What business to start and how to find clients

[Joe Cage]

Hi,

I am 37 years old, I have been an employee for my whole career. I have been doing videography as a side hustle for a couple of years, but last couple of years with kids etc it has been on a low paste. Now I am fed up with my job, and looking to start a business full time to replace my job. Allthough I am not quite sure what business I should start, as I have a freelancer friend that hires me sometimes, but I do not have any regular company clients that call me up for work.

So I want to start a business in Belgium that I can scale pretty easy to 10K per month. But I am starting pretty much from zero, so also looking for ways to get clients fast.
- Freelance videographer + editor?
- Digital Agency: shooting the video projects and setting up ads for the companies?
- Any other suggestions?

So if you were starting over from zero, what would you choose and how would you approach it?

Thanks a lot!

 

[M Harvey]

Sounds like an exciting time in your life, so I wish you good luck with this big transition! Speaking from my own experience leaving a regular job for a mixture of freelance opportunities, these kinds of changes are often difficult, but can be very satisfying.

I don't know how you scale up to 10k/month easily, so come back and let us know if you figure out the secret!

A couple thoughts:
-many of the people I know who work freelance (as cinematographers, editors, etc.) have a steady, regular client that helped cover their basic monthly bills. So they had flexibility to take most freelance jobs, whether a passion project, a low paying job to get something for their reel, or a higher paying commercial job. Being able to fall back on even a small amount of regular income can be really helpful.
-one of the most important things is building your network of contacts. Ask for meetings with people who do things you find exciting, ask friends to introduce you to people who edit or have a production business, etc. (And offer to pay for the coffee or beer when you meet!) This will be one important way to learn about opportunities, get invited to help on a shoot, start to understand the market in your area, etc. And also, sometimes contacts become friends or artistic collaborators.
-if the digital agency idea is a full time job, it's probably a good way to get experience and make professional contacts while also paying your living expenses. You just have to be willing to leave it after a few years if it's not helping you get where you want to be.

 

[Adelina Dixon]

You can so socmed or develop an online course about videography, a 101 or something related to doing side gigs while having a part-time job.

 

[Joe Cage]

You can so socmed or develop an online course about videography, a 101 or something related to doing side gigs while having a part-time job.

Yeah, but what would you want to see on social media that has not been done or done proper so far?

 

[sander kamp]

If I could go back in time:

Work is best in a team where one person is good in selling and the other is good in producing. Think for yourself which one you are and find the other one.

I would find a niche like food, nature, sports, kids, fashion, music, architecture, science - anything that you don't mind doing for free and spend a lot of time perfecting your craft. Do other jobs for the money but stay focused. It might take years but In the end it will pay off. Clients have no imagination and they are looking for someone who makes exactly what they need, not someone who can do anything. If you keep on track you become a specialist and you can charge higher prices.

I would use whatever media to promote myself instead of thinking I'm not good enough yet. Don't hold back.

Be a nice person. Be on time, keep your promises, don't complain and be understanding to your customers. Overdeliver and undercharge, especially in the beginning. If you can do that, half the job is already done, there's just so many people out there who are difficult to work with.

Scaling to 10k per month is going to be a challenge. How about making a package for clients with things like an interview, B-roll, product shot etc. Make it cheap and sell it like a fixed format. Be very clear what is included and what not and avoid discussions. Once you get good doing that you can get them out of the door very quick and move on. The most time consuming thing is clients starting to think and changing their mind.

Wish you good luck!

 

[Phil Holland]

looking to start a business full time to replace my job

Over the years I have enjoyed hearing how everybody made the decisions to make the switch, start a business, go freelance, etc. Everybody's story is different as well as their professional aspirations and goals. I don't have all the answers, but I've learned a lot from other's experiences and realities.

Don't want to make this about me, but there might be a nugget in here for you Joe and I've been on my own for about 13 years now. I left my studio gig at 30 years old and it was one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. Mainly because that studio became a part of me. During my time there I also was doing freelance work on the side. Cinematography, Photography, VFX, Digital Color Work, Concept Art, Screenwriting, etc. Interestingly I didn't setout to become a filmmaker, but a few of my instructors and mentors truly thought that was the path I was on. I kept it in the back of my head as it was pretty far from my reality until it very much was my actual reality for a hot minute. That's what inspired the change to going fulltime on my own was that realization.

That first year I was on my own, day one of 2011, was absolutely difficult as I had a mortgage and a car payment, not to mention I lost the tools available to me at $100mil VFX studio. So I had to build for a bit and renting was important that first year. Fortunately I built relationships with many VFX houses and motion picture studios, but it did take a moment for everyone to understand I was detached and available. A few months in I started to see a pickup as even my old studio started hiring me for freelance work. I was aiming to invest in a decent camera and lens package. Prior to this moment I never needed to own a motion picture camera as most productions I worked on came via Panavision or we rented other gear via Clairmont or other usual suspects. Fortunately I had a great deal of experience with film as well as the emerging digital tech. Wanted an Epic as 5K acquisition was highly appealing to me with no more access to our 4K, 6K, and beyond film scanners or 4K laser recorders.

TL;DR on that front is I saved up for that big moment in November that year when both RED and Canon were making announcements. RED was far, far closer to what I wanted/needed with DSMC Scarlet 4K S35/A35. Couldn't bite the bullet on Epic yet, but I knew I could the following year as long as I kept busy. 2012 was absolutely nuts and I was able to level up pretty hard on the equipment side. Upgraded to Epic, bought proper cinema glass, lots of support gear, and more lighting equipment. Also I was doing post work on par with larger studios as I came from that world, working leaner and meaner basically. This empowered me to take on even more work and bigger work. Where I got lucky or by proxy had some good karma is I worked on a lot of productions for my first 12 years in the industry and subsequently more after I moved on from that. Did my best to leave a positive wake during and after every film and project. That seemed to be a very good recipe and still is to this day. Though I will underline one major sentiment. I am an absolute aberration in the stream of how things normally work in the commercial filmmaking world. I also came up in a time when the industry was much, much smaller yet also growing rapidly. I was able to see that in a highly interactive way and look for opportunities developing out of that. Moderately still do to this day.

The key message I'll aim to get across here is I expanded my freelance production work via a world I had a great deal of experience in, then worked outward to create some new opportunities. And if there's things related to your former job that might present opportunities to explore with motion picture content, aim at that. You may have already established relationships with potential clients worth exploring. Somewhere between those relationships and your personal/professional aspirations for your new venture is likely where it's worth investing some effort in exploring.

If you can, save up prior to setting off on your own. That aspect I could have done much better. Unfortunately at the time, though I had many mentors, none made the specific moves I had to and that is one aspect I could have done better. Oddly I think if I knew everything I know now, I could have likely made the move in 2007 or 2008, but that's hindsight and I wouldn't change much with how things have transpired. Just know there will be very hard times until it even begins to look like it makes sense. For me that was about 2-5 years after 12 years of feature film experience on nearly every side of production.

I know others from older REDuser days who were able to make these moves much quicker. A very common one way back when the RED One was the new kid in town was building up as a DIT who offered their camera and other gear up for kit rental. There's many who still do that, but that requires a lot of work these days to build relationships with the people who will rent from you. There's so many other pathways now beyond this. I look around town now and see so many boutique rental houses created via loans or other cash influx. The big houses are all still there and of most value have deep relationships with a core clientele that keeps the wheels moving. Many, many production companies exist where I am and pretty much of every size you can imagine. Elsewhere that might be a "new" to a specific market still. Same for opening up rental in a zone that could experience growth. I know people now who make a very good living filming product work out of their garage even. Tabletop can be lucrative, but it's also crowded. Small through medium commercial shoots have created a very active environment for all sorts of opportunities.

It's funny for me now, because I see so many opportunities in various areas across the USA mainly. During the pandemic I have spoken to filmmakers when everybody had down time, particularly in smaller to non-existent markets. A couple of those folks have setup production companies and rental houses in those zones where there was no option for gear or getting work done or perhaps maybe only one company. It's proven to be pretty lucrative in those situations, which tells me that our industry is still growing for sure. Outside of the US, I think it's more complicated in my experience, but I have friends who run boutique production companies abroad and have carved nice lives out of it.

To that last question, if I was starting from scratch as this age, hard to know. The benefit I had was making the choice to work in the film industry in my teenage years and very quickly worked my way up. I'm now *gasp* in my 40s. I think I would first look at the tools and resources I have in front of me and a very honest look at my skillset versus areas I am looking to explore professionally. Try to see if there's anything I could bring to the table that would set me apart or make me unique perhaps versus what others are doing. If you've already been filming freelance sporadically, you have a head start with actual work experience. Now it's a matter of finding what you wan to lean into surrounding that.

Last suggestion, a wild one. Companies are indeed hiring up "video folk" a lot now. Though many of the job posts are for cinematographers, what a lot of them are looking for is a videographer. Some of these I think are worth exploring either short term or long term depending on the company. This will allow you to shoot and get paid before you gain the confidence to go out on your own fully. If I had kids I think this would be the way to go personally. These types of opportunities didn't really exist when I was younger and if I was starting with a moderate amount of filming experience I'd say those are good avenues to gain a lot more experience.

Long post, apologies, but lots of thoughts on the matter.

 

[Frendy191]

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[lisapurnellsw]

If I could go back in time:

Work is best in a team where one person is good in selling and the other is good in producing. Think for yourself which one you are and find the other one.

I would find a niche like food, nature, sports, kids, fashion, music, architecture, science - anything that you don't mind doing for free and spend a lot of time perfecting your craft. Do other jobs for the money but stay focused. It might take years but In the end it will pay off. Clients have no imagination and they are looking for someone who makes exactly what they need, not someone who can do anything. If you keep on track you become a specialist and you can charge higher prices.

I would use whatever media to promote myself instead of thinking I'm not good enough yet. Don't hold back.

Be a nice person. Be on time, keep your promises, don't complain and be understanding to your customers. Overdeliver and undercharge, especially in the beginning. If you can do that, half the job is already done, there's just so many people out there who are difficult to work with.

Scaling to 10k per month is going to be a challenge. How about making a package for clients with things like an interview, B-roll, product shot etc. Make it cheap and sell it like a fixed format. Be very clear what is included and what not and avoid discussions. Once you get good doing that you can get them out of the door very quick and move on. The most time consuming thing is clients starting to think and changing their mind.
cookie clicker
Wish you good luck!

Your point about using "whatever media to promote myself instead of thinking I'm not good enough yet" is crucial. Many people, especially creatives, fall into the trap of perfectionism and self-doubt, waiting for an elusive "perfect" moment to show their work. The truth is,