Building a Team Without Overextending (ft. Path8 Productions)

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Dario02:00Alright, well let's get this party going. Okay, so today we got Pat from Path8 Productions, basically out of Boston, so Boston guest number two on the show. Welcome to the show, Pat.

Pat Henderson02:02Alright.

Pat Henderson02:13Thanks for having me.

Dario02:15I like those Emmys in the background.

Kyrill02:15I don't think we have to ask him. Oh, yeah.

Pat Henderson02:17What's up? Oh is that audio from my…

Dario02:24No, everything's good. I said that I like those Emmys in the background.

Pat Henderson02:29I thought you said, we don't have something, there's something in the background. I'm a great guest there. What? There's audio issues?

Dario02:32No, no. Ha ha ha. I was trying to do like a nice little ice break, you know, I'm like, okay, what do I start off with? Where are some Emmys in the background? Let me point them out. Ha ha ha.

Kyrill02:32Yeah.

Pat Henderson02:42Yeah.

Pat Henderson02:47Alright, cool. Let's start that one again. Sorry, I'll pay more attention. Alright, we're… We're rolling. Yeah, so…

Dario02:51No, we're going straight into it. Staying in.

Kyrill02:52Yeah, we're keeping this. So this is what we expect from Emmy award winning filmmakers, right? It's like, oh, is the audio still working?

Dario03:01Hehehehe

Pat Henderson03:03I was gonna say I did not get those Emmys for live podcasts. Yeah, those were some pretty cool projects. I was able to do when I worked for the Boston Red Sox on their video production team. We got nominated a bunch of times and we're lucky enough to bring three of them home. So here they are.

Dario03:07Hehehehe

Dario03:16Oh nice.

Kyrill03:22Wow, that's awesome. I mean, coincidentally, I'm wearing a Red Sox hat because I just got back from Boston myself. That's nice.

Dario03:23Wow.

Pat Henderson03:33Uh, I think my phone took over my AirPods.

Dario03:33Toe.

Kyrill03:40I love this episode, it's all technical issues!

Pat Henderson03:41I can't, I can't hear anything.

Dario03:42Technical difficulties episode. That's gonna be the title of the episode. Episode 52. Episode 52, technical difficulties. How do I film make?

Kyrill03:49Oh my god.

Pat Henderson03:49Okay, let's see. How do I…

Pat Henderson03:58AirPods.

Kyrill04:02This is when there's too much technology involved nowadays. It connects to everything.

Dario04:07We should send this recording to our clients and say, this is why we can't do stuff in like two minutes and we need prep time and a tech scout and all this stuff. Even with the experts, there's still random stuff that pops up the day of.

Kyrill04:14Yeah, case study, right? Case study.

Pat Henderson04:21Right? And I get mad at people who don't do this and know it. Okay. I forgot my AirPods on my phone. And now I'm connecting on my computer again.

Kyrill04:22always.

Kyrill04:34Oh, okay. I'm like, what do you mean you forgot? I'm like, oh wait. And then I…

Pat Henderson04:37I made my phone forget him.

Dario04:37Hehehehe

Pat Henderson04:42Alright, so we got the mic.

Dario04:43It's so funny how Apple chose that word for it instead of just disconnect, they're like, forget. It's so like final. Yeah, it's like you're breaking up with the earbuds. Forget, I'm gonna forget about you.

Pat Henderson04:48Yes.

Kyrill04:48Yeah, forget it.

Pat Henderson04:51Like never. These are never coming back. I wonder if it forgot it in all my Apple devices now it looks like.

Dario05:01Oh boy. See, Apple's great when it works, but when you like try to remove a product because it's not working and you're trying to solve Bluetooth issues, that's the end of the world.

Kyrill05:02The Patreon users are gonna…

Kyrill05:12Oh my god

Pat Henderson05:14We're off to a hot start here. I can hear you through my computer now, but I'm trying to get it back to the AirPods.

Kyrill05:24Once you have the tech stuff working, you can hit stop record and start recording. So we got a nice clean 30 minutes. Because we're at what, Dario? Five already five minutes. That's like a sixth of the record time already.

Pat Henderson05:28Yes, it's…

Dario05:31Heheheheh

Dario05:37Yeah, you gotta go to Bluetooth and you're using a MacBook, right?

Pat Henderson05:38Yeah. All right.

Pat Henderson05:43Yup, I'm in the Bluetooth but they're not showing up as a… Maybe I gotta press the button. Yeah, that's our map.

Dario05:47I gotta go to Bluetooth settings and then you go to nearby devices searching it's not showing up

Pat Henderson05:55Yeah, it's just not showing up. So it seems like if you forget them on one of your Apple devices, it removes them from everything.

Dario06:02That's interesting.

Kyrill06:03Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Pat Henderson06:04Yeah, what I would do is now they're trying to connect to my phone. Alright, here. No connect here. I would just turn off my Bluetooth on my phone, but that's how I'm monitoring this. A lot. There's too much technology going on.

Dario06:18Yo, maybe we don't hear ourselves over his laptop, we could just do it like that.

Kyrill06:23Let's try it. Let's try it without. I mean, the only thing is it's like in the recording, if I do hear it, it's just gonna be a little bit more, I gotta be a little bit more careful about the edit. I mean.

Dario06:31Well, it's a good thing we're not editing it ourselves. That's your problem. It sounds like a cure-all problem, not a Pat and Dario problem. Ha ha ha.

Kyrill06:38I guess not.

Pat Henderson06:40Alright, let's see. I got… Yeah, if this doesn't work, I'll switch over to this.

Kyrill06:42If you even have wired ones, that's fine.

Dario06:45no one has wired stuff anymore everything is bluetooth now, Kyrill don't you know?

Kyrill06:50What do you mean? He just said he has. He just said he has. You are giving his dead.

Dario06:55Forget.

Pat Henderson06:56There we go. Um, alright. Now I just reset the recording on the camera. Um, resetting the recording.

Dario07:06Ahem.

Pat Henderson07:07And the love. I'll give you a clap.

Kyrill07:12Take three.

Pat Henderson07:15Alright, now we're recording everywhere. I hear you through the right thing. I think we're good. Cool.

Kyrill07:21So where do we leave off in that 30 second conversation?

Dario07:25Hehehehehehe Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Pat Henderson07:27We got real deep there, yeah.

Kyrill07:29You're real deep. So Emmy award-winning filmmaker, amazing. You're like the first that we have on this podcast. So.

Dario07:38Hold on, we might be insulting some people if they did win some Emmys and we say like we didn't, they didn't.

Kyrill07:43Well, no one mentioned it, so. The first to show off, the first to show off their enemies on the podcast.

Dario07:45Oh. Hehehehe

Pat Henderson07:51Maybe there is a little more modest and didn't work them conveniently into the background of their setup.

Dario07:55Hehehe

Kyrill07:56We get it. It's for the clients. It's for the clients. So they're like, Ooh, trophies.

Pat Henderson07:59Exactly. Everyone loves the trophy.

Dario08:00Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Kyrill08:06All right, so let's kind of dive into it, Pat. Sorry, I was gonna say your name doesn't really need much explanation as to why you chose that name for your business, but tell us a little bit about you and your business.

Dario08:06does.

Dario08:16You know, I wonder if his company is called Pat or Pat H. Maybe H is part of his last name, his last name starts with H. It's Pat H. Oh, is it? Oh, okay. Oh, that tripped me up. Yeah.

Kyrill08:23But his last…

Kyrill08:27It is, it's Henderson, his last name. Yeah. There's a reason.

Pat Henderson08:32There you go. Nice to meet you, Dario. So, yeah. So the name, I get asked that a lot and most people, it's pretty obvious. My name's Pat Henderson. I had, I started as a freelancer, Pat Henderson Productions for a long time. And then it got to the point where the company was getting to where I was using a lot of freelancers myself. I didn't have any full-time employees at that point, but it was more than just me and I wanted to come across as that.

Dario08:36Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Kyrill08:37HAHAHAHAHAHA

Pat Henderson09:04more than just me on productions and with clients. So, you know, they're not expecting that it's you there all the time or that it's you doing every part of the process. So in thinking of a name, I took a while, thought of as many names as I could, went through a lot, worked with some other people on it, and everything just kind of felt forced. And then, you know, thought of, oh, my name and my first initial and my last name kind of makes a word there. And it's a word that kind of works and has like some meanings that you can intertwine into this And where does the eight come from everyone asks that? Actually recently I realized that my last name is eight letters. So that really kind of ties into my name Definitely a happy accident there Honestly, the real reason is because eight's my favorite number And there was already other path productions but

Dario09:44Heheheheheheh

Kyrill09:44Hahahaha!

Pat Henderson09:58I didn't just stop there. I Googled Path 8 to see if there was anything. And there's life paths. It's like a zodiac thing or whatever those are. And the Life Path 8 had some good meaning to it about like a never ending, never ending trying to achieve greatness, something like that. So I thought that was a nice tie in. So then like the fancy answer is, you know, it's based off of these life paths, blah, blah. But the real answer is. It's my name, it's my name, and it's my favorite number, and it works. So yeah, we have six and a half employees now, so if we get up to eight, maybe I cap it there, and then I make that the real reason. But yeah, that's kind of what went into that name. I wish I had a cooler story about it.

Dario10:28That's how you tell the client.

Dario10:41Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe

Kyrill10:42Hehehehe

Kyrill10:49I mean, it is the more SEO friendly way of changing a name for your business, you know? It pretty much keeps most of it the same.

Dario10:56Hehehe

Pat Henderson10:57Exactly. Yeah, it wasn't a big leap from Pat Henderson Productions. The other thing is that I was really happy about it's a way shorter URL than Pat Henderson, Pat Henderson Productions.com. And I was always trying to shorten that. But the kicker is I my website is path dash eight dot com, which I wanted to get just path eight dot com. But somebody else already has that. They've been squatting on it. I tried to buy it. They don't respond. but it renews every year on my birthday. So my wait list, I get an alert every year from GoDaddy saying, the domain's been renewed, you can't have it. So good birthday present every year.

Dario11:33Hehehe

Kyrill11:36What's with all these coincidences on your name? There's so many weird coincidences on your name. It's…..

Dario11:36Oh my god.

Pat Henderson11:43It all just ties together I guess.

Kyrill11:46Oh, bud.

Dario11:46Nice. So how long have you been in the business then?

Pat Henderson11:50Yeah, so I had done video production back in high school, and I was really into it, and I was good at it. And going into college, I wanted to do video production, but really the options coming out of college at the time, I went into college in 2004, were like… movies, news station, that sort of thing, were what I was looking at as far as like prospects after. So I said, I wasn't really super interested in those. So I went to college, got a marketing degree. After college, I was working at a medical device company on the marketing team and really missed the video work. So I started up, you know, freelancing on the side, doing some weddings. I had one corporate client that I was able to get. And… kind of started to build that up. I was able to do a couple video projects at my company, but it was never gonna be my job there. So after four years of working there, that was in 2009 when I started this officially, I guess, and went to the city of Boston, the Public Health Commission. I worked there for four years as a multimedia producer, doing all their video and some graphic design and continued to grow my freelance work on the side. which was Pat Henderson Productions back then. And then in 2016, after four years there, left and then went to work part-time for the Red Sox, part-time for myself. Kept building up the company while I was at the Red Sox and taking away time from there until the point when I 100% left there and just worked on Path 8, what it became. And then that's how I got here.

Dario13:40Nice. So you've been running Path 8 as a company itself, or how long now?

Pat Henderson13:45So it's been running as a company now since, well, 2009's when I started that, when it switched over to Path 8, I think we did that in 2018. And then, you know, was all freelance still for a while and then worked into, I added a employee, my first employee, our first employee to join the team was in 2019. And then, 2020 a second and now we have including myself six full-time employees and a part-time producer as well plus our crew of freelancers that we use for a lot of the work.

Kyrill14:27Do you find that there was like a bigger shift? How big was that shift going from the freelance and kind of like switching it to the business side, like basically like when you changed the name, that's when you started hiring people. Was it kind of like a natural progression or was it kind of, all right, I need to, once I turn into a company, then I'm gonna start looking for people to bring on board. Was it something like that?

Pat Henderson14:52It honestly, it sounds nice that way and I could say I planned it, but really the way that I've kind of taken everything here is just one step at a time where I get to a point where I see, okay, there's a lot of work now. I was using all freelancers and that was my plan was just to continue to use all freelancers because there's really no risk or overhead. It's like you have a project that comes in, you know how much you're going to get out of that project, how much you need to pay the freelancers to do it, and then what… what's left there is what you kind of take home from it. So, and having employees, especially non-shooter editors where you can tie that into, okay, that's replacing this amount of freelance work. It's really the producer side and the operation side has taken work off of my plate, which isn't directly a line item that I could point to. So, you know, I kind of took it as, we got busy enough where I said, there's always gonna be at least work. for a shooter editor. That will take off some freelance. So I kind of ran some numbers, figured that out, hired a shooter editor. Then, you know, it was really busy. The operations were getting out of hand. I hired somebody to take on operations and then they eventually also, luckily had the skillset where now they do all of our content producing as well. So breaking down everything after a shoot. So. going through all the interviews, creating the outlines, kind of writing scripts, they are really good at that. So they kind of took both of those off the plate, which allowed us to scale better because we're not putting that content work on a freelancer or not taking my time to go through all these transcripts and make scripts and do that while I'm trying to do everything else. And then from there, it was adding another producer, adding a… shooter editor as well, who we have a weddings business as well. He kind of took over the weddings business because I needed to get that off my plate and then also does work for Path 8. We recently added an animator full time, which has been really handy because we do a lot of animation work. So, yeah, now we're up to a team of six and it's kind of just been evolving over time. If you ask me where what's the team going to look like in five years, like I couldn't tell you.

Pat Henderson17:13I kind of will see where the business is going and adjust based off of that.

Dario17:19It's pretty good though, six and a half employees over the course of like five years it seems. Like that's really good actually because a lot of the times like making the switch to adding more people is…

Kyrill17:27Mm-hmm.

Dario17:31It's quite a difficult process. Like I know Kyrill and I have discussed it over in the past, but like we're pretty nervous on that front. I guess maybe if we had like a huge influx of projects coming in, then we would consider a bit more seriously. But I'm just wondering from your end, like did you set aside like a rainy day fund in case like maybe work dried up at some point? Cause you have quite a few people on your staff right now, right?

Kyrill17:41Yeah.

Pat Henderson17:53Probably should think about doing that, huh? Uh, no, I mean, I get to a point where I was comfortable enough with the money the business was bringing in and knew we had a little bit put aside where if like everything stopped for a couple months, we'd be fine. But really where the like assurance came from that is just the consistent work that we have from…

Dario17:55Hehehe

Kyrill17:56I'm going to go to bed.

Pat Henderson18:22certain clients and just knowing, okay, you know, if everything falls off, these clients are at least coming in with this work consistently over the last couple of years. So the likelihood of all those clients just stopping all their work at the same time is low. And also, you know, that's just part of the risk of having a business, I guess. And if everything dried up, like, you know, we'd have to adjust and we'd have to figure out and probably make some tough decisions. But luckily,

Kyrill18:24Mm-hmm.

Pat Henderson18:52It's not a problem that we've had. And I kind of also go into everything with the mindset of that could happen at any time. So I'm just always hungrily looking for new business and looking for ways to further assist our current clients and just not like resting on our laurels of, we made this much this year, we're definitely gonna make more than that next year. I'm like, crap, we made this much this year. Like. that's a lot of pressure to make that again. And then hopefully we can make more. So just like, I think a lot of it is a mindset and just, you know, being fortunate enough to have some amazing clients who value the work that we do and keep coming back.

Kyrill19:35So it's all essentially about calculating the risk tolerance that you guys have for bringing in people in the future based on how your relationships with your clients are, right? It's not a matter of we should just hire a bunch of people but also have like a million dollars in the bank as a reserve just in case everything just stops. It's just a matter of having that calculated risk. Cause we've talked to a lot of people on the show who've. It's been a lot of aggressive expansion with some of them. And when they were telling us about how they did it, it worked for them, but Dario and I are thinking to ourselves like, we can't just aggressively expand like that. Like we can't hire three to five people in one year, but you did it very slowly, which I think lends itself to your calculating the risk tolerance of what you can afford if something happens, right?

Pat Henderson20:29Yeah, exactly. And it's never going to be like, okay, I'm guaranteed that this person is going to fill in X amount of work and it's going to be a positive on the money side of things. And there's no there's no chance that this could go wrong. And there's no chance that, you know, we're going to need to, you know, something's going to happen. Like, there's always a risk. It's I think a lot of what the way I look at business and just kind of everything is like. Don't let, like, great, be the enemy of good. And kind of not letting, you know, you need to think things through, but also, like, don't overthink. Like, just kind of common sense of, all right, we're making this amount of money. Like, that's enough money to sustain an employee. Let's try it. I went one at a time every time we hired someone. Got to the point where, all right, we're still, we're in, that person's settled, we're doing comfortably, we're still growing. Let's go, we could use another person to really help us out. Let's add them. Like for instance, the person that I hired this past June to kind of run the wedding side of the business, that was a side of the business that was getting less and less of my attention as the corporate side grew where I was like a huge bottleneck there and I wasn't bringing any value. So I'm like, if I can, and this guy, he had came to me and he was a freelancer while he was, he was finishing college and was awesome. He did great work and I was really impressed by him. And I'm like, how is there a way to get him involved in the company? We already have a shooter editor. I don't know if we need two, but if I offset his costs with the wedding work, then that also opens him up to do corporate work, and that's kind of bonus time there. So kind of figuring out ways to creatively handle things I think helps as well.

Dario22:17I like how you kept the wedding business as another income stream as well, because I got a lot of people that started in our industry, they start with weddings being a portion of like the freelance income. And then as soon as they can make the transition to 100% corporate, they just leave the weddings behind. But I like that as a business, you still kept it in like your portfolio, right?

Pat Henderson22:37Yeah, exactly. Oh, sorry, go ahead.

Kyrill22:37The difference, Dario, the difference, Dario, I was just gonna say the difference, Dario, that you might be referring to is that a lot of those other people freelanced for weddings, right? So they were working for…

Dario22:46No, no, no. A lot of them, no, a lot of other guests started their own company. And then, and then as soon as they made the transition to corporate, they like left it. Yeah. I like how he still kept it as like another source of income. Cause he, even though like he was becoming too busy with stuff, he just put someone else in charge of it. He's still getting that stream and he's focusing on the corporate.

Kyrill22:49Oh yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah.

Kyrill22:55Right, right.

Pat Henderson23:01Yeah.

Kyrill23:10And it's good because it's offsetting your, I mean, you're essentially using some of the same team members that would be shooting on the wedding or working on the wedding side to help support on the corporate side and vice versa. So if one business is like a little bit slower, a few months, the other one can kind of help supplement it a little bit as well. So that's, that's very smart.

Pat Henderson23:30Thanks. Yeah, with the weddings, I just pumping my tires over here. So I feel like what you were saying, Dario, that's like what everyone does, right? You start with weddings because it's really low barrier to entry. You get your feet wet. You kind of get to operate a business a little bit. And then once you get busy enough with the corporate, you don't wanna work on weekends and you leave weddings. But.

Dario23:31Hehehehe

Kyrill23:34I'm sorry.

Pat Henderson23:56The way that I was able to kind of build up the wedding business, I was shooting and editing everything myself. You know, that was a lot. I was working a full-time job, working my freelance stuff on the side and then also working weddings, so I was just always working. Missed a lot of summer weekends. My wife wasn't loving that time of our lives probably, did a lot of stuff alone, but, and able to build that up. And then, you know, eventually I was like, okay, I think if I…

Dario24:11Yeah.

Dario24:16Hehehe

Pat Henderson24:25treat somebody the edit side of how we do things, I can hand off the editing. Then got comfortable with that, handed off all the editing. Then I'm like, all right, I can't film, like I was filming, I don't know, 20 weddings a year, it's like I can't film 40 weddings a year. I mean, I physically could, but not really. I didn't want to. So yeah, found some other people. Yeah, I wanna still have a wife and a wife. But yeah, so found some people who I was comfortable with.

Dario24:43Compromise.

Kyrill24:45I can't but I can't

Pat Henderson24:53brought them in and then kind of kept it to where we're at now where we do around 30 to 40 a year. And I think the most useful part about the weddings business, other than that I think that we do provide a great service for the clients that we work with and we love working with those couples. But it doesn't take much of my time at all. I do like the sales. calls with the couple, I just, I generally kind of oversee things, make sure all the edits are looking good and everything like that. But what it really is, like I say, supporting that salary, it's also a great way to build up your freelance crew. You can test people out in the wedding grounds and if somebody can film a wedding, they can definitely film an event and they can probably film…

Dario25:42Yeah.

Pat Henderson25:48anything else because it's a really difficult shoot. Like if you think you're out there, you're covering a whole day's event that has 200 people there, super important moments that can never get redone, and you're out there and you're getting good stuff and making it happen, like you can transition to the corporate side of things so much easier. And you know, it's a great way to kind of vet people. And I've gotten some of our best freelancers that we use on the corporate side from going through the wedding side first.

Dario26:06Yeah.

Dario26:17Yeah, because even when they're when they're freelancing for when you get a freelancer at those weddings like they need to have that like social skill of dealing with so many different people throughout the day and that transitions really well into like corporate because you're dealing with someone else's clients and you got to be like on your best behavior and like be able to break the ice and

Kyrill26:17The good thing…

Dario26:38Also about like thinking on the spot, improvising really quickly. The only thing that they they'll always lack is just lighting skills with actual lights. Natural light will be easy because you just figure it out. But with actual lights, that's the part that you still need to have that corporate experience to figure out for like interview setups and whatnot.

Kyrill26:49Yeah, if that's only what they do.

Pat Henderson26:49Yeah.

Kyrill26:59But as a starting point is good. It's a good starting point, especially like essentially if you're getting, like you said, if you can get people with all those natural skills, you know, just kind of like the drive and dedication to do work, knowing how to problem solve, which is huge in our industry. And weddings are a great way to teach that to you very quickly because you have to, you probably like doing like 10 problems that you're solving every single wedding that you're doing at the very least. So.

Pat Henderson26:59Yeah, but-

Dario27:02It's a great, great starting point.

Kyrill27:27All the technical stuff can be taught later. You know, like I'd rather get someone who has a lot of those good like social skills, problem solving skills, rather than someone who's like super technically proficient rather than the opposite, someone who's very proficient but can't talk to clients, can't, you know, it's just has like low energy on set. You know, that's the thing you can't teach, right? And it's just a matter of trying to find the right type of people to work with, right? That's the most important thing.

Pat Henderson27:58I couldn't agree more. I think that that's something that I'm always saying is you need to have the people who have the right attitude, right personality, you know, just to come off the wedding thing. But you're working like long days on weekends, filming, problem solving, dealing with like you're in people's homes on a really important day of their life. If you can deal with that. corporate stuff is going to be easy and yes, like there's stuff like lighting and different types of audio and even the shots and whatnot that you get are going to be different on the corporate side but it's way easier to teach somebody the technical skills or to improve upon their technical skills or convert them over to the corporate than it is to teach somebody drive and motivation and personality and dealing with clients that is also to me the most important There's so many, like you guys interview video production companies all the time. There's so many video production companies out there. There's so many that can do the work that we do. There's just a lot. So where do we kind of stand out? It's the experience on a shoot, the experience of working with our team, our processes, just making sure everything from the time that we first talked to the client to when we deliver the final videos and then beyond and to working on further videos, that that… process is super smooth and enjoyable because it's like up for our clients that video is One thing they need to do in their day out of plenty other tasks and we want to make that piece enjoyable easy and not something that's a headache for them, which it could easily be with in the wrong hands

Kyrill29:41For sure. Before we continue, I think we might be reaching the 30 minute mark on your camera. So let's just, here's a quick word from one of our sponsors.

Dario29:46HNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN

Dario29:57I might want to ask him about the industries when he comes back.

Kyrill30:02Let's do that at the end. I have another one about a standout story.

Pat Henderson30:08Alright.

Kyrill30:11As we're diving back into it, is there any particular standout production story or something within the business that you find memorable or like a good learning experience that you've had?

Dario30:11Ahem.

Pat Henderson30:25that a lot of learning experiences that we've had, and usually that comes from things when things go wrong. Recently a lot of it's been, and when things go wrong to an extent, right? Like there's things that go wrong where the client never will notice because it's just stuff that we would notice and we're able to work through it. And then there's things go wrong when the client, when it does get to the client, and that's the worst things that can happen. But as far as an experience on the good end of things, because that was part of your question, so I'll focus on the good stuff. One of the coolest experiences I had was when working with the Red Sox, right after they won the World Series, myself and another person on the video team were able to go down to…

Kyrill31:06Yeah.

Pat Henderson31:24Alex Cora wanted to bring the trophy back to his hometown. So we were able to go with him for the day. So JetBlue gave us a plane. It was a handful of employees, a couple of the players, Alex Cora, one of the owners. We got on a plane, flew down to Puerto Rico, filmed everything, followed him around through the day. We flew for four hours, we were there for four hours, we flew four hours home. It was a wild day. But… That was such a cool experience, just kind of being able to dive right in, see what, you know, get that, see all the culture down there and everything that he, we were driving a bus from the airport and there was just people pulled over on the side of the road and this was 20, 30 minutes from where we were going with signs for him. It was just like to see that passion for like one of their own kind of making it to the biggest stage was just so cool. And to be part of that and then get to make a piece afterwards.

Kyrill31:52Thanks.

Dario32:12That's awesome.

Pat Henderson32:22It was amazing. But yeah, the Red Sox position is where I got a lot of really fun and cool stories out of that and those back there. But yeah, there's, you know, I feel like on shoots and whatnot, different productions that we have now, I feel like there's at least one piece of learning that I take from everything, good or bad. You know, a lot of it's like people-wise, things I could do differently, dealing with people and… you know, crew and all that. There's so much that goes into all this that there's, you know, a handful of learnings that comes out of every project, which I think is important to keep keeping up with things and to keep growing. I think it's, you know, super important.

Dario33:07I think you'll put you kind of on the spot because I feel like when you're first starting out the learning lessons are a lot bigger so that they are a bit more like, okay, I have a story to tell there, right? But when you get, you know, you're like five years into the business. At that point then, like the learning experiences are more like micro-learnings so that they don't really stand out. So you put them on the spot, Carol.

Kyrill33:27Yeah, very small.

Kyrill33:31I know, well, something I'm trying with our guests, see what comes up, something natural, right? But the thing is the kind of learning experiences that we get now after being in the industry for so long is those micro improvements that Dario was talking about, but specifically ones that help improve the process, the whole process, whether it's in the pre-production, production or post, I always, like I'm always looking forward to figuring out what we can learn from that because every project can help, if it can help make the process. smoother, more streamlined for the next client, for the next project. It just makes the whole, it makes everything a lot better, especially when you get opportunities, like for example, what you had there with the Red Sox, you know, it's a great unique story, but you were prepared, you know, you adapted, you got to experience something like once in a lifetime thing and it just works out for you at the end once you have a very strong process in place from all those learning experiences. So that's great.

Dario34:27Speaking of experiences, I'm a little curious on the employee end, because you just started hiring them in 2019. So it's been a couple of years since then. And you've hired quite a few, I would say, going from freelancing to now you have a staff of like.

Pat Henderson34:27Yeah.

Dario34:44of like six people, right? I'm just wondering like, what would be some lessons you would give to people that are just starting to maybe think about hiring someone or they're currently in the process of hiring people for their team and they're coming from like a position of they're usually the sole person running everything.

Pat Henderson35:03Yeah, I mean, God, I don't feel qualified to give that advice right now with how much I'm still learning on that. Like you were talking about the stuff you learn. Like in the early days, you're learning like, oh, if I shot that a little bit better or differently, or if I use a different lens, like that's the stuff you're learning. Whereas now everything I'm learning is managing people and processes and just trying to make that as streamlined as possible. Make.

Dario35:11I'm gonna go.

Pat Henderson35:32put everyone on our team in the best position to succeed, and just be used to having a team. I think when hiring, which I've done a few times now, every position that I've hired for has been a little bit different. I think the easier things to hire for are shooters, editors, things on the production side, because people have a reel. You can give them a test shoot, give them a test edit, stuff like that. on the producer side of things, it's a little harder because, you know, you can, it's a lot of just filling out the right personalities, um, making sure that the, that everyone, that, you know, they're on top of things. So what the, one of the things that we do in our hiring process, um, it's we do an inter, uh, you know, I do a posting, um, from there I select down to, you know, X amount of people.

Dario36:01Ahem.

Pat Henderson36:29Whoever I think passes that initial phase and I send them a little bit of a project Not not so much a project to work on but they send us a recording to me depending on the position so for Shooter editor send a record to me answering a couple basic questions, you know who they are their backstory What what they think they're best at what they need to work on and then they show me a project Send me a link to one and they kind of talk through it what went well what they could have improved on, how they would have done stuff differently in retrospect, something like that. Producer and very similar, but that kind of really without even talking to the person yet live. One, a lot of people don't do it. Then that helps you kind of narrow it down. And then two, the people that do it, you can really get a sense of who they are, bringing the next people into the phase where you actually interview them and then down the road we have a couple more little things. So…

Dario37:14Okay

Pat Henderson37:28As an interview process, it's a little more drawn out, I guess, or a little more involved than some companies might do. But when you have a company that's so small, it's not like you're hiring 20, 30 employees that year or month or whatever it is. You're taking on an employee a year maybe or so. So you have to be making sure that those are good hires. And luckily, so far, we've had really good experience with the people we brought on. And they've… been able to help us grow and scale.

Dario37:59Have you noticed that your workload has decreased since you've brought on more people? Or do you think it's just like increased in other ways? Cause like a lot of the other guests that we've spoken to, they said that we asked them like, okay, you brought on more people cause you thought like you'd be getting less work out of it. You get to relax a bit more. And they said, no, it's the total opposite. It's actually like a lot more work now.

Pat Henderson38:23100% it's more work, it's just different work right? Like initially your work is, oh man, I got a backlog of videos to edit, like I gotta sit down and hammer these out. Where now, like my day is half on calls, half emails, and then on top of that, you know, reviewing videos, giving feedback, making sure everyone's on top of things. I mean, just Mondays in general, Mondays I have.

Dario38:41emails. Hehehehe

Pat Henderson38:52We have a team meeting, then I have individual meetings with each person on the team. That's Monday from start to after lunch is just chock full, just right back, right through it. So then, you know, you're catching up. So it's just like, I don't know if there's ever a point where the work gets less. I guess that's probably a bad thing if that happens because what it does having the employees that are able to take off, take the production side off, it opens you up to being able to do more sales and. look at your processes, come up with more systems, marketing, all that stuff. And there's really no end. It's not like you're ever like, okay, I'm done selling now. I'm good for the year, whatever it is. You're just always working at that. So it's an endless amount of work, really.

Dario39:40Yeah.

Kyrill39:40It's interesting how you mentioned how like the work, the work kind of stays the same, but it's just different types of work, right? And I noticed that recently when it came to project handoffs for editing, right? Because we were doing all of our own editing up until 2021, or I mean, like we would occasionally hire here and there, but most of the time it was us that was editing. And then in 2021, we started to go dive in, hire a lot of editors. And then from then up until this year, we only hired editors and they were doing all of our client projects. Recently though we noticed, because there have been like some fluctuations in work, I would occasionally take some editing projects, but these are ones that were small. And the way I started kind of figuring out what to hand off to editors and what to take on is, all right, will it take me, how long will it take me to explain what is expected of this project to the editor, what we need to do.

Dario40:29Ahem.

Kyrill40:34how we need to do it, this and that, here's the goal, the vision, to like the time that it takes to brief the editor. I'm like, could I just take those, say two or three hours to just knock out pretty much most of the edit at that point? And then we're good to go, you know? And then we don't have to do the back and forth. It's like, oh, that was good. Now, can you just do it with this and then wait another day or two for it to come back in? It goes to show it's like, you're figuring out time. spent versus like how much has it really freed your time, right? So if you're gonna hand off work to someone else, whether it's production or post-production or producers or coordinators, as long as the work frees up an exorbitant amount of your time to focus on other things, it's almost not worth it to bring those people on. It shouldn't be like a break even in hours, you know what I mean? It should be kind of like a profit of hours. It's like I spend three hours with this person to gain 10 hours. I shouldn't be spending five hours with this person to gain three hours. So you technically had a net loss in time spent. It's, you have to think of it like that.

Dario41:40Yeah.

Pat Henderson41:44And the thing with that is, at least initially, it's gonna take you more time. You know, like you bring on someone, that it's like, you gotta, like even, you know, the first couple times you might send a project to an editor, you need to explain things more and whatnot. And it's like, is this really worth it? Like I could have done this myself, it would have been so quick, but you gotta kind of hope that over time, those people pick up on what you're putting down and you…

Kyrill41:51Initially, yeah.

Pat Henderson42:14all of a sudden don't have to explain things as much. And I think a lot of the stuff with time savings has to do with systems. So we use a lot of freelance editors and a lot of the freelance editors, we use the same editors all the time. But whenever we bring in a new one, we have like a five part Google doc that they can go through that breaks down every part of the edit from when we first get the files all the way till when they deliver the final. and it breaks it down in a loom, a screen recorded video, as well as step by step written out. So I'm able to say, and it has all the logins and everything, so it's like, hey, I have a question. Here, look at these. This will answer any question you have. If there's anything on top of that, then we can talk it through. And something that I found too, when working with employees, clients, the best way to explain stuff to brief people like you were talking about is,

Kyrill42:47Oh, that's good.

Pat Henderson43:09Loom, there's other screen recording softwares out there too, but like I must record 15 looms a day it seems like some days like if I have to explain anything to somebody I'm doing it through a loom that way you're not typing something up thinking through typing more like then they read it and don't see it they're able to see everything and hear you explain it and you're able to kind of really get your point across and it takes you as long as it does to just talk so It takes you five minutes to explain something that would take a half an hour to write up in an email. So I think that that's super helpful.

Kyrill43:44I just added freelancer FAQ to my to-do list because that is a great tool to have. Because I…

Pat Henderson43:48Hehehe

Dario43:52There was another guest that mentioned that they have a document outlining every single step. So you're definitely on the right track because there's some other guests that use that method as well.

Kyrill43:54Yeah.

Kyrill44:04Yeah, I didn't think of it so much even for other parts of the process. Like maybe like for example, Dario, like having a freelancer FAQ for say, like specifically for cinematographers, specifically for post-production, but maybe also say for example, talent, right? It's like here is the Lapse Productions FAQ or the Path 8 FAQ for talent that comes in. These are the basic guidelines. These are all, most of the questions.

Dario44:29I think it's more so for, well I don't know if it's useful for production, because what are you going to tell a cinematographer that he should already know? It's more useful for like if you're onboarding like an editor or an animator or, well an animator they already know what they're doing right? It's more so for like editors or I would say people like production coordinators. Yeah.

Kyrill44:39Yeah, I guess so.

Kyrill44:46But then, yeah, I think it's tech specs. It's tech specs.

Pat Henderson44:48But it's even so much more, yeah, exactly. It's more so, obviously they know what they're doing shooting-wise, but do they know what color profile you shoot in, what resolution, all that stuff? Because that's also something that can very easily just be assumed. I might send someone, oh, they know what they're doing, and then they're like, oh, I shot in 1080 because this other company that I work for, they like it in 1080 because it's smaller files to send to their offshore editors or something.

Kyrill45:00That's what I mean.

Dario45:17That's part of the pre-production brief though, right? Cause that's always project dependent. So you should always be telling them, like, hey, we're shooting. Yeah, I think it's more so for like, like staff, if any, it's more for staff.

Pat Henderson45:18And you're like…

Kyrill45:24True. Yeah.

Kyrill45:30Yes, yeah, staff had processes. I think if there's a specific process that you have to go through, like maybe for, like in post-production, first is the rough draft, what it's gonna be like for a send it to us. We'll take a look at it, then we'll send, and then that next one will be the thing that we sent to the client as a rough draft. They put in their notes, they do it on this, they would give it back, like, yeah, I guess, yeah, you have to…

Dario45:51Or even for the editors, I would say like export settings, this is our way to export our projects. So, you know, like rough cut, we just need it like this. Final cut, please do it in these specific settings, stuff like that, right? But for staff, I think for staff, maybe these bigger companies, these bigger corporations probably have the same thing where they have like a whole manual set out, right? So.

Kyrill46:04Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Kyrill46:16Yeah. Why do you think they hire us for training videos every now and then, guys? Why do you think that's part of our business? Ha ha ha. Just do it for ourselves, guys, you know? Ha ha ha.

Dario46:21Yeah, it's a yeah, we should just do training videos as well. Yeah. Pat, I have a quick question regarding like now you have a sizable team. I'm just wondering, what do you do to?

Pat Henderson46:22Exactly.

Dario46:37keep up like a team spirit? Like do you do any group activities or like, what do you like, how do you kind of elevate it above just a clock in clock out type of job?

Pat Henderson46:51Yeah, I mean, that's a great question and something that I'm always working at, especially in what we do, we all work remote. Like we don't have a central office. We see each other on shoots. Um, but some of, some of the team never really sees each other because, you know, an animator or animator doesn't really go on shoots or our content producer. Um, and the operations guy, he's in.

Kyrill47:00That's what I was going to ask.

Dario47:00Oh, okay.

Pat Henderson47:15He's at home, he doesn't come up. We have another person, the part-time producer who's down in Atlanta. So, you know, we don't really get together other than on shoots. But, so what we've done is we do, we see everybody on the team meeting every week. We do a monthly lunch where we all get together, at least the local crew gets together and we just hang out, go somewhere for lunch, have a good time with that. I, every summer, fall, I do a cookout at my house where I have our team, um, all of our freelancers, um, you know, anybody who's kind of around. So I have that actually on this Sunday, there's like 35 people coming. Um, it's always an awesome time and just, um, and we do a Christmas party as well, where we, you know, go to, go to some fun place and get everybody there. And I think that those times are super valuable, whether it's the lunches, the, um,

Dario47:57Nice.

Pat Henderson48:12the parties, it's just like getting everyone together off of a shoot where you don't have to be so buttoned up and you can kind of just hang and we, like the only people that we continue to work with are like really good people to hang out with, back to what we were talking about as far as dealing with clients. So when you get all those people together and they might've like seen somebody on a shoot like three months before or they've been like, I hear everybody talking about you, I've never met you. Just kind of getting everyone together and letting them. kind of meet each other and hang out. It's always just like the best time and definitely one of my favorite things.

Kyrill48:48That's a good thing to strive for to find people to work with that you would grab a beer with essentially, right? You know, someone that you would get together socially. I mean, it's not easy to find, you know, I, sometimes you have to make sacrifices. If you want to get someone who's really good at what they do, like maybe you'll hang out with them here and there, but it's not like he's your best friend or anything like that. But yeah, like I think that's, that's definitely key. And throwing these like a social parties, you know, for the listeners, it's not like just a classic pizza party. Like a lot of Companies do, you know, it's something a little bit more involved and I'm sure you have like a process for that as well where, you know, just everyone kind of gets together and just enjoys themselves, right? It's not like a dry thing, right?

Pat Henderson49:27Absolutely. Yes, yes, for sure. Like last year our Christmas party was at a flight club which is like a darts place downtown Boston. We usually do something fun like that. Like we have the cookout coming up on Sunday. There'll be plenty of good food and drinks and everything. So it's a good time, games to play. Everyone has fun.

Kyrill49:52Especially when you don't have an.

Dario49:52Nice. So your whole team's remote, eh?

Pat Henderson49:55Yeah, so everyone works from their house, except when we're on shoots, we do that. We looked into getting an office, especially, I think 2021 was the most I looked into it because coming off the pandemic, like leases for commercial spaces were really affordable, but the two issues we ran into are one. We wanted such a small space and there was so much space available that realtors weren't even getting back to us. Like you're not even putting a dent in our inventory. Like we need somebody to rent 30,000 square feet, not 1500. There's that. There's, I just really think like there's a camaraderie part that definitely comes from an office that I think would be improved if we had an office. But outside of that, I think everyone enjoys working from home. Everyone's able to kind of work.

Dario50:28Oh wow. Oh wow.

Kyrill50:28Ha ha!

Pat Henderson50:46not necessarily more, but more effectively because you're not spending time commuting. I don't wanna commute every day. And it's just like, and it's an overhead expense. We were talking earlier about taking on people. You look into what an office costs. I'd rather hire an employee or at least have that be part of an employee's salary rather than a space that we go to go to. If there was a studio, we looked into having a studio or something and. trying to make some money off of that, but just like when it broke everything down, it just made the most sense to keep everybody remote. And yeah, it's working out well so far.

Dario51:24You sound like me, Kyo was like hellbent on getting an office this year. And I broke down the numbers.

Kyrill51:28Hey, you still see a value in getting it, so don't act like you don't see a value in it, but I will say this, we were glad, we were…

Dario51:34I'm not gonna lie, I'm not gonna lie, I would like it, I would like it, but the numbers…

Kyrill51:38I will, we were, the numbers now don't make sense. Like earlier in the year, we were looking and talking about it a little bit more because one, it wasn't as expensive as we were thinking it would be, but that at the end of the day, when we broke down the numbers and we realized, you know what, we should probably hold off at least for a little bit so that we can grow the business a bit more. Like we were coming from a state where work was coming in pretty steady. So we're like, yeah, this should be pretty consistent for the year. And then, you know, the economy kind of like took an up, like tanked for a little bit. So.

Dario52:04tanked.

Kyrill52:07Work was still coming in and we're still in the green, which is good, but if we had gotten an office or a studio space, we would be in the red. So it's about finding the right time, the right, and if you're gonna invest in something, invest in talent initially, you know, so that you can at least get an initial return on investment, because getting a space is not gonna yield you a return on investment unless you turn it into a separate business that can actually bring in rentals, right? So, because you were saying,

Dario52:12we'd be in the red.

Kyrill52:35You looked into a studio to see if like, oh, you can make that a bit of income. But that's now another business that you have to spend a lot of money on to get it off the ground. That's one. Two, a lot of time and effort. And three, that's gonna take time and effort away from the other businesses. So that's also gonna suffer for a little bit. So you can't win in that sense. It's…

Dario52:54You know, another thing about the studio space, this is for people that maybe have not listened to all the other episodes, but this has come up. If you, yeah, if you get a studio space and you don't own the property, you're just renting it, if there's no rent control, they could easily just, if they want you out of there, they could increase it like tenfold. And then all the investments you put into that place are now moot, because again, you won't be able to afford the new lease and you got to go out.

Kyrill53:01Yeah.

Kyrill53:23Not to mention all the investment you spend to turn that space into a workable studio, you know, getting a psych wall, getting overhead lighting and everything. You got to put like maybe 10 to $20,000 just to make it workable. I know I'm just saying as like a bare bones kind of thing, but yeah, probably a lot more depending on how big the space is. If they get you out of there, boom, there go that 20 grand just evaporates instantly like that. And it's just, yeah.

Pat Henderson53:23Yeah.

Dario53:32Yeah. No, way more, Kyrill, way, way more than that. Yeah, yeah.

Dario53:51Unless there's rent control in Boston for commercial properties. Here in Toronto there isn't, so it's like you're at the mercy of the landowner.

Pat Henderson53:54No.

Pat Henderson53:59Yeah, you can sign like some of the places we were looking into were like five-year leases So then you're controlled for like five years But it's definitely going up after that and like you said if you build out a psych wall and anything you build in you got to Remove it when you're done there Yeah, I feel like a studio works if you're a company that does a lot of studio shoots because then you can you know you're spending $1,500 a day to rent a studio. Well that comes back to your pocket and then that starts paying for it

Dario54:06After the five years, yeah.

Pat Henderson54:26We, most of the work we do is at clients locations or at homes for testimonials or whatever it is. We rent studios, but you know, it's maybe 10 times a year. That 10 times a year of renting a studio is not nearly gonna offset all the costs that go into it. And like you said, trying to, and I'm like, all right, this could be another stream of revenue, but another stream of revenue is more work. So either.

Kyrill54:31Yeah.

Dario54:31Yeah, same. Yeah.

Pat Henderson54:47I don't have time for it so then we have to bring in somebody else to do that and then that's all of a sudden more expensive. You know, it's like for what you get out of it and I think that a lot of people just look at it as, alright I'm a production company, I need a studio, like I need to look legit and all that kind of stuff where it's really for that more so than anything that makes sense on the business side. And your clients, like some of them, you know, the certain clients, they might care and they might be like, oh I want like… I want that feel of like this cool production company that has this cool studio. But 95% of clients, they just want their project done. Yes, 99%. No, and they're also paying for that. You're going to be bumping up your costs a little bit to offset some of that. So they want their project done. If they go to a studio that you own or a studio somebody else owns, they don't care. Yeah.

Dario55:20I think 99% don't care.

Kyrill55:24Yeah.

Dario55:29Yeah.

Kyrill55:35It's the same cost, it's the same cost at that point. And yeah, like if you find yourself doing, that's the perfect way to do it. The one time, one of the main times where it will make sense to get your own studio space is if you're doing a lot of studio work. So like if you, say for example, you find that rent is like 3000 or 5000 a month, but you end up doing studio shoots at least four or five times a month, like usually studio costs are like 1500 to 2000 per day rental, right?

Dario55:37Yeah.

Dario55:56Ahem.

Kyrill56:03So you're already, if you could book five days like that, boom, that basically the client is funding your studio and you get to keep it, right? That is the smart business approach to kind of owning one. If you're just doing it just for the sake of it, just to look cool as you said, that is the worst business. That's not a business approach. That's just the.

Dario56:21the worst, that's not what a business person does. You wanna know an easy way of doing that? You go to a studio rental place and say, look, I'm gonna need a studio space five to eight times a month. Work out something with me and I'll use you exclusively for that. You get a discount on the place and you get guaranteed bookings. Like, why would you take on that risk otherwise? Like… just work out a deal with the studios but you know how many places you go to and mention that they say sure?

Pat Henderson56:50Yeah.

Pat Henderson56:55Yeah, and there's places like PureSpace and whatnot that, you know, you can, you also might not want the same type of studio every time. So like you could, like we use PureSpace a lot.

Dario56:56Guaranteed income for them.

Pat Henderson57:06Unless we're shooting something that's like on green screen or on white Like you probably want to mix up your environment depending on the client or the story that you're going to or whatever So we rent pier spaces and can get so many different looks from like a home type look to like a loft or whatever Like there's a lot of variety of what you could get there and you can rent it by the hour So it's like, you know, you need a half day shoot. You just rent a studio for a half day. It's easy It's all set up. You just pop in set up and you're good

Kyrill57:14Yeah.

Dario57:27Yeah.

Kyrill57:35We get it though, it would be nice to have a studio, but it has to make financial sense to some degree at the very least. If you could have the very least break even on it in terms of how many times you use it, sure, or at least close to break even, because having your own space can sometimes foster better work processes for the other parts of the work. But at the same time, like you said, if you have team members from different states, different regions, it's gonna be hard to get people to come in on a daily basis and it doesn't make sense to do the hybrid approach, then what's the point of owning a studio at that point? Like, if you do it like in the hybrid approach, you can book those like temporary workspaces or something like that for like once a week and get everyone together to kind of go over stuff. That might be a similar effect without actually having to own a full on studio at that point. But you know, that is the best approach.

Dario58:09Yeah.

Pat Henderson58:11Exactly, exactly.

Dario58:13uh…

Dario58:29Oh yeah, that's actually probably the best approach. It's like, yeah, one of those shared spaces.

Kyrill58:34Exactly, it's like, say we wanna get together with like a team on a particular project next week. It's like, all right, let's book a big meeting space from one of those shared spaces for the day. It'll probably cost like say 100 bucks, right? Or 200 bucks for that. Great, you got that productivity day, everyone got together, you got to work together, have that camaraderie effect without that overhead so you don't have to do it every week, so. There's a solution right there, which I think maybe even Dario and I should start doing.

Dario59:06We're nearing the end because we're nearing the end because Pat's got to leave in 10 minutes But before you head off, I was just curious like how is How is the industry down in Boston right now? Like are you guys feeling? any like Because of the way the economy is going right now with the high interest rates and everything I'm just curious like have you guys noticed like a drop down in work or like Maybe the industries you're in aren't being affected like what's going on over there?

Pat Henderson59:06There you go.

Kyrill59:09Yep.

Pat Henderson59:33I'm gonna use this as an edit point and do a reset on the.

Kyrill59:34Sorry, before you, I was gonna say, yeah, I had a feeling, I'm like, I feel like this is an editing. Yeah, just re-ask it.

Dario59:39Okay, it's okay. I'll restart it. I'll phrase it a bit better.

Pat Henderson59:48It said movie recording has stopped when I went to it, so it probably just stopped right around there. But I didn't talk in the last hover.

Dario59:54It's okay, so I'll just repeat it. So before we finish off, I'm just curious about the economic state for video production down in Boston right now, because we have the high interest rates, economy's not doing so well at the moment. I'm just wondering, have you noticed your work being affected or maybe because of those specific industries you work with, there may not be an effect, like what's going on?

Pat Henderson01:00:20Yeah, so I think that every industry's at least a little been a little affected. We work a lot in health care and education to industries that are, you know, aren't as affected by what's going on, you know, necessarily all the time. So like as a year goes, this year has been better than last year for us. And there's definitely been some projects that. have kind of fallen off based off of, you know, how companies are doing and things like that. But on a whole, there's still been a lot of work and, you know, it hasn't been like something that's been a super noticeable problem as of yet. It's been more something where, you know, there's a handful of things that scaled back a bit or fell off and got pushed to later that maybe not have otherwise. But I mean, I feel like with anything, There's always gonna be factors outside of your control, outside of what you can do, whether it's the economy or just trends or whatever's going on in each business and how that business is doing at the time and all that. So if we're able to keep working with our consistent clients and all's good with them, and then we're able to keep looking for new clients, there's always gonna be clients that need video. It's just a matter of. finding them and making sure that you're the right fit with them. So I think that kind of while that does affect, we try not focus on that too much because it's really easy to use that as an excuse, right? To be like, ah, we're not doing as good. Like, you know, it's because of the economy. But what can you do about the economy? Zero. If you have, you know, if you look into what am I doing that affects this? Oh, maybe, you know, let…

Kyrill01:02:09Yeah.

Dario01:02:09Nothing. Yeah.

Pat Henderson01:02:16I'm not on as many sales calls or I'm not reaching out to as many potential clients. You can look at stuff that you can control and try to work on that to help overcome what might be a factor outside of your control that you have absolutely nothing you can do with.

Kyrill01:02:32That's a great outlook to have and a very positive one at that because, yeah, we find like sometimes when we talk to certain people, it's like, yeah, the industry is not good so not a lot of work is coming in. But it's like, you gotta kind of take responsibility for that if the work is not kind of coming in, what are you have to look at what's working and what isn't working, right? Like when the pandemic hit, that's what we had to do, right? We realized like, oh, we didn't really have a business set in place. Let's fix that. So we did that. But now you have to keep that going, especially in the down period. It's like, why are we not having any work at this time? Oh, it's because we didn't preemptively work on any sales or outreach a couple months prior. That's why we have no work coming in right now. So I think that's what every business owner in our industry needs to do is to take responsibility for when times are down. And that's what makes a successful business is being able to work through that.

Pat Henderson01:03:29Yeah, I think, you know, in the nature of our work, it's like you get busy, so then you're like, crap, I'm too busy, I'm not gonna be selling. But that's when you need to sell, because that busy is gonna, those projects finish up, and then you're like, oh, where's all the work? So, you know, you need to keep feeding it no matter what. And you know, like you said, there's people that use it as an excuse or whatnot, or they do fall off on certain things. Like I was saying, there's so many video production companies out there. that I think that that's what can help you survive long term is to work harder and to kind of look at things a different way than some of those companies who might blame those external factors or start pulling back and then all of a sudden, you know, they're not around as long. So it's, you know, trying to just control what you can control, do as much as you can do and then hopefully that's good enough to keep things moving in the right direction.

Kyrill01:04:24Absolutely. Well, Pat, thank you so much for joining us on the show and sharing your experiences. And we look forward to keeping in touch and seeing where Path 8 goes or whatever the next iteration of Path 8 is, right?

Dario01:04:25Mm-hmm.

Dario01:04:40Hehehe

Pat Henderson01:04:41Thanks so much guys, it was awesome to chat with you and be on here and really appreciate you having me on.

Dario01:04:47Yeah. Thank you, Pat.

Kyrill01:04:47Cool, all right, man. Thank you, take care.