11/09/2017
As some of you may know already and in regards of our previous post, after due reflection, I have decided to give Uncut Media a little break. It has been a wonderful year making videos for a living and meeting great people who all share amazing stories. This all adventure started by accident really but I have no regret, I have learned so much and this isn’t giving up, it’s probably a new start for the better. Thank you to all my loyal clients who put their trust in me since the beginning. This page won’t shut down, I’ll use it to share my personal creative projects as a video maker so feel free to stay and support ;-)
I thought I would share the reason of my decision. It really helped me to step back and understand why I failed and maybe it will help others too. It’s a bit long though so grab a beer and relax :-D
The last 13 months have been epics. I remember when I did make the decision to purchase my camera, I never imagined I could turn this investment into a business operating full time. I got my first enquiry phone call it was a morning I was having a coffee with two friends. The following afternoon I was filming. And from there the magic happened, with the power of word of mouth only, I was started!
Quickly as an entrepreneur I saw the big picture. I wanted to build a media company specialising in the web and social media platforms. The quicker I would become an agency, the better it would be. A new marketing era is happening and the power of video as an effective marketing medium is real. A great opportunity was knocking at my door so I started to connect more with people within the industry, build partnership to get more projects. I was having my own little office within a friendly marketing agency. I’ll be honest, I had some really calm weeks, wondering if it was worth keeping but overall the figures were not lying, it was definitely not a bad start for a first year of business.
It was cool, I got involved in really sick projects, met people I would have never met and basically never felt like I was working.
But a few months ago I’ve started to lose my motivation. Becoming an agency was all about getting more and more projects to get Uncut Media out of its freelance business model. I needed to get bigger, hire more people, buy more gears, offer better quality, more, more, more… The high standard I had set myself to, forced me to constantly improve and step out of my comfort zone. And I was ready for this.
What I was not ready for was the loss of passion. When I bought my camera, the idea behind was mainly for my own use. Those who know me know that I love making videos and that I have an eye for anything directly or indirectly related to filming. This new piece of gear was an opportunity for me to have a lot of fun filming what I like. But everything went super quick and I missed this opportunity.
Traveling in Europe with my camera a month ago was the trigger of my decision making. I came to the point that I want to spend my time only on few projects that I really like to shoot instead of thinking big volume. I'll focus myself on travel and lifestyle videos, sport clips as well as short films and leave all the promo clips and scripted corporates for others. Putting more efforts on storytelling style videos based on good looking pictures, featuring strong human element.
These expectations don’t match with the business model of a full time agency or even full time freelance. So I’ve decided to have a break, take a full time job and enjoy more my camera on weekends and during my spare time.
I thought over a long time that I failed but seriously, in 14 months I’ve learned more than ever about myself and doing business. I have done some mistakes, I had some success, I got disappointed many times but I enjoyed every single minute being an entrepreneur. This is just the beginning of something new…
Ben
