it's something a little bit more lifestyle can help them setting up their e-commerce stores, updating their inventory online, you know, again, shooting that inventory, helping them with the Facebook ads. So yeah, so definitely added quite a few services that were never offered before, just to make sure that there is some sort of contingency plan and definitely paying more attention to the clients

that are kind of doing the same thing and, you know, changing are kind of doing the same, the same thing and, you know, changing their way of doing business to make sure that they're not affected by this pandemic. B2B or B2C or both? For targeting? Yeah. Both, both.

But definitely. So it's, it's, it's a longer process to, you know, get the B2B leads and to onboard them. But once you do that, it's definitely an amazing relationship to have. So in a time now where a lot of companies are downsizing and losing team members, you know, and, you know, kind of trying to adapt to be smaller. You guys have maintained your core team. You have not been letting anyone go. In fact, because you are starting to dip more into new types of services and offerings with your businesses, do you feel like you're going to have to actually even expand the team more? Because e-commerce is a whole new different ballgame as well. Do you think that there's a potential need to find someone who's a big expert in that area? Yeah, so we're up six people since March.

You're up six people? Yeah, so we're up six people. But mostly because of August Media and because all these additional services that we're offering and onboarding new clients every month. And the biggest big part of our business on August Media's side is the subscription business. So which again helps a lot during this time because you can kind of estimate your cash flow for the next six months,

even if there is no new growth, but just kind of working with the existing clients. I expect the team to grow even more so my estimate is that if we don't go into another lockdown probably gonna hire like another four people before the end of this year if we do go into the lockdown like who knows we might end up hiring even more how are you able to pitch clients on subscription services so retainers because a lot of people we spoken to they said that they tried it actually everyone we spoke into pretty much everyone they tried and it just didn't work and they just don't believe in it. Or like it's like a dying mentality with a lot of clients.

For the ad agencies, but for video production agencies, everyone that said they tried it said it didn't work. So how did how come it worked for you? And how much of your business is subscription services? Sorry, so you're saying video subscription doesn't work? Well, you just mentioned. Well, no, the video production companies we've spoken to they all said they tried it and it didn't work yeah with the agencies it's gone from uh long-term uh retainer models to very short-term like one-year contracts right not even not even one year but for the big

ones i guess yeah so how were you able to make it work for your company and how much of a percentage um of your business of your business does it consist of so i would say august media i'll say 75 percent subscription wow yeah 2025 is just one-off campaigns like product photography branding shoots yeah 75 is subscription content or marketing as well everything uh so our subscription packages would include creative direction, content production. So it can be a photo, video, some management and strategy and reporting. Okay. That makes more sense because again, you're doing the marketing end of things.

So that falls in line. I thought it was on the strictly just content creation aspects. I don't know. Yeah. So we manage the content that we shoot. Yeah. Yeah. So one thing that I've always been kind of like wondering about, especially with these

subscription models, it made me wonder if this potentially works. There's obviously a certain set amount of work that you guys are going to be doing for your clients, certain team members that are going to be allocated and resources for those particular clients. But there's obviously going to be situations where things will fluctuate and vary. There might be like, say, a month where they may not need, not necessarily may not need, but there isn't as much need for marketing push to be there. Whereas there might be a month where there's a huge need for it that like it might go beyond the capacity of the business. How do you guys manage that?

Right. So the first scenario, you know, that happened back in like March, April, where a lot of our clients, like their, their stores started shutting down and then they were still on the contract.

So we basically adjusted for everyone and we were instead of charging them the set monthly rate we were just charging them for the actual hours that they used so basically positive contract and say listen you know we'll we'll do whatever is in your budget right now so still recommended to keep some sort of online presence and not disappear completely but for a lot of this clients that meant that we were only working on 10% of the capacity or the contract so we try to be understanding with everyone so if there is during certain month we can't shoot i will carry those hours forward to to the next month but we've got to avoid

that at all cost because not just because not not because it affects our cash flow or anything or or our workforce but because it affects our clients uh social media and engagement and everything else so we really suggest against that whenever possible, but we can be flexible if there is no other option. When it comes to taking on more work, so let's say it is a busier month for somebody and they do want to run some special campaigns

or they're launching a new product and we also have capacity to take on that extra work work so it hasn't been it hasn't been an issue so far the only area where we kind of staff uh for capacity is really social media management but if something is about to change like usually our clients give us heads up and they let us know a few months ahead when it comes to the production hours then sometimes it happens very last minute but with the production and with our photographers videographers we usually stop for almost peaks so we always have extra capacity just because we don't like when our creatives burn out. So the worst thing I can do to my creative people is to assign them to shoot like seven days a week

or even five days a week. So I like to kind of spread their work a little bit. So like on average, they'll probably shoot two or three times a week. Sometimes during peak season a little bit more but we always like to leave that extra capacity where as a minimum they would be able to kind of recharge their batteries and you know and sometimes i even go work on the passion project if there is some extra time uh yeah so we don't like to shoot every day.

That's not sustainable. But sometimes we have to. There will be times where, hey, it's all hands on deck. We need to do this for this client, or we need to do this for the team, and we'll do that. But it's not consistently 12 months a year. Yeah, no, I guess that pretty much just answers the question. Like,

obviously, like when there's peak, peak months where there's a lot of workflow that needs to be there, like you guys bring on, make sure you have enough staff. If you need to hire more for that particular month, you will do that as it is. Cause I was just curious, like, you know, there might be like, for example, a month where say a client said they wanted to shoot 30 videos, might be like for example a month where say a client said they wanted to shoot 30 videos one every single day not everyone can do that so how do you typically manage that that doesn't really happen but you know like you know we have a few friends in common who like literally you look at their calendar and out of 30 days in the month they have 29 days booked i know right it's it's very hard to we all know who we're talking about yeah so on our team

like that's not that's i don't allow that even even if somebody wanted to shoot 29 days in a month that's a recipe for a burnout and a disaster not not with not with the person we know the key the key is you need to hide but that's yeah that's like that one person is is an exception uh but for most people for most people working in uh at that capacity that rate is is not sustainable sasha the key is to find 30 people like that like that guy so that you get them all on one different day that month you know so that you get them all on one different day that month you know how's that for managing people and a huge team yeah yeah no sometimes like obviously over the years too like sultana myself eugene like the three partners we don't shoot as much as we used to uh so you know when hits the fan and you know there's nobody else and we need to do it for this

client uh you know we're always available as well sasha you've really given us a lot of insights into how to like build a team and how to manage a team it's a lot of companies struggle with that especially in the creative sector you know it's it's not an easy thing and we really value that you've been able to take some time to talk to us and our audiences about about that aspect and yeah thanks for jumping onto the show is there anything you want to plug before we end off thanks for thanks for having me sorry is there anything you want to plug uh is there anything i want to plug um i feel like i could go on forever he's got like 10 other ventures behind i know he's got a few more businesses coming you got like 10 other businesses you want to talk about right oh yeah we only talked about four of

them only four oh boy spoken like a true entrepreneur by the way we love it stop it sasha thanks again uh we look forward to chatting again soon. Likewise. Can't wait to do it in real life, boys. Yeah, hopefully soon. We'll grab a coffee for real. All right, take it easy. I will actually have coffee next time. No worries. Take care, Sasha.

Bye-bye. All right. 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.