Ten Years… A Video Production Journey
Ten years. I literally cannot believe that Fireside Production is marking its 10th Anniversary! When Tom and I began this journey back in February of 2006, we were really just trying to solve a family challenge. We were new parents and had decided I would work as a freelance journalist – rather than continue my full-time news career – to take care of our baby girl. When the economy turned sour, we lost much of our freelance and for him, overtime opportunities. That’s when we got resourceful and began borrowing or renting gear to produce videos as a supplemental income. Little did we know what a twist of fate that would be!
Keys to Small Business Success
Lucky for us, YouTube was founded in 2005 and forever changed the way people used and viewed video. The seed was planted and the demand for quality, online video was growing. Although, Tom and I knew next-to-nothing about starting or running a small business – we did know how to produce memorable videos.
The timing was there and fortunately for us, so were the resources. Denver is a spectacular city to start and expand a small business. The support network here is unparalleled – that is, if you tap into it. The Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce and Small Business Development Center provide access to some of the greatest local minds in business. There are tax and accounting resources, workshops on everything from marketing to business planning, opportunities to get outside eyes on your business and show you where to shore things up. There are courses aimed at helping entrepreneurs to build smartly and groups where you can safely bounce ideas off people who’ve been there, done that.
You often hear about the importance of relationships and mentoring in business. It’s absolutely true that building relationships is essential. You need people to turn to for support and ideas, for inspiration and motivation. You also need mentors. Fireside was fortunate to win a Mentor-Protégé agreement with one of our first Clients, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory. That experience gave us access to information on best practices in federal procurement and taught us how to improve our proposals, our process and even, our invoicing.
It’s all out there! You just have to say yes to the chance to learn and improve. A lot of times, people are more interested in proving themselves right – than improving what they do. If you’re serious about growing your business, you need to be bold. You need to be confident. You also need to check your ego and be teachable… and truly, the learning never stops.
Equally important to timing and resources – is support. There were the clients who took a chance on Fireside during our infancy as a company. There were the people over the years who came alongside us and joined the Fireside team, contributed their time and talents to cultivating something special. There were the people who saw our work or experienced our process and championed our company, who recommended Fireside Production. Clients, partners, supporters, members of our team… YOU make us who we are today. YOU made this past ten years possible. We’re now counting on YOU to help us usher in the next ten.
Fireside Production is ready to take on its next challenge… innovation and growth! We are hard at work on some very exciting changes that we’re confident will make us a better company, that will result in an even more memorable experience for our clients and will ultimately, take our video production services to the next level. We’re looking forward to this next chapter and hope that together, we will make Fireside the trusted leader in video storytelling in Denver – and beyond.
