Don't start a video production company before watching this!

How to start a video production company?

When I started a video production company back in 2009, I wish I had someone to tell me what to do and what not to do so I can avoid a lot of headaches along the way.

So I wanted to make a video to help people that are starting a video production company or are in the early stages of running a video production company.

1. Freelancer vs. Business Owner
Do you want to create a company so you can do the work yourself and run it under a company name? Most freelancers that open a production company think this way and it's a really bad way to start if your goal is to have a real company. If your goal is to make 50-100k per year as a freelancer, it's completely ok to think this way. I know plenty of freelancers that do this and are completely happy. But they don't have a real production company. They have a job and the moment they stop working, they can't make any money.

You have to think of hiring other people to help you and take the workload off your hands. If you are producing, directing, shooting, editing, color correcting and sound mixing, and managing your client on most of your projects, you won't be able to create
a real business.

It's a really hard thing to take less profit when you can do it all yourself. But if you really want a production company, outsource some of the roles on each project.

This is the hardest lesson to learn and I still struggle with it to this day.
But if you are just starting out, it's easier to implement this from the start than try to implement it 10 years later when you feel burned out.

2. Niche down
Have a very clear focus on the type of videos you want to make. It's tempting to want to make every kind of video and take any project that comes your way. And it's ok to do that for a while. But to really have a sustainable company that can scale you
want to be very focused on the type of videos you make and the types of clients you want to have.

Don't take everything from events to commercials to short films to music videos. Specialized in a few things and become the best at those things.

3. Learn Marketing
It's all about marketing your business. That's why it's important to niche down because it makes it much easier to go after the right customers and clients.
Learn how to run Facebook ads, and learn google Adwords. Learn about YouTube and Instagram.

Knowing how to get clients through these platforms will make it so much easier for you to expand and build a machine you can turn on or off.
If you keep getting clients through reputation and word of mouth, you'll hit a wall at some point.

4. Stop buying gear
When starting out, you'll want to have a decent kit for producing videos. But after that, stop spending all your profits on gear. It will never end. I know guys in the 60s that still to this day spend every dollar they make buying gear.
Rent when you need to and focus your profits on marketing and outsourcing, so you can keep growing. Unless a big part of your business is equipment rentals, there is no reason to keep buying gear. You can hire gaffers, DPs, and editors with their own kits.

5. Keep overhead down
You should try your best to keep your monthly costs down when running a production company.
Some things like accounting and business insurance shouldn't be skipped. But having a studio or employees on salary can be minimized. You can hire freelancers for a lot of the tasks that most production companies do.

The only production companies that I know that went out of business had massive overhead costs every month. if they lost one client, they couldn't keep up with their expenses and had to lay people off.

6. Diversity of your clients
If you took my advice and learned marketing and advertising, you can focus on getting several clients that keep coming back.
A lot of production companies have 1 or 2 major clients. When that client leaves, it destroyed their business.
So if that sounds like you and most of your money as a freelancer or production company comes from 1 or 2 clients, learn how to get more clients without hurting your relationships with your existing clients.

Thanks so much for watching. Please give this video a thumbs up and subscribe to this channel for easy-to-follow filmmaking videos.

If you want to go from a freelancer to a video production company and learn the business side of filmmaking, watch this training.
https://www.filmmakingmentor.com/Vide...

0:00 Introduction
0:42 FREELANCER VS. BUSINESS OWNER
2:12 PICK A NICHE
5:25 STOP BUYING GEAR
7:11 KEEP OVERHEAD COST DOWN
8:56 DIVERSITY CLIENT BASE