New Beginnings. March 23, 2023
Leaving a career to start a business takes courage. Starting a new business with a friend takes patience. Starting ANOTHER new business because of fiscal and creative differences …should be easier since I’ve already gone through the pace.
In 2016, after not nearly enough thought or consideration I left my career at WENY TV News to start a videography company. I had experience in using a camera and I had been to school to pursue a career in film, but I had dropped out to find stability. I was becoming a new father and providing for him became my primary concern, which I’m sure a lot of new parents can relate to.
The first year was slow going, but thankfully I had saved enough to remain comfortable for about six months, and this allowed me a good amount of time to test the waters and see if this was even going to be possible to do on my own. I filmed a few weddings for friends and colleagues on the cheap (or free) just to see what went into it. I went in blind and made every mistake a budding videographer can make and I’ll be forever grateful for that opportunity. Growth takes time, but I didn’t have a lot of time. I immersed myself in film. To be honest, I neglected close friends and family, and I’m not proud of it, but I was hooked (they’ve all forgiven me since, I think). If I had a spare minute it was spent researching gear, or learning new camera angles, or why this shot was chosen to provide this emotion, etc., etc. IMDB was my homepage and my YouTube subscriptions were 99 percent filmmakers I aspired to be.
Then I added a partner. I chose one of my best friends of the last 15 years. He was down on his luck and working a dead end job and barely making ends meet, but also working at a local news station so I figured he at least knew what he’d be doing. Within just a couple of years we were doing 20+ weddings annually. We took on commercial work, artistic projects, and special events as well. Then I started to notice a few things weren’t adding up. A lot of the final products we were delivering ended up being exact replicas of others work and when I brought it up, things went south quickly. I had recently been contacted by a couple (who had been friends of mine previous to us filming their wedding) asking if I had received their payment. I hadn’t, but my partner had. I decided to look into it further, without putting anyone in an uncomfortable position, and found that close to 10,000 dollars remained unaccounted for. He had always been fiscally irresponsible and I had told myself from the beginning if money concerns got “weird” that I would cut ties immediately but I decided to give him a chance to explain himself. Things escalated further once that was brought up and my partner, who I had given the opportunity to grow and learn with me, ran off with my website, social media, and 20 weddings contracts. What I should have felt was anger and resentment, but all I felt was disappointment. I quickly found a silver lining, in that I could now continue on my own and create a unique product, and let bygones be bygones. I wished him nothing but the best despite all of what had happened and continue to do so. Fortunately I was able to retain a few clients and am now able to provide service to even more in the future!
I refuse to let what happened change the way I trust, the way I approach life, and the way that I do business, even with friends. Winding Way has seen a great deal of success within less than two weeks of launching and I’m excited for what the future holds!
Thank you to everyone that reached out to me after the split and helped me get back on my feet, I will never forget the kind gestures.
