From Consulting to Creative: Ravid Razak's Journey

speaker-1: you know it just goes to show like sometimes you gotta start really small and just hustle your ass off and eventually like you'll you'll get to where you got you gotta be. But it's gonna take a while.

speaker-0: Welcome to Behind the Founder. My name's Ben. I'm gonna host for today. We're here with Raveed, the founder of Dream It Real. thanks for joining us. would you mind kind of introducing yourself and telling us a little about your business?

speaker-1: Absolutely. Hey, how's it going? nice to meet everybody. I'm Rave Razak, CEO and founder of Dream It Real. we are a decades-long award-winning video production company. we've been like I like I mentioned, we've been around for about 11 years doing everything from large-scale TV commercials for brands like Tempropedic all the way down to social content, where we're producing, you know, scalable video. for clients like LinkedIn and Picardi and others. So we run the gamut from you know scale all the way up to your you know high touch video.

speaker-0: Awesome. Awesome. Well, thanks for being here. would you mind kind of getting into a little bit about how you got into the industry? Yes. How you started the business?

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm actually a former former management consultant from Accenture. and then just realized that, you know, the model that they employ there you can pretty much take anywhere. So what I did was, you know, after I don't know, about seven, eight years of just working in management consulting for, you know, big clients like JP Morgan Chase and I just kinda like understood how that model was run and realized that, you know, oftentimes they just have really smart you know, overseers, project managers, if you will, just kind of, you know, managing a lot of different folks and specializations and they plug and play as needed. and it's very simple. So, you know, once you kinda learn that model, you could apply it to a lot of different industries. so you know, just realizing I had a a passion for video production, you know, decided decided to employ that sort of strategy over here. and in during my sort of exodus from Accenture and Exodus from was actually I left a small boutique consulting firm before I decided to make the the the plunge. So from Accenture to more of a small boutique and then I was there for about two years. It was my final stretch and seeing whether I can, you know, make this consulting thing my life and realized it's just not for me. so in doing so I took some time off. travel the world, you know, went to South America and you know, went to New Zealand, went to Australia, went to Nepal and traveled traveled to the Himalayas, which was pretty wild. and in doing so, you know, I realized like, you know, my love for for videography. So in the airport, on my first trip, you know, I saw a GoPro. I was just like, I'm I'm grabbing that, I'm gonna start recording. I was right when GoPros were like becoming like a real big thing. So picked that up at the airport and then started shooting without even realizing, you know, that I had a passion for it. And then before I know it, before I, you know, what when I came back, I had hours and hours and hours of footage on my GoPro and on my phone. and I wanted to turn this into a really cool video. and realized, you know, that there's a major gap. and this is over ten years ago, right? there was a major gap in the industry where, you know, people wanted really high-end videos and sizzles that they could showcase. and there wasn't really a lot of vendors that would you know provide it for them without an affordable price point. So when we first got started, it was mostly a consumer product and hence the name Dream It Real, which is, you know, like was supposed to invoke that sort of emotion where we want to take your dreams and make it real. And a play on words, obviously R E E L but I mean we qu quickly pivoted. We were just like, this sucks because getting to an consumer to get them to spend over a hundred dollars on a consumer video is actually harder than we thought. But I mean once we sort of picked up the fact that we need to pivot, we pivoted. so gradually, but eventually very quickly. so yeah, we made the pivot. We started working. Our first client was Getty Images. you know, someone there and they just made a connection and then before we knew it, we were cutting up, you know, fifty to sixty, seventy different videos for Getty Images and we realized we can actually do this and make a lot more money. So price points changed. You know, we went from like starting it up a hundred dollars to, you know, I think max at the time when we started was like it was up between a hundred to two hundred to You know, then we started at the four fifty price point. and then eventually we started, you know, going up and up based on you know, us getting more out there in the world and you know, people recognizing our brand and you know quality and you know, I I think network price points are are more in line with like more like higher end production companies. but yeah, I mean, you know, the the pivot was pretty was was a big one. And you know, we went from trying to create content for the masses, to to realizing that, you know, it's pretty hard and eventually we have to what's that?

speaker-0: I was just gonna say it's it sounds like it would help a lot if if your product is an ROI for your customer, right? If if they're gonna make money off it, they can spend more on it too. So

speaker-1: Yeah, absolutely.

speaker-0: And also I think it's an awesome pivot from consulting to a creative industry, that videography. Did your consulting experience like did you bring any connections or kind of network from there? Or did you just kinda have to start over like I mean you're talking some big names. Like I know you've been around for ten years, so you know, there was there's that in play, but Getty Images like right off the bat, two years or a year into your business, I think that's a pretty big get.

speaker-1: Yeah. so we were lucky to be in New York. I now live in Florida, but originally from New York, lived in New York my whole life. and we just use our We Work connections. So first thing I did was I said, you know, I know very little about sort of creating apps myself, and creating, you know, a company myself like I did it for others, right? But it's very different to be a consultant. and advising versus actually, you know, to cook your own meals. So, and you know, they don't tell you that it w when you're a consultant, but you know, I knew that right away because you know we're half the time the stuff we're creating is full of shit when we're in consulting. But so the first thing I did was I I I got a we work and I'm just like, I know that I know nothing. Let's actually you know, start from the ground up, work with people that actually do sit around people that actually know what they're talking about and can build an app or and you know, build a website within a few days as opposed to me go, I cause, you know, when we were in when we were in when I was in consulting, I I was able to just go to like a major agency and say, Hey, my client is ex is is Amex. I need you guys to build a website, you know, and you have these multi million dollar you know, agencies that are just bidding for that, but like now we have to build a scrappy little tiny website and see totally different concept.

speaker-0: can't afford a forty K forty fifty K website when that you know even they're just adding it on because they know the customer's the custom.

speaker-1: They're bids for several hundred thousand. So yeah, I mean what like once you're getting into the Fortune five hundred, it's like you're bidding like the companies that are bidding are like WPP and brands like that. And you know, they're they're coming and those price points are are definitely different than than what we work with as you know, little tiny startups. So yeah. it was the first proof proof of concept I built from someone that was just at the WeWork space. and then I just knocked on doors. showed them what we were doing. You know, every every company, whether you're a startup, you're in healthcare, you know, you're a SAS, whatever, it doesn't matter. Everyone needs video. So I literally just knocked on doors and people, you know, up and down the floors that we work. you know, I was just like, I'll do it, you know, just kind of build up my portfolio. you know, are you guys down? And you know, people are just like, Yeah, sure, let's go. gave them some great prices. You know, I think the first animated explainer video that we did was five hundred dollars. and we did it internally and obviously in terms of like internal cost, that was a s that was obviously a loss. but now I mean we don't we like you you might need to add another zero to that in order for us to even have a conversation. So you know it just goes to show like sometimes you gotta start really small and just hustle your ass off and eventually like you'll you'll get to where you got you gotta be. But it's gonna take a while.

speaker-0: Yeah, we're going through that a little bit on our side right now, where I think when you go up in price two, the customers have different concerns and they're better concerns. They're things that you would rather want to talk about than just cheaper, cheaper, cheaper. So

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: awesome. Well, so I know AI has come in and probably switched up your industry quite a bit. Yeah. I'll be it switched up the whole world, but with all the video creation and image creation abilities now, what is kind of your business model or kind of Thoughts behind that and how have you kind of reacted to AI coming in and

speaker-1: Embracing it. you know, it's you you gotta go to where the industry's going, you gotta go to where the world is going, and you know, you you just have to adapt. So, you know, we can kick and scream all we want, but it doesn't matter. You know, that doesn't change anything. So, you know, our our mentality is we're embracing it. We've done some projects using AI as sort of the main driver. So whether it's building storyboards or actually building the video itself through AI. but that's sort of on a on a micro scale, on a larger scale. It's it's everything from not just the creative side, but like operationally, like how do we actually implement you know, Claude into our everything that we're doing or you know, even yeah. I I was more of a a chat G P T guy until recently. So like now I'm actually getting into Cloud and I'm really loving it.

speaker-0: pop, you know, it's it's kind of like every day. It's like, Do I wanna switch again? Like maybe. Yeah. Maybe

speaker-1: so there's a ton of different AI tools on the creative side that we're exploring. but you know, they're always changing. and it's it's how do we deal with the AI slot that's coming out of it? Because you know, some of the work is is good, but you could still tell it's AI, right? So I from a creative standpoint, what is really happening is You're giving away control for cost. and by the way, it's not that cheap. I mean, for us to create something just fully AI driven, it's gonna cost us, you know, several thousand dollars because it does like that's just what it costs. I mean, you know, so like I sometimes see ads where, you it's just like, yeah, this was created through AI. but yeah, I mean, tally up all those costs, it's pretty significant, right? So some of my editors are just like, I don't really want to use it because, you know, like I mean, internally it's just gonna cost us like, you know, the same, if not more, for us to just actually produce something. and I have full control. I don't have to sit there and just prompt, you know, this thing like to hell to try to figure it out. It's just gonna do the thing.

speaker-0: ten dollars if you do it right the first time, but you need a hundred tries, so that's a thousand dollars, you know. So

speaker-1: Exactly. Get you on other things and you know, and then also like you're still dealing with like you only get was it six or seven seconds of of like

speaker-0: You have to string together and then you lose kind of some quality or some recognizability. Yeah.

speaker-1: So I mean there's there's there's still a long way, but I think it's gonna get there and it's gonna make it's gonna make things more challenging. but in in in in our world, hopefully it's also gonna make things easier. Cause you know, if we embrace it and say, here's your low cost, high volume solution through AI, if you want that, great, you know, this is your avenue. If you're looking for something more high touch, you know. you have this as well. So we have both sides of the fence, right? And that's where what why I think like you absolutely need to embrace it. Because you're gonna have clients, you know, that are are just gonna be like, I am so against AI because the perception, right? you know, some some brands we're aware of, I mean, Coca-Cola has embraced it, you know, others have embraced it. We've seen it, you know, but they're also some are also getting backlash. Like, what the hell are you guys doing? You know, like

speaker-0: This is a company, why do you have

speaker-1: Yeah. You know, if you wanna use AI to lower your, you know, internal costs and not hire as many ops people or, you know, I don't know, accounting, etcetera, you know, and let AI do that. But like, you know, as I'm scrolling, I don't want to see this like fake character looking thing, you know, like with their like uncanny looking face and no expressions, you know. They wanna see the real thing. So I think what's gonna happen is I mean, and this is just my take on it. but I've spoken to a lot of different agencies, you know, going through the same thing. And I've spoken to like some of my brands. and it's sort of like where the brand like Stitch Fix took things, right? Where it's just everything starts to look the same, you know, and then before you know it, you're walking into the office and you're seeing someone that's literally got the same outfit on, you're just like Stitch Fix. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, shit, I gotta stop. You know, it's like I don't wanna look like that person. So I mean, there you can make a counter argument that like not everything will look the same, but majority of the time, it's all gonna start to look exactly the same. It's coming from the same edge, it's coming from the same sources. so you know, there's there's only so much creativity that you can influence with AI as opposed to just human behavior. So I do think there's gonna be sort of a a coming to Jesus at some point where people are gonna, you know, have played with AI enough and they're just like, that was cool, that was fun, and it saved us a bunch of money, but people now want to really start to see the real thing again. it's gonna I don't want to say it's gonna fully come 180, but I think there is gonna be a come to Jesus moment.

speaker-0: Yeah, I think yeah, and then there's two things, right, you talk about, and and I think you kind of talked to both of them. But one side of it is it's like you have real video, real people, AI's helping you edit and and do other things, right, to that real asset. Yeah. And then you have the other side of the coin where it's the AI is the whole thing. And I think either way, you know, obviously both of those things are gonna improve and get a lot better. Yeah. there still is a world where I'm someone, a business owner, I wanna have an ad and I have an idea. That idea to go from that to like a fully functioning or fully, you know, done commercial or video is still gonna take quite a bit of knowing how to use the AI, knowing how to prompt, having that creative kind of camera angle, everything else. So yeah, I think there's all also gonna be some type of hybrid world where, you know, the the creative agencies just have another tool to use rather than them being remote. Yeah.

speaker-1: Absolutely. and you might get frustrated enough where you're just like, you know what? This sucks. Like I've been prompting away and you know, I I've spent a boatload of money already on on on all this stuff and it's just not worth it and then I'll just, you know, pay an extra couple of hundred bucks and and get it done the right way. and you know, we're we're banking on both. So Yeah.

speaker-0: Yeah, you have you have both sides covered. I like that. And we have yeah.

speaker-1: Yes.

speaker-0: I think that's the way to go. awesome. Well, so ten years in, your your company has pivoted and changed with the times. How does your operations look in terms of personnel? Like yeah, how many people do you have on your team? Yeah. And how's that organized?

speaker-1: Yeah, I mean we have about fifteen people right now. I'm trying to get some people to actually update their their LinkedIn. because it's still showing previous companies. I should make that a mandated policy. But we have we have about 15. but going back to my Accenture days, I just realized a lot of this stuff can be outsourced. So all of our dev is out for outsource or marketing is outsourced or accounting is outsourced. I I think companies these days, you know, I used to hear when I was starting this, the agency model is dead. and that's not necessarily true, but it's sort of kind of true. the days of having in-house people sitting in seats costing, you know, a lot of extra dollars is kind of going. and if it wasn't going before AI, it's it's definitely going So, just realizing a lot of that stuff can be outsourced and just kinda keeping costs down, we decided to you know, just kind of keep our our our main core, just the account management, some sales folks, you know, one or two ops people to just help, you know, with everything else, and help with, you know, CRM management and just outreach. but You know, aside from that, it's it's everything else is outsourced. and I think that's the way it should be. Just keep your keep your operation as lean as possible. If you need to bring people in-house, prove that you actually need to bring them in-house, then bring them in-house, as opposed to, you know, the other way around and having spent a shit ton of money and not realize and and not getting anything in return.

speaker-0: That's great. I I I agree. I mean, I'm obviously a little bit on one side of that fence because I'm not sure if you know, but we run I'm the founder and we run a an offshore staffing firm. our our team is based in South Africa and it's you know, you find great people everywhere and and I think it's yeah especially for the smaller businesses, I think it's a huge lever you can pull to kind of you know get more out of what you make. Do when you say your team just for the sake of kind of getting into your offshore or remote team. Is it do you work with other agencies or do you have kind of, you know, contractors that are offshore that you work with? Yeah.

speaker-1: So all of our our our creators are our freelancers, they're contractors. so that I think I think what's different from us than some others is you know, we actually like most of the people that we've been working with, you know, we've we've been working with for years. and it was it was a mantra that I kind of took from Amex. even though they're massive company, their their mantra, at least internally, was always think small. which kind of sounds strange. you're like, what does that mean? Why would you ever like most people say think big? But what they were trying to get at is like act like as if you're still, you know, a mom and pop, because that's when things really were cohesive and not disjointed. so you know, I mean, we kind of took that mantra. I kind of helped instill that mantra here. so You know, we want to know everyone on a first name basis. it it's not meant to be this platform where it's just based on a rating scale. You know, if you had a bad experience, just give a bad rating. you know, that's that's not a good experience. you know, if if you have a bad experience on Upwork, yeah, that's you know, Upwork needs to do something about that as as opposed to just being like, Well, you guys, you know, he picked you and you picked him and that's what it was, you know. so I think that's where we're different. Yes, we're a network. but it's very important for us to actually be involved in every single project. And that's why, you know, our price points are different, our margins are different. You know, it's our brand that we're putting in front of this, as opposed to, you know, it's it's a network, you guys just, you know, find this marriage, make it try to make it work. If you if you get divorced, so be it.

speaker-0: Yeah, that's awesome. well, I think we've we've covered your business. we've covered kind of how you make it work. What do you focus on right now day to day? What's your next kind of like what is the hurdle you wake up and trying to solve? Is it is it that finding AI to fit in the business, integrating it? What what what are you what is your focus right now? Yeah.

speaker-1: Yeah, I would say A AI is on my mind left and right. Yeah, I mean I I and I wonder if it's different for anybody, right? And it it it shouldn't be. I I can tell you that it's it's AI and it's understanding how we can stay ahead and not fall behind. and how to ensure we don't like get get Just get left behind from a marketing standpoint. So, you know, I'm sure like you do, like I all I see is just like, you can do this with AI now, every time, you know, you're scrolling. so and that's for every business. It's you know, like, hey, we have AI accounting software now. You don't need humans. you know, so it it's it's not just our business, but it's it's so it's AI from an operational standpoint, but it's also AI from a brand and marketing. presence as well. th those are probably, you know, like my biggest I I would say, you know, things that can kind of keep me up at night. the other thing is obviously sales. It is incredibly important. and even though I, you know, we're not founder led sales anymore, we used to be where I used to just do nothing but sales. it's honestly all I love doing. you know just making connections, but you know, The role kind of takes you out of that, once you grow to a s you know a certain size. but just kind of getting back into that, you know, getting back to meeting, you know, meeting people, making connections, developing deeper connections with our clients. because I think in the world of AI, you also just have to realize like the only thing that's gonna set you apart is your human connection, right? You know, AI can't can't, you know, send out a condolence letter of happens to one of your clients or th something like that. So like take advantage of that and realize, you know, that it's gonna create a gap. And, you know, you have to fill that gap. And you should be the one filling that gap.

speaker-0: Yeah, I totally agree. jumping back to your team really really quick, are you are you do you have a office, brick and mortar in Florida that that people go into? Or is it

speaker-1: In New York. Yeah.

speaker-0: New York. Okay. So you live in Florida but your team is in New York and they go go to the office.

speaker-1: Yeah, so all of our employees are in either New York or they're remote. we did have a like a satellite office in in in Miami, but I've since moved from Miami. so no l no longer keep that office. I miss Miami so much. but yeah. no longer keep that office and just kind of work from home, sometimes work from a coffee shop, sometimes work from, you know, a co working space here, but I'm in Boca Ratona. They don't they don't really have like cool, cool co working spaces here. So I'm mostly working from home these days.

speaker-0: Yeah, all right. So so that leads me into my like last portion of the interview. you know, as a founder they say you never have a day off unless you give yourself one. what's your work life balance like? how has it changed over the course of your your business? Yeah.

speaker-1: So when they say founders are are mostly crazy and need to be crazy in order to start a company, I I I do realize that. Like and I I I was one of those. So when I started, I knew no one. I couldn't really leverage my network at Accenture. it didn't really correlate, it didn't translate well at all. So yeah, I mean we kind of started with nothing. You know, some money that I put into the company. I actually borrowed twenty five thousand off a credit card and started the company. zero I did that whole thing. yeah, so I didn't sleep, I didn't eat, I I didn't really like want to go out. I was at a point in my life where I was like in my 30s, early 30s, and you know, just realized like I I did all the fun things, I worked at all the cool companies. I actually got you know really cool experience working at Accenture for so many different companies. whether it was like, you know, pharma companies like Pfizer or you know companies like JP Morgan Chase, where I helped them figure out how to spend two hundred and fifty million dollars back into their company working, you know, for the CTO who literally took my report, my 150 page report, and reported it to Jamie Diamond. and I got to listen in on that call, which is pretty cool. you know, so I I did all the things from a personal and work standpoint that I thought were pretty cool. And it was just time to just do me and do like what I wanted to do. So I just I just buckled down and I just like I would negotiate like with myself to go to the bathroom and just be like, all right, five more minutes, five more minutes. Like, you know, it's and and that's what it takes. Like it you know, like you know, there's a reason so many startups fail. and it's because, you know, people don't wanna put in the work and my mentality was like I'm too stubborn to fail. So you know, it it's helped us get to where we're at right now. But in the beginning it was 12 hour days, 13 hour days. and you know, I think once we got to like around COVID time, things started to, you know, change. we picked up a few extra hands. we you know, in the staffing really helped. but there was more of a shift towards e commerce. So it didn't it was easier to find clients because people Or companies all of a sudden just wanted to spend. because they were like, well, no one can do anything, so they're just buying stuff left and right. and in the beginning I actually was really scared it was gonna be the opposite, where you know, companies were just gonna pull back. and then once we realized, you know, companies were just full go, that's when things just started to it just kind of change for us internally. and we start to pick up more of a momentum and that momentum creates, you know, more efficiency, sometimes. And you know, that was really the efficiency was really helpful. the additional staffing was really helpful. and yeah, I mean my my my my days generally are, you know, eight, nine hour you know, working working days these days, you know, working hours. So yeah, I mean typical typical stuff. I do sometimes still work on the weekends. I I just love to work. So you know it doesn't feel like it's work when when you're enjoying it. one thing I did two years ago and sort of helped me from a sanity standpoint was I took a five week vacation. and I've never done this. I've never like in the in the 10 years, I've never taken such a long vacation. I've actually only taken, you know, maybe three. in the entire in in the entirety of of like you know dream it real but yeah you know just me and my wife just decided like she had she was able to take a break from work and you know I mean we can do whatever we're doing remote and you know that's thank goodness for that right so you know obviously I you know checked in I opened my laptops it's really great you know the fact that like you know the hours are different, right? Cause you can wake up super early, get your shit done, farm it out, send it out to your team. And then, you know, by the time you come back, like everything's done. And, you know, you sort of chase the sun, if you will, right. so it's actually pretty efficient. and yeah, took a five week vacation toured all of Italy, went to like I think eleven or twelve different cities. and it was like a nice sanity You know, a nice mental sanity break that I needed. and hopefully, you know, over the summer we'll get a chance to go away. But you know, we're looking at we're we're we're looking at Greece. Neither one of us has has been to Santorini. So, you know, that's on the that's on the agenda. But, you know, I haven't taken a vacation since then.

speaker-0: Yeah, you know, sometimes yeah, I totally feel you. I try to get away for a few long weekends. but it's been kind of a grind. I think now we're just getting to the point where and and I actually visited South Africa and our team, my brother was getting married there. And like you said, you know, it's nice to wake up and not to have your customers awake and just to do your work, not being bothered. Yeah. And then the team gets on and they work their shift and then you kinda check back in at the end.

speaker-1: Yeah, you can get to a real nice flow state. You know, just knowing that like nobody's awake. This is my time to just kinda crank and do what I gotta do with no outside noise and you just zone in. It's pretty awesome.

speaker-0: Yeah, the context switching really slows you down. Yeah. Well, well I really it was great talking to you, Raveed. that's pretty much all I have on my side, but I wish you the best and yeah, I hope I hope I think it sounds like you have the right idea when it comes to kind of moving with AI and and and not letting it set you back, but kind of being flexible with it. So it was great talking to you. Yeah.

speaker-1: Likewise, thanks man. Thanks for having me on. Appreciate it.