Building a Dual-Focused Video Production Company (ft. Spirit Juice)

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Kyrill00:00Right. Okay, welcome everybody to another episode of Creatives Grab Coffee. Today we got Rob Casmark, not Jazzmark, Casmark, from Spirit Juice and Behold. So kind of like a dual company here. So Rob, give us a little backstory about you and your two companies.

Dario00:01Yeah

Rob Kaczmark00:20Yeah, thanks for having me. It's awesome just to hang out with you guys. So the two companies, similar to like any business, I think it's important to have like your niche. So Spirit Juice focuses on our faith-based clients and Behold focuses on our more commercial secular clients. And I think, you know, we try to kind of have it all under one umbrella at the beginning, but then it sort of waters down like their faith-based clients like because we speak that language and understand that.

Kyrill01:13It's very interesting that kind of niche because most of the time when people talk about niches, they think of different industries, different types of content, animation videos, live action videos. But having one specifically for commercial and one for faith based. So just to kind of clarify for our audience, that's kind of like with religious organizations specifically. Okay. How did that kind of come out to be? Like you're the first that has that kind of

Rob Kaczmark01:34Yep. Yes.

Kyrill01:41niche slash focus that we've ever talked to. So give us a little backstory on that.

Rob Kaczmark01:46So I grew up, you know, I'm a cradle Catholic and I grew up, you know, going to church because my mom forced me to. And then eventually I started to like go because I, you know, wanted to a little bit. But I always noticed that like all this stuff at church was like super boring. That like the media that they, you know, whether it's videos or graphics. And I'd always, you know, complain to the people around me, like the youth ministers at times, like, why isn't stuff looking any better? She's like, well, I don't know. Why don't you do that? And I was like, well.

Dario03:10for it. It's secular here so you could go ahead.

Kyrill03:10you could do whatever you would like.

Rob Kaczmark03:11He's like, okay, good. He's like, you got a lot of balls to do that, son. And I always appreciate that because my dad's just like the hardest worker I know. And so, you know, early on the first five years, was really hard because no one wanted the church and stuff. They didn't want to spend money on media, didn't really see the value in it. So it was just a grind. I I worked seven days a week, just…

Dario03:18Yeah

Rob Kaczmark03:39doing everything myself, trying to teach it. I also didn't go to school for filmmaking. I just was like one of those ambitious kids. was like, could figure it out myself. And so I just taught myself it as people were paying me to do the work for them. And so it took a while, but eventually sort of carved out a niche. And I like to think that, you know, at least in the Catholic space, think of spirit use as one of the top people are creating videos. And so you want a high quality video, spirit use in the Catholic space. And in other sectors, you know, I don't know how.

Dario04:27When did you, when did you diverge from, you know, just focusing or like, cause there's two companies, when did they split?

Rob Kaczmark04:35We tried to split it in like 2011 and it was, it was called Capture, Capture Creative. And I started like a LLC for that and stuff. And then there was too many like other companies out there that was similar to Capture. And then it was just, it just sort of kind of was like, hi, this just, just isn't working. So we, we fizzled that out. And then probably in like 2018, we're like, well, let's just do a DBA. I actually didn't know what a DBA was, which was doing business. So apparently least in the States that you can,

Rob Kaczmark06:59It's an interesting life. I'll say that much. It's an interesting life to being in front of the camera and being in front of camera, kind of at that level. I was by no means famous or anything of that capacity, but just like you really, it's all about you, like all about you all the time. And like, you don't land an audition and it's like, you feel terrible. And it's just like this, like it's, give, I give actors a lot of credit cause it's, it's hard to keep going. Like the perseverance you must have. So

Dario08:17That's a long time, it, yeah, it flies by.

Kyrill08:20It sounds like you've gone through so many different parts of the industry and definitely gotten experience from both sides of the aisle. Like I had a similar experience as well, like being in front of the camera for a little bit, but same thing. It wasn't for me, not an area that I really wanted to explore further. Cause one of the big things about acting is that a lot of factors that might determine your future are things that are out of your control.

Rob Kaczmark09:18I feel like in the Catholic side, we're probably, we might be the largest in the sense of like the size of our company, because we're about like 25, 30 employees that focus purely on the Catholic stuff. There's other, there's probably maybe like four five other groups, a little bit smaller. And, you know, there's a handful of sort of like two, three person sort of like small companies that target that. There's not that, despite there being like, what, like,

Kyrill09:28Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark09:4750 million Catholics, there's not that much Catholic work out there. I think Catholics think of things, I don't think they see the value in video as much as I think like maybe us do, or like the rest of the world. think, know, books are still sort of like top tier. Like the highest quality, the highest like tier of media in like Catholic side of things is books still, I feel like. When you take a layer back and go more just like the Protestants, which would be like just non-Catholics, or anyone else, it's Christian.

Kyrill11:21Yeah.

Dario11:44So you mentioned your… I was just gonna ask, so you mentioned you have like a 25 person team?

Kyrill11:44I was like wondering. Yeah, go Dara.

Rob Kaczmark11:51Yeah, so we have our headquarters, which most people work out of. have a people that are remote. It's in Allsip, probably about.

Dario12:07It's very small.

Kyrill12:09Yeah, no, this is tiny.

Rob Kaczmark12:26It is, is wild looking now where we're at, but it's been a, like a, a very painful, slow process. And so, I'm very grateful. I also like with, with, you know, great, great power comes great, bills to pay. you know, there are days where I'm like, I do miss that 300 square foot place. Cause the, the, just the overhead was a lot less. so it's, it's hard part about like, I think.

Dario13:35Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark13:50for what's around and not trying to like focus on, wish I was going back to this or I wish I had this or that.

Dario13:57But what are, cause you like to have 25 people is means that you're pretty well developed as a company. I'm just wondering what kind of issues did you face getting to this point? Like, as you were mentioning how you either growing or you're dying, like what were you doing? You must've faced some moments where your business was shrinking. So how did you overcome those?

Rob Kaczmark14:12Mm-hmm.

Rob Kaczmark14:19It was hard. I would almost kind of break us break it down to like three different phases of business. The first phase and these numbers are just kind of like, you know, relative. It could fluctuate probably a decent amount, but like, you know, up to say 300,000 in revenue or maybe even like five or 600,000. You're doing, I'm doing everything myself. So I, know, and maybe I have like a freelancer here or there for a certain project, but I'm doing everything myself because I don't trust anyone to do anything as good as I can do it.

Dario15:50Hmm.

Rob Kaczmark16:07basically told me how terrible I was. It was a very sobering thing. was like 10 pages of all the stuff that they thought that I did poorly. And I read it and I was probably depressed for about a week. But he's like, listen, this is your blueprint on how to improve. And so, you know, for me, it was like being aware of like, okay, where could I improve? And also at the same time, like, I don't know if you guys ever watched Silicon Valley, but TJ Miller plays, this is one character in there. He says,

Dario16:11Ha ha ha.

Kyrill16:12Hehehehe

Rob Kaczmark16:37He's like, every company has to have an asshole. And I think there's some truth to that. the trick is like, trying… Like as a leader, you don't want to be the asshole, but you also have to make hard decisions sometimes that people don't see, whether it's for their betterment, for the company's betterment. And so it's a challenging road. And the more you grow, the reward for good work is more work.

Dario17:14Hahaha

Dario17:19What was like some of the stuff that your employees were, I guess, suggesting slash criticizing anonymously?

Rob Kaczmark17:26Yeah

Kyrill17:27And also anonymously, right?

Rob Kaczmark17:29Yeah, yeah, yeah, they write it in a way I'm like, yeah, okay, I know who that is.

Kyrill17:34Was it in a box? Was it in a box, like a suggestion box that you gave them, like walked around? It's like, here, put in your suggestion.

Dario17:34Hahaha

Rob Kaczmark17:38They did they wrote it it was all digital, but I could tell by the way like how people wrote stuff

Kyrill17:46hahahaha hahahaha hahahaha

Dario17:47By who sent? By who sent the like there's the email signature.

Rob Kaczmark17:49Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's that'd be good. What are some of the things, gosh. One of it was I didn't let people fail. Like I didn't like I gave them a thing and then I didn't I like I would try then to fix it for them. So like I didn't like like give them the autonomy to do the thing without letting it like and I'd see the problem and they couldn't fix it themselves. So I would come in then before it was like

Kyrill19:48Before you do, before you do, I actually have a follow up question to that specifically. Like when you said that you jumped in to help with the edit, does that mean like, for example, you took the files and added a little bit of editing on your own or were you just adding in some comments? It's like, this shot doesn't work here. Maybe do this or swap like that. how much did you take over basically?

Rob Kaczmark20:09At that time, I would go into the edit. So he would do it and I would go in and I would just tweak it and stuff. Now, if I do watch an edit, I just give notes, which is not, you that's only if I things that I'm invested in or I want to see. Projects go in and out without me, without any of my approval or anything like that. had to sort of like, you just like, you got to sort of, I had to keep taking myself out of things. like letting it run.

Kyrill20:13okay.

Rob Kaczmark20:37without me. So like a project can go from start to finish without me saying or doing anything. There are projects where I do, you know, based on the relationship or whatever it may be, I may have a little bit of input, but that's really the goal of the business. I mean, if you want it to grow and have it be self-sustaining, if you want to just be a creative in it, then sure, know, like, you know, be part of the whole thing. But if you want it to grow, you got to be able to have something go from start to finish without your fingerprint on it at all.

Kyrill20:42Mm

Kyrill21:07Yeah. And what would you say was another big thing that had really helped the business grow as a suggestion from within your team?

Rob Kaczmark21:20Focusing on the big picture, a lot of times I was just focused on the weeds. I'm very into organization. If you came here, you'd be like, whoa, that was an understatement. I have labels on everything, even at my house. Everything's labeled. I like to zip tie all my cables and just have it be very neat and organized. And one of the days I was working late, basically underneath one of the editor's desk, zip tying cables.

Kyrill22:23Yeah

Rob Kaczmark22:35And no, it's not. So I was not focused on the big picture. That was an example from five or six years ago. But when I did that, that 360, that came up a lot still. Like I'm focusing on these small details that are not necessarily like important. Like they're important to me, but to the big picture, they're not. And so when I started to focus on the big picture, like growth of the company, building relationships with people that are beyond sort of just like, they're just like coming to us for different things. Then I saw, you know, more growth in the company and

Dario23:44Yes, sir.

Dario23:48Hahaha

Kyrill23:48Hahaha

Rob Kaczmark23:58which took about two years, give or take. And there's an interview with Peter Jackson, the director, and they said, you how did you do this? most of you guys spent like more than one or two birthdays while you're still filming and you're away from home and all this stuff. He goes, isn't it hard? And Peter said, yeah, it's been very hard, very, very challenging. And I said, whatever you thought about quitting, you know, like just stopping? He's like, you know what I have? I've thought about quitting many times. And then I would ask myself this one question.

Kyrill24:56And with big picture stuff that includes doing things like this podcast, right? You know, getting to meet other people and outreach. His biggest moment. I know it's not as exciting as zip tying cables, but you

Dario25:01This is the this is the biggest this is his biggest moment

Rob Kaczmark25:05I love this!

Rob Kaczmark25:10I yeah, zip tying cables. There's something therapeutic about zip tying cables. Like they're nice and organized and then like you clip like just clipping them with with some nice wire cutters. I recommend the Milwaukee wire cutters. Those are premium.

Kyrill25:23He even has his own branded wire cutters, he knows.

Dario25:27The way you like zip tying the cables, I like organizing our Google Drive. That's what calms me down. That and doing bookkeeping, like coloring all the expenses and money coming in. don't know, something therapeutic about that. When I'm trying to do work, but I don't want to do work at the same time, that's kind of what I do.

Rob Kaczmark25:31Rob Kaczmark (25:41.706) Good man.

Kyrill25:41I think.

Rob Kaczmark25:46Yep. Yeah.

Kyrill25:48It's like the thing where it's it's similar where it's like, like I need to organize the office or I need to organize the camera gear or the, or the equipment there. Like even times where I've gone to the storage locker to just be like, all right, this, this place needs to be adjusted a little bit. We're going to, we've to take out some fluff, put some things on Kijiji, sell off old gear, know, stuff that's not really pressing sometimes, you know, that's the essential. You're doing stuff that is on the to-do list of the business, but it's at the very

Rob Kaczmark25:55Mm-hmm.

Rob Kaczmark26:07Yeah.

Dario26:16but it's like item 37.

Kyrill26:18It's like item number like 155 of like compared to the other ones that you're doing. So you should be working on that video edit that's due in two weeks rather than, know, like organizing things.

Dario26:21Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark26:31our mind

Dario26:31How is your growth as a business? Did you have steady growth each year to get to where you are now? Or did you experience bursts of accelerated expansion?

Rob Kaczmark26:42There was, I would say it was very steady. Strangely enough, we had a burst in, I don't know if you guys experienced too, in like 2020 with COVID and stuff. There was like a, obviously like right when COVID hit, there was like not that, but like after there was a lot of like people wanted a ton of video. And so there was like the strange burst there, which honestly was like the most stressful time of owning the business. Cause it was just like, you know, not to get into like that whole thing, but like I had people on both sides of.

Dario26:59Mm

Rob Kaczmark27:12the, you know, everything you could think about COVID, I had all of them here. And so it was very challenging just to keep, I felt like, I felt like my family was being tear it apart because there's just like so much, was just spent like based on people's opinions on different stuff. And I'm just like, try not to have an opinion that I shared and just like keeping everyone together and just like going forward. And so it was, it was hard because like we had a lot of work and like, I don't know. So, but that was, that was a kind of a, a jump there.

Dario27:59We're definitely in a recession. I know they don't want to say that, but I think we can all agree like we're going through it. Yeah.

Kyrill28:02Yeah, because once they say it, there will be a panic. That's why if they say the words, there will be a panic. But there has definitely been a bit of a decline this year. mean, luckily, there's been like a somewhat of a consistency in some work. But at the same time, you can feel you can feel when a business is like or when the market is like going down, you're getting less calls. Usually that's like one of the biggest indicator. You know, just general outreach kind of slows down. Like last year, I think

Rob Kaczmark28:05Yeah. Yeah.

Dario28:12Mm

Kyrill28:32think we were having at least one or two different leads on a daily basis calling at the very least. Whereas like now it's like every other day almost, right? it, I mean, granted half leads that you get these days are like, boost your SEO or here I am a voiceover artist. Add me. Yeah. Like, but you know, when the spam dies down, you know, you're in a recession.

Rob Kaczmark28:38Mm-hmm.

Rob Kaczmark28:47I'm

Dario28:49a lot of spam. We've also noticed like lot of the…

Rob Kaczmark28:50Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark28:55So true.

Dario28:57We also noticed that a lot of like the people that are reaching out like we're dealing with what we're dealing with a lot smaller budgets from what I saw. So we're trying to like still get the work, but we're trying to have we're having to like readjust our pricing structure a little bit. So yeah.

Rob Kaczmark29:05Mm-hmm.

Kyrill29:13or the offerings even, like it's matter of adjusting offerings based on what people can afford and what they're looking for and helping people get the max value of what they can with their budgets, right? Because at the same time, it's like, if a lead is coming to you with a certain budget range, you wanna see what you can do with that rather than just be like, that's too small, let's move on, right? Because again, when times are slower, you have to see what you can.

Dario29:21Yeah.

Dario29:42In this economy, we're way more hesitant to, yeah, pass up opportunities. You don't know where it's going, right? So it's like, eh, let's just try to make it work. Let's see.

Kyrill29:42and do, right?

Rob Kaczmark29:47Yeah.

Kyrill29:51Because sometimes what people don't realize with when leads are reaching out, they're reaching out for a specific type of project that might be lower in that instance. And when you complete something that they're happy with with that range, when they get more funding to do more work, you will get more consistent work for them. We've had a few clients like that where they've come with something relatively small and then all of a sudden now it's become.

Dario30:26Mm

Rob Kaczmark30:38Yeah, 100%. One of our largest clients started is just like a one day coverage, like, you know, cover an event for a couple hours. They liked it. And then, you know, now we do a ton of work with them. And so I couldn't agree more. think it's, there are, there are certainly a handful of ones that like they're low budget and that's the highest they're ever going to go. And you sort of like, you know, you're, you're trying to, milking something that just not, but at the same time for everyone, there's like that there's another one that like has a ton of budget.

Dario30:57Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark31:07And this is sort of just like their entry point, because I know for me, like if I'm gonna try working with someone new for whatever it is, I'll start small. Like I'm not gonna jump in and just, you know, spend a ton of money if I'm not comfortable. I think being, you know, honoring that project, giving them a good experience, think that's what I've tried to do, you know, with the businesses. Like not only are you gonna get a good video from us, but the process is not gonna be painful because, you know, we could probably all think of a lot of different filmmakers that,

Kyrill32:12Yeah.

Dario32:25Yeah, that's true.

Kyrill32:26It's healthier for you.

Kyrill32:31Yeah.

Dario32:35This is good example.

Rob Kaczmark32:37Yeah, I think early on a lot of people forget that and I was never perfect with it, but I think that's, I've tried to ground myself in that reality.

Kyrill32:37Yeah.

Kyrill32:49But if it's like a ridiculous request or a crazy request, like I want a burger, but remove the patty, you know? But yeah, no. Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark32:55You're like, okay, okay. But there's also ways to do it too. You're like, okay, I can remove the patty, no problem. Here's what that might look like. Are you sure is that what you want? And sometimes, you know, sometimes you give them that burger without the patty and they're like, this is delicious, thank you. And sometimes they're like, why am I getting this? And you're like, because you asked for it. Like, I don't want this. Give me the patty back. And you're like, okay, here's the patty.

Kyrill33:20Yeah, sometimes you have to go with your client. Like you said, a lot of the time you have to go with your client's request, even if to you it might sound crazy, you might give them suggestions like, think it might be good to do this, but if you'd like to do that, no problem. And then they're like, yeah, let's continue with what I requested. You do it. And then they're like, maybe this didn't work. Might be good to move on to the other thing. Cause sometimes, like we've talked about this in previous episodes where sometimes clients, can't visualize what you visualize.

Rob Kaczmark34:36Yeah, 100%. I, one of the things that I try to remind clients to, especially if I'm talking to them, is that a project gets made three times in pre-production, in production, and post-production. And so we're going to do our best in pre-production to kind of lay it all out and plan for the best. But then also like on set, there might be just the interviewee says something really like inspiring that like, this is great. We have to include this now. Or there's like the serendipity of the moment where there's just like, you know, the

Kyrill35:47Especially with subject matter that is completely out of your realm like for example last two days we were doing or I was doing a shoot for a client of ours that deals with purely mathematicians and all they're talking about is mathematics constantly and in the interviews they're talking about certain things where I'm like I Really don't understand the specifics. I understand the general idea like but they're talking about formulas that are so revolutionary with physics and I'm like, you know what I let

Dario36:10No you don't. Yeah.

Kyrill36:16that the client to kind of like handle like the specific messaging, but I might chime in and say, what if we said it like this based on what they said, you know, but that, that to your point, they know their audience, they know what they're looking for. They know how people can act and react to certain questions and, messages. So you got to, your client is your best collaborator when you think about it, right? They're helping you create the content as much as you're helping them to create it as well. Right? So that's kind of like the

Rob Kaczmark36:44Exactly.

Dario36:44Kyrill, do you want to say that funny story from that shoot you did?

Kyrill36:45What sorry?

Rob Kaczmark36:50Yeah.

Dario36:50Okay.

Rob Kaczmark37:04Thank

Kyrill37:14One other thing I was actually curious to ask you and I don't know if this is a thing in the faith-based business, but you said that you specifically work with Catholics. So like, you thought about expanding to different markets like Jewish ones or what is it, or Muslim or any different kinds of religions, you know?

Dario37:25I was thinking that earlier. Protestant.

Dario37:33But even within his there's different ones. There's the Protestants, there's the…

Kyrill37:38Yeah. What about Mormon? You know, there's so many different ones. I'm talking about different. Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark37:40If we work

Dario37:41That's very different girl.

Rob Kaczmark37:44Yeah, yeah. Well, if we work with Jewish, we would just change the name Spirit Jews. So just kind of stay unbranded.

Kyrill37:52I already hear it. I already hear it.

Rob Kaczmark37:55So, no, I think we work with some Protestant groups too. think the Catholic thing, I'm Catholic, so I know the language quite a bit. I'm just like familiar with that. I think there's opportunity. For me, would feel, I think a state in the Christian lane would be like, I feel like comfortable in that and speaking that language. you're know, Catholics are Christian, you know, just like that's just a different denomination.

Kyrill38:20Mm

Rob Kaczmark38:21Going outside of that. I'm just not familiar enough with it I'm probably the most familiar with like the Jewish tradition just from you know, Christianity and different stuff But the other ones I'm just not familiar with so I feel like it'd be inauthentic for me to come in and be like hey we can do You know work for whatever that religion and Hindu or Muslim or and stuff and like but I don't even know like how to speak that language as far as like what

Dario38:48It wouldn't make sense.

Kyrill38:49It wouldn't make sense. it's almost like a bigger barrier than also than like, say, if you were going from like one industry to another on the commercial or corporate side of things, because like in a lot of corporate industries, there's a lot of similarities in terms of content that is needed. And same thing with in in in religious spaces, I'm assuming. But at the same time, it's like it's harder to kind of I mean, this is what I'm assuming. It's harder to go into different ones that you don't understand as well. But it's like that in any

Rob Kaczmark39:15Mm

Kyrill39:19industry, if you don't understand an industry, how would you be able to sell yourself as someone who's an expert on jumping in?

Dario39:25No, it's easier for corporate kill because you could just be a generalist and then just go between industries like we do. But it's different for when like faith is involved. I had a question regarding like sales on your end. Like, are you still partaking in that or do you have like someone else doing that for you?

Kyrill39:32Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark39:36Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark39:46So I have someone that's doing the, we have someone that like, they have their position. I'm still involved. I try to be, if I can, on any of the like initial like onboarding or like someone reaches out and like I'm part of that. Being that I'm, you know, the owner of the company and founder, like I've been around, like my face is, I almost say synonymous with the company. So I do a lot of stuff where I'm sending, you know, emails out to people or making a video on social or, you know, Google ads and stuff where I'm like,

Dario40:27Mm

Rob Kaczmark40:40but the other person that's in that position, she will take it from, okay, I will get, know, after the call is done, she will create the proposal, she'll send it to them, she'll follow up, she's incentivized to do that, you know, financially. like there's, it's like, that's another spot too where I had to take my, it was a hard spot, cause like, I can do this and I can, feel like I can do it well, but like to do it on a consistent and a growing basis, you have to have someone else doing that. So in theory, I could not be on any of those and it would still grow. I think I add some value just based on.

Kyrill42:03Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark42:08just at their office, I always tell the people here, like, get two quotes. Like, I'm not going to go with just one quote. And so like, everyone kind of does that. It's somewhat par for the course, unless you have such brand equity that you're like, no, I'm going like, you if you're going to get a new phone and if you're a normal person, you're getting an iPhone. I hope I was, hope that joke landed.

Dario42:28You're just pissed off like every Android user. But as an iPhone user, I do agree.

Kyrill42:32All the Android users are not happy. Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark42:36Well, rather like, it's like, okay, my phone's getting old. If you're an iPhone user, you have so much brand equity in that you're gonna keep going with it. And I know it's not the fair example because like, you're gonna keep going with what have. But the point is like, unless you have that such high brand equity, you're gonna probably get some other stuff. most likely, whenever you're providing a proposal to someone, it's probably, you know, they're probably also getting some other numbers. Even if like, they might be your first choice, like they're picking you as their first choice, but they're still gonna get someone else or you might be their second choice.

Kyrill44:08I'm also, having now built such a, grown such a big team, you've mentioned that you basically do some aspects with different parts of your team every now and then. How do you engage, what is, not your day to day really, but kind of like, how do you typically engage your team in general? Because obviously there's a lot of projects that are going on. How are you inspiring them? How are you pushing them? Do you do weekly meetings? Do you do?

Rob Kaczmark44:46So we do, we have like, kind of a week at, look at a week look. We have our staff meeting every Monday, which everyone's there. I say a couple things. Is there an agenda to that? I have sort of like the two guys that report to me. I meet with them once a week as well. And so we kind of do a run of show of like, from financials to logistical stuff and then kind of talk through things. And then we have a wider executive team that has maybe like six people. It kind of covers that everyone that reports to different people.

Kyrill46:50Right.

Rob Kaczmark47:05know, scale the unscalable. So I try to do things that like, if we grew to like 200 people, like this would be impossible, but we're not 200 people. So, you know, it's a bit of a stretch of my time at certain points, but I think there's a lot of value in that. And all that being said, one of the feedbacks that I still get from people is that I don't spend enough time like interacting. So I'm still not doing it right. It's like the punchline, but, you know, I think just trying different things and adapting based on, know,

Kyrill47:35I mean, those are all really good little things that you're doing to kind of try to engage them in different ways than just like a regular meeting or something. It's almost kind of like a more personal way that you're trying to kind of interact with them, especially actually even like breaking the ice with newer people, especially, because sometimes it is harder for people when they join an organization. like, I mean, I honestly, I don't know, because Dario and I, haven't been exactly employees of another company.

Dario48:03Over ten, over ten years.

Kyrill48:04in however many over 10 years. So I wouldn't know what that would be like, but I can imagine that it's it could be intimidating for some people, especially when they get when they come face to face with like the big boss and then the big boss is someone as friendly as you and just kind of like, you know, breaking down their barriers right away.

Dario48:23And who's also zip tying cables on their desks.

Kyrill48:27Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the boss is zip tying their cables on day one, you know, on their desk. It's like, you got it. Give me more cables. Come on, more cables. None of this wireless.

Dario48:33I can just imagine it's like, I can just imagine it's like, why is there a tech here? It's like, I'm not the tech.

Rob Kaczmark48:40Yeah

Kyrill48:40I'm the CEO.

Rob Kaczmark48:45Yeah, that's a little too true a little too true

Kyrill48:49Now I can never zip tie things without thinking of you now Rob. That's what's gonna happen. Anytime I'm zip tying something, like, Rob. I love it.

Dario48:50What's?

Rob Kaczmark49:12And trying to go more into, so like the way we pay the bills is like people hiring us to do videos. So I'm trying to diversify enough into creating our own content that can basically be self-sufficient. And so the main outlet of that has been YouTube. So I also have, there's a sort of a third company, if you will, that's a not-for-profit. So a Spirit Juice Entertainment Group. that's, it's…

Kyrill49:53Whoa.

Dario49:53Wow.

Kyrill49:56That's great.

Kyrill50:00yeah.

Dario50:05You want viral?

Rob Kaczmark50:07I guess so. think it was a combination of just different relationships we built and either running some Google ads or running email signups and people sharing that. And then I think a little bit of virality too with different stuff. So right now they're not big money makers by any means, but I'm trying…

Kyrill51:40Yeah.

Dario51:48Mm

Kyrill51:52Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark51:54I'd rather bet like $500, you know, slowly and build that up. And I think like what's interesting about YouTube to me, or just like building up your own sort of like distribution is like you have an audience and you can kind of do like, I won't say anything, but if you have a loyal audience, no matter what you create, if you then are going to create a narrative, like you have a built in sort of platform and group of people that will support it. And so, the hard part is like, it's that consistency.

Kyrill52:40Nice.

Dario52:41nice nice how long how long did it take to get to half a million

Rob Kaczmark52:45For one of the channels, 10 years, or no, no, 300,000, 10 years, the kids one actually grew for the fastest. So we had like 10,000 subs for probably about a year. And then this past year, it just exponentially grew. And so that was, I would say we grew probably about 450,000 subs in maybe say six months time. So it was cool.

Kyrill52:49Okay.

Dario53:09That's crazy.

Kyrill53:10Wow. What do you think attributed that like specifically? Cause that's such a huge growth in such a short time.

Rob Kaczmark53:17Lent was a big thing. Lent for Christians or Catholics, 40 days leading up to Easter. And it's like, you know, there's just a lot of like rituals and stuff that go with that and fasting and different things. And so it's, it's, we create a ton of content in that time. And people, think we're thirsty for it. And there's not the, would say one of the wider open spaces, like especially on YouTube, there's not much faith based stuff, specifically Catholic stuff for kids. And so we were kind of, we filled that gap.

Dario53:53Hahaha

Rob Kaczmark54:14You get like a certain like used to growth at a certain thing. And if you don't keep that up, then you're like, you feel like you're just like a loser. And so being like able to like go through like the like just the ebbs and flows of it because it all ebbs and flows and you know, and it's once I mean, this is probably 12 years ago, but one of our YouTube channels got deleted and we had like a decent amount of stuff on there. It's like we had like maybe like 2 million views and we probably had like 20 or 30,000 subscribers and

Dario54:42to get deleted.

Rob Kaczmark54:44I don't know, I logged in one day and was like, you violated a term of YouTube and it's no longer there. And I reached out to them.

Kyrill54:51They, yeah, you reached out to them and they just told you, did they tell you the reason why though?

Rob Kaczmark54:56No, it gave me none. It was just one of our terms. And this is a while ago. This was like probably 2011. And I was like, yeah. So I mean, I don't even know if Google acquired them at that point yet.

Kyrill55:03that's way back.

Kyrill55:09They did. Google acquired them in like 2006, 2007. YouTube came out in 2005 and I think Google got them more like 2008 actually. I do remember the early 2010s, they were still trying to figure out so many different rules on YouTube's side. if you got something randomly deleted or anything like that, back then it was like the Wild West. You didn't know what was happening. They had illegal TV shows and movies everywhere. they're…

Dario55:09I think they did, yeah.

Rob Kaczmark55:13Okay.

Dario55:24Yeah.

Dario55:30Yeah.

Kyrill55:36They were scrambling to try to figure out ways to kind of like combat that, combat other things. it's, I don't know. Something like that. Like, yeah, everyone used copyrighted music back then. but cause we didn't know. Like when we first started making videos, we just used whatever song we wanted thinking it was fine. And then when you started realizing, you should actually be paying for this stuff. It's like, okay, now we got to do it proper, you know?

Dario55:42You probably used a copyrighted song or something.

Rob Kaczmark55:45Probably, yeah.

Dario55:49Back then, yeah.

Rob Kaczmark55:53Mm-hmm.

Dario55:55Hahaha

Dario56:02How's the how's the pay from the YouTube it like from YouTube what's it called AdSense is that the one they used

Rob Kaczmark56:02Yeah. Yeah.

Kyrill56:05But yeah.

Rob Kaczmark56:11AdSense. So we haven't, the one that has the biggest things that kids think, we haven't monetized that yet. Namely because we were trying to like, it gets touchy with like kids content too, and like parents and especially faith based stuff because sometimes the ads that are running. So we were trying to kind of go the Patreon route where, know, hey, we're doing ad free, but support us on Patreon. We don't really necessarily have a support Patreon. We have, so.

Dario56:49Hmm.

Dario56:58Why didn't she want to do Patreon? was the reason for it? you are.

Rob Kaczmark57:01We know we are but people are I think patreon it's it's from what I've seen Like it's got a it's got a fall like a certain thing like I think you guys have it's for an older crowd In the content like because it's kids content like the kids aren't gonna watch or go on patreon just gonna be the parents But there's not much incentive for that like I think which does well as certain podcasts do good for patreon that are like for like an adult crowd that they can like is the free podcast on you know, whatever and then you get like the An extra one on patreon or something

Kyrill57:10Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark57:30where you kind of have a little community, it's not… Yeah, well…

Kyrill57:34Even then it doesn't work. To be honest. Not always.

Rob Kaczmark57:38That's true. That's true.

Dario57:39We tried it. It failed miserably.

Kyrill57:40We tried it for a bit. We tried it for a, yeah, because like we originally thought like, okay, maybe we need to figure out some way to kind of monetize this podcast in a way to kind of help support it a little bit more. Cause in the beginning when we started, it took a lot of time from our day to produce an episode, like a lot of time, especially when we were doing everything super manual, like the very first few episodes, if you look back.

Dario57:58Yeah.

Kyrill58:06we would get together, Dario and I, because it was during the pandemic, like, just to give you a little quick backstory, we started the pod, yeah, we started the podcast because work disappeared for us and we wanted to do something on a weekly basis to keep us sane and give us some kind of consistency, which was nice. So what we did was we would get together in this tiny office here in my place and set up three cameras and two lights and

Dario58:11August 2020.

Kyrill58:34have our guests on a tiny little laptop in the corner that would talk to us through Zoom. So like our guests would be this pixelated Zoom call and then we would have like this production set.

Dario58:46And it was August and Kyrill's place has like no AC. So we were sweating, two grown men with lights on them sweating. I can't see the guest.

Rob Kaczmark58:51Thank you.

Kyrill58:57Yeah, but then after like a few, then we realized, you know, let's just do this all virtual. So that started to save some time and we did that for, the editing takes a while, especially when you have client work and other stuff that starts to pop up and you get really busy. It's like, okay, I don't have the time to go through the editing. And also we did hire an editor to help, to help produce it, but then that's costing money at the end.

Dario59:04But then the editing was taking a while. That was the biggest time consuming part of it.

Rob Kaczmark59:06Mm.

Rob Kaczmark59:20I think.

Dario59:20it was costing money it was like 200 200 yeah it was like 200 bucks an edit we were doing so eventually Riverside just started doing like auto editing so we just started using that and it's been pretty good if there's anyone listening I apologize for some earlier episodes that where the sound was a little weird the auto sound fix-up doesn't work so we cut that out so last couple of episodes audio has been clean but

Kyrill59:26Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark59:31Mm-hmm.

Kyrill59:45Yeah, Dario no longer sounds like a robot, you know?

Dario59:50There was like something weird, there was like a weird echo every like 10 seconds.

Kyrill59:54Yeah, yeah, I noticed that as well. yeah, essentially we realized like this show, like what we want to do with it, like it's hard to monetize something like this, especially at the scale that it is and how specific our niche is. So we wanted to figure out a way to kind of like continue to do it, but also not take up too much time as well. Right? So yeah, like Patreon is not something that like you have to really give a must offer, not a must offer. What is it? Like a…

Dario1:00:06Yeah.

Kyrill1:00:23Like a very attractive offer for people to do it. Like you have to give them more value than what they would really be paying for in order for it to work. Having an uncut episode is not really much of an incentive to be honest. Unless, I don't know, unless you're Joe Rogan, but even he doesn't do that, so.

Rob Kaczmark1:00:25Me too.

Dario1:00:36No.

Rob Kaczmark1:00:41Yeah.

Kyrill1:00:43Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark1:00:44Yeah, it's hard. Monetizing your own content is a challenge. There's no like cookie cutter thing. I think it depends on your audience. It depends on what the like, what you want them to do, whether it's a small amount or a large amount. So yeah, it's it's a challenge, man. Like it's it's not easy. But I think it's it's I respect and I appreciate what you guys have been doing and like being consistent, because that's I think that's the hardest part about any any creator that's doing their own stuff is to be consistent. It's like

Dario1:01:28Yeah.

Kyrill1:01:28Yeah, we're still trying to keep that going. We've had stretches of different breaks. When we first did it, we did it in 2020 and then we took 2021 as a break to focus on the business and build it. And then we decided it would be good to bring it back. And I think we were doing on average like 15 to 20 episodes a year. And then this year, once we narrowed down our process, now we're trying to get it.

Rob Kaczmark1:01:49Mm.

Kyrill1:01:54to the weekly basis. Like right now on average, we're like one every two weeks, which is a lot more than what it used to be, which is great. And now we're trying to get it back to being a consistent once a week type thing. And with the new approach, we can do it. And hopefully people are still enjoying it, you know? So some of our few OG fans, our few OG fans, you know, our five biggest fans and we do it for you guys.

Rob Kaczmark1:02:12I'm sure they are.

Dario1:02:14Hahaha

Dario1:02:19I wonder who our OG fans are, like get in touch with us, I'm curious who you are.

Kyrill1:02:22Yeah, yeah. Comment down what year.

Dario1:02:24who's been here since episode one.

Kyrill1:02:28My mom. The moms are always there. One last thing I wanted to also ask you about. You mentioned your studio space is what 20,000 square feet you said? Was that correct?

Dario1:02:29You think you think he's lying he's probably he's not wrong it probably is

Rob Kaczmark1:02:29Y 'all love moms. Y 'all love moms.

Rob Kaczmark1:02:48Yeah, give or take. So it's a, they call it an industrial condo where we're in. So it's like a big building. There's 12 units with each of those. And so we occupy five of those units. And they're about, I'm just not good at math. I should have probably went to that interview you talked about. I think they're each about 7,500 square feet a piece. We have five, so.

Kyrill1:02:55Okay.

Dario1:03:12That's massive, man.

Kyrill1:03:12Okay, because the reason I'm asking is like, aside from housing the team there and like everyone needs office space and stuff like that, like what other aspects do you have or like what other parts do you have? Do you have like a dedicated studio space where you film stuff? Do you have like an audio recording suite, an editing suite? I guess numerous editing suites is one thing, but like what does that entail?

Rob Kaczmark1:03:37Yeah. So, we have kind of your standards are just offices that admin stuff work out of. have about three or four rooms that editing works out of. And then some of those things that occupy a large amount of space is we have two sound stages. One's pretty big, I would say. I mean, pretty big for us as well. It's like maybe 25 feet by 14 feet and then like 15 foot ceilings. it's like it's basically a big black box.

Dario1:04:41Nice.

Kyrill1:04:42Yeah, that's great. Wow.

Rob Kaczmark1:05:01And then just some, have like, actually one of the whole top floors of one of them is just storage. So like our props, it's like you collect a lot of crap after a while too. And so we probably could do without like maybe like five hours, like if I just like clean house, but I'm so nostalgic for like everything, I just don't throw anything out. So some of it is just storage in some of the areas, but you know.

Kyrill1:05:10I know.

Rob Kaczmark1:05:27You never know when you might need this random prop that we bought five years ago.

Kyrill1:05:32a note, you never know when you need that notebook or that pen or that clipboard, you know, it can come in handy, but that's great, man. Honestly, you sound like you're living a lot of other production companies dreams in terms of the resources that you've been able to accumulate and congratulations for that, honestly. Like it's not an easy feat and it's always great to hear how successful a lot of people can become in this industry and yeah, kudos.

Dario1:05:32Ha

Rob Kaczmark1:05:35Yeah. Yeah.

Dario1:05:45Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark1:05:59Yeah, thank you. I appreciate that. And anyone out there that's like wants to be at that. I mean, it just it takes time. Be patient and also know to like there isn't I thought, well, once I have like so many employees, I'll be happy. Like I'm just as happy now as I was back then, which or I'm just as unhappy now as I was, you know, back then.

Kyrill1:06:19Yeah

Rob Kaczmark1:06:20So I think like just being it's because you're always looking at what's next. You're always in like in your own. What's next? And also like frustrated about all the problems you have now. And like they just you don't you never get to this happy spot. Maybe when you retire and if you sell your company for like a ton of money and you could just like sit in a beach. But then like then you have nothing like the problems are what you're bored. You do get the beach. I mean, yeah, there's a silver mine, but.

Kyrill1:06:41Then you're bored.

Dario1:06:42You do have the beach though.

Kyrill1:06:47Yeah

Rob Kaczmark1:06:49I just encourage anyone, maybe it's just I'm saying this for myself, it's just like, appreciate where you are, because it could always get worse. better doesn't mean better. you think, like, the problems, maybe this is a little too spiritual, but I would argue that the problems you're going through are made for you, for you to become a better person. And so like, hug that cactus, they say, like, hug that problem.

Kyrill1:06:57Yeah.

Rob Kaczmark1:07:17because that problem is there to make you better, even if you don't want it. So.

Dario1:07:24think I have a cactus back there, I'll go try that out.

Rob Kaczmark1:07:26Yeah, I could sit on it or in your arm

Kyrill1:07:30Sit on it!

Dario1:07:36I think that's a good spot to end this, this outfit. Or sit on it, one of the two. Beautiful imagery. All right, well Rob, thank you.

Kyrill1:07:38Yeah, hug your cactuses people or cacti hug hug your cacti Or sit on it Rob, thank you so much,

Rob Kaczmark1:07:38Yeah

Rob Kaczmark1:07:50Thank you, appreciate it.