Being Geek Chic is a blog about one woman navigating the male-dominated industries of production and tech. It's written by Elizabeth Giorgi, Founder, CEO and Director of Mighteor - one of the world's first internet video production companies. Learn more about Mighteor here.
It has been a while since I shared any Mighteor business highlights or updates. The fact is, our little shop has been so crazy and amazing and nutty that it’s hard to keep up with everything.
Big picture highlights:
We are making so many beautiful things. Like this awesome drone reel which features some recent visuals from some shoots over the last few months. It’s just beyond pretty, I can’t believe it’s ours.
Mighteor also recently graduated from the Goldman Sachs 10K Small Businesses Program at Babson College which opened my eyes to all the growth room there still is for this business. Sometimes I literally can not believe how big the opportunities have become. And I have to admit that my most recent sense of awe is just from meeting so many other business owners from the program who have built a business around something magical or wonderful or meaningful.
Let me give you a few examples of those people I admire from my most recent business bootcamp.
Courtney started DiOGi Pet Services to provide better pet care. Awesome. Except it’s so much more than that because you meet her and you realize that the foundation she has set at her business means that she provides pet care that’s better than the care I provide for my own pet. She cares THAT MUCH. She reminds me to just care more.
Or let’s talk about Martina who founded Swift Industries, the most incredible bicycle bag and accessories company you will ever have the pleasure of discovering. You think you are passionate about biking. Then you meet the folks behind Swift and you realize - OH, That’s Passion. Because Martina + Co don’t just make beautiful products, they use those products. And test them. And uses those lessons to make even better products. It’s a reminder to be thoughtful and open to change always.
The truth is that at times, it’s easy to find inspiration outside the business - but I’m also incredibly lucky to have constant inspiration blooming INSIDE the business. Our Minneapolis team continues to grow, which is great because it means our animation depth and skills grow with it. I am consistently shocked by the brains that come up with these moving moments. I think their latest reel shows off exactly what I mean without the need for words:
As we think about the future, I’m reminded always that there are so many people in our past who have helped us get here. And what’s really been interesting is how for the first time ever, I have been able to be a customer of many of some our past clients. I am excited to be working with Slice Realty and Track Ninja - two companies that are completely disrupting industries that are prime for change and evolution. It’s beyond interesting to learn more about their worlds and gain an understanding of what it’s like to be the game changer somewhere else. Needless to say, Mighteor gets that.
Before I get to my ultimate point, I’d be remiss if I didn’t also plug Mighteor’s Second Season of Internet Video Masterclass which is smart and colorful and helpful and even better thanks to lots of Beyonce references. In case I don’t say this enough, I love my team in large part because they put up with my wacky ideas.
With so much happening, it’s easy to forget that we are still so new. In the life span of a business, anything under a decade is practically a baby infant whose still drooling on themselves. It reminds of Pixar’s “Ugly Baby” philosophy, which basically states: “The cost of that becomes clear when you think of how a movie starts out. It’s a baby. It’s like the fetus of a movie star; we all start out ugly. Every one of Pixar’s stories starts out that way. A new thing is hard to define; it’s not attractive, and it requires protection. … Every new idea in any field needs protection. Pixar is set up to protect our director’s ugly baby.Of course you can’t protect the baby forever. At some point, it has to grow up and change into something, because the beast is still there. That’s a positive thing. Because sometimes the ugly baby would rather play in the sandbox forever. It’s a lot like raising a kid. It’s complex and interesting. But most people want to make it simpler than it is.”
Mighteor is still a relatively new baby. We still have our ugly and weird and awkward moments. But when I see things like our new reels and watch the finished work we complete for clients whom I admire - I genuinely find myself convinced that all the work I did to protect this weird baby early on has been worth it.
Pretty soon, we’ll have teeth.
One of the things I’m working on this year is “putting myself out there more” - which translates to: more speaking engagements, more pitch competitions and more media appearances. Add to the list: more putting myself in Mighteor video. And not just when we have been able to highly edit me either. So perhaps there could be nothing more bold or brave in this category than putting out a live show. On Facebook!
Mighteor Mondays is a live show that will stream on the first Monday of the month of Facebook Live. We’ll talk about current trends in internet video, how you can take advantage of them whether you’re a big brand or a budding vlogger and we’ll take your questions and answer them! All you have to do is “Like” our Facebook page and join us on the first Monday of the month at Noon EST/11AM CST/10AM MST for about 30 minutes. I promise it’s gonna be a good (and informative!) time.
Of course, if you just want to join us so we can talk Live about the latest issues in gender representation, our shared excitement for Sherlock Season 4 or wax poetic about our favorite animated shows of the 90s, we’d be happy to have you for that as well!
The first episode will air Monday, August 1st. We hope you’ll join us. Especially cause I don’t think it’s going to be very fun if I’m just sitting on Facebook Live by myself for an hour!
And just in case you are wondering, yes, we will be recording the show and saving each episode for playback later in case you want to hear more about that topic and aren’t available when we are live.
I started a creative company. One would think I spend most days being CREATIVE! Go ahead: Imagine confetti and balloons wafting around the word. For my sake. Can you see them? Good. Me too. Now imagine all the balloons popping at once and the confetti getting stuck to your face. Yeah, that’s how I feel about spreadsheets.
Over the last three years, I’ve watched other companies like mine startup and fail. I’ve also seen others startup and succeed far beyond Mighteor. And I’ve seen lots of companies do something kind of in-between the two. Over time, I tried to watch carefully at what made the companies that failed, well, fail. Because avoiding their destiny is key to our future.
What I noticed again and again was that many companies failed to build a structure and promise around their creativity - and as a result - their business failed to grow. They loved their equipment and tech and beers on Fridays - but they didn’t see how the really boring tasks of balancing budgets and doing proper legal led to meaningful outcomes.
Structured creativity says that fanciful doodles and spreadsheets can coexist.
And so this has become my ethos as a creative, as a CEO and as a leader. In fact, it’s on the second page of our Mighteor company handbook: “While we are a creative company, we are still a business. Our creativity is how we make our money, but without structure and management - it is impossible for us to do our job well, deliver product on time and consistently produce at a high level. Creatives get a bad rap. In all areas of creative work, the people that do it are often stereotyped as inconsistent, unprofessional and difficult to work with. At Mighteor, we must always strive to be the opposite of this stereotype.”
My stringent worship of structure does not come easily to me. It’s a forced skill I find tiresome at best and, at its worst, makes me not want to do the work at all. But when I’m in my darkest corners of resentment for my own self-imposed point of view on how we do business - I occasionally see just how magical it can be.
Creativity is not a math equation. There are not right answers. There are not wrong answers. There are many paths that can lead to artistic and strategic success. And while the spreadsheets help us keep track of budgets and how much we can spend on locations and talent - it doesn’t tell us where to shoot or who to cast. There is freedom to having a clear picture of what the resources will allow us to dream up. And I appreciate how much opportunity that provides each project to adapt and grow.
Creativity is not nearly as random as people may suggest, either. Every new client with my company goes through a creative briefing, a process where we ask all kinds of questions about their company, their video, their aesthetic preferences. We take a metaphorical microscope and assess their strategy or vision. Part of the creative process is coming to a place of shared goals and objectives. If we know what we need to achieve with our creativity, we can be all the more brilliant.
And constraints are actually your best friend. When I think about the client projects I love most - I always come back to the projects where the sky wasn’t the limit, but rather, where limits were everywhere. In fact, the limit was something like 6 inches above the baseboards for a few of these projects. And yet, again and again, we found a way to make a vision come to life. We used a skate park in the suburbs instead of the city - or we got the wardrobe from Target. When you stop focusing on just how BIG YOU CAN BE and instead focus in on just how effectively you can creatively stretch - you find new limits.
However, those same constraints can make things scary. Add the risk and the money and well, suddenly we’re making video by checklist. As a client, it’s really important not to lose sight of the gray areas where creatives need to live and work. The mind has a remarkable ability to stretch and adapt. Part of our jobs as creatives is to develop a vision so compelling and vacuous in how it draws you in - that the viewer can’t help but watch. So often, when projects go wrong, it’s because our clients lose faith in the viewers ability to stretch. When we treat viewers like they need to be spoon-fed, we immediately lose their trust. And there is no amount of money or resources you can throw at that. You must be willing as a creative and as a client to take the risk of allowing the viewer to explore the gray space with you.
I call it Structured Creativity. On my best days, I call it Magic. Whatever you call it, if it works, embrace it. At least, it does for me.
But here’s the thing: like any good thing that works (like Starbucks, Instagram filters and kisses) it can be killed. And it’s not by the things you would expect. It’s not by being bold. Or by getting too excited. It’s not by being risky. Or by being willing to try new things. Creative magic is killed by fear.
Fear that it won’t work.
Fear that people won’t like it.
Fear that the client won’t be happy.
Fear that we can’t technically pull it off.
Fear that we don’t know what platform it belongs on.
Fear that it’s too risky.
Fear that we won’t have planned enough.
For all the years I’ve been doing this work in one capacity or another - I have met hundreds of people pursuing creative passions and if you ask each of them why their project failed, why their painting didn’t sell, why they never finished the screenplay - not one will tell you that fear killed their project. But the number of times someone has told me they ran out of money or ran out of time or just ran out of whatever was inside them - well - nearly 100% will say because there wasn’t enough of something.
But if you ask me, the hard truth most creatives won’t say out loud is that fear killed them.
Fear of rejection.
Fear of failure.
Fear of mediocrity.
And there won’t be a spreadsheet to point to that outlines said fear. Or explains it’s existence. Or how to overcome it.
Here’s my point: As creatives we must learn to control two things - our process AND our fear. Our process is possibility. It makes it humanly achievable to take our creative dreams and turn them into creative realities. If we can control that, we can actually break down our beautiful brains into something tangible - an actual, finished product.
And then we must learn how to control our fear. The fear that the process won’t be enough. The fear that we won’t make the client happy. The fear that we will fail to deliver. And in turn, we must ask our clients and creative collaborators to not bring fear into the birthing of ideas that we are trying to bring to the table. No successful creative project was ever formed out of fear. And no creative person can possibly sustain a career formed on a foundation of fear. Let me say that again in all caps just to make it very clear: NO CREATIVE PERSON CAN POSSIBLY SUSTAIN A CAREER FORMED ON A FOUNDATION OF FEAR.
I could type for hours on the topic of how fear destroys so much more than just our creativity - but I’ll leave you with this final thought about the power of structured creativity when we choose to be fearless: When you stop worrying about failing and start working toward succeeding, what will you have left to be afraid of?
Here’s a secret about me: Twelve months ago, I hated vulnerability. I hated feeling vulnerable. I hated being in a vulnerable situation. I hated the definition of vulnerable. I hated even having the word associated in my general direction. Me and vulnerability weren’t on good terms.
Then something crazy happened. I broke up with my boyfriend. Ok, that’s not all that crazy. But here was the thing: no one knew. I was so mortified by the way we broke up that I didn’t tell my family. I didn’t tell my friends. I told my employees I had to move - the rest was implied. In addition to hating vulnerability, I am also an incredibly proud person. This combination is deadly when it comes to grown-up life. It manifests itself in all sorts of ways: I delay going to the doctor when I should. I never ask for help when carrying large, heavy objects. This has hurt my back and my pride more than a few times. But it’s also been incredibly useful. I get shit done. My feelings go unhurt most of the time. I am never overly sensitive to harsh feedback and can usually look at things pretty logically.
Heartbreak is different, though. It’s not logical. It’s not avoidable. It’s presence always lurking for longer than you’d expect. In the midst of my breakup and move out, I had to cancel a meeting with a client. I figured it was no big deal, but when she called me back, she said:
“What are you doing?”
It was routine. It was plain. I could have avoided the truth. Instead, I told her.
“I am attempting to pack up my life and move out of this house and not fall apart.”
I was immediately embarrassed to have let my guard down. To have told her the honest truth was not my plan. My plan was to bullshit. To reschedule. I failed.
“I’m coming over.”
When you consider yourself a badass, you don’t want to be associated with anything that will make you feel decidedly un-badass. You don’t want to be seen in your worst sweats. You don’t want to be seen with your makeup all over your face. You don’t want to be seen sobbing. Or failing to eat. Or breathe. Or function. And I know I was ALL of those things in that moment. I was failing at being a functional human adult, let alone being a badass. But I did something that day that I’m still surprised by: I let this client help me. I let her sit with me while Beyonce songs played and I cried and packed my coffee mugs and vases. I let her see me at my worst. I trusted that she would still want to work with me when it was all over.
Spoiler: She did. We continue to work together in a business capacity today.
But even better, she became one of my closest friends that day. She became a confidant. A sister of sorts. And my secret keeper. She saw a badass in pain AND chose to know that I was more. She chose to forget that image and retain the one of the leather jacket-wearing Liz that I’m so proud to be. She chose to help a badass get back to her badassery.
This event has taught me a tremendous amount about myself. This is just a highlight reel of those things, but if you’re struggling to let the real pain you’re facing see the light of day - I suggest you open that window. The truth is that being an entrepreneur is an isolating and exhausting life choice. Closing ourselves off from our feelings and emotions only prevents us from growing as professionals and as people. I became a better business woman in the months after this client helped me move. And it was because we now had a report that was entirely open, entirely free of pretense and built on a foundation of: “hey, it’s OK. I know you’re a badass - even when you’re not.”
Vulnerability allows a badass to… Understand that pain is powerful force for good. It makes us empathize and sympathize with one another. It gives us the capacity to give to someone when they need it and accept that gift in return.
Vulnerability allows a badass to… Get past the pretense and see the real person. Knowing the people you’re working with closely gives all of us a deeper relationship. The team becomes stronger. The work becomes more personal.
Vulnerability allows a badass to… Have a healthy dose of fear when taking big risks. That reality check makes us better planners, better leaders and better partners.
Vulnerability allows a badass to… Focus on the real heart of your story. It gives us the clarity to see what really makes our business and our people special. It allows us to be better bosses who understand and appreciate our employees and their paths that led us together. It provides tremendous insight into our clients because it allows us to respect that they have pain points as a business too and alleviating those pains is what will give us the ability to be a truly powerful team.
Vulnerability allows a badass to… See beyond the logical goals and missions of an organization and appreciate the human element of everything we do. At Mighteor, we tell stories. And the best stories are always a little bit random.
Vulnerability allows a badass to… Ask for help when we need it. Whether that’s hiring more support. Turning to a colleague and having the courage to ask them to pitch in. Or giving the boss the true picture of what is really happening in the moment, so they can make it better.
Vulnerability allows a badass to… Truly celebrate the real wins. When my colleague and friend’s business successfully raised $3 Million - I cried. I felt completely part of that victory. I felt so proud. I felt so honored to have been part of the journey.
If you’re afraid of vulnerability - maybe ask yourself why. Because it’s not making you stronger. In fact, it’s probably making you weaker. And as any good badass knows, weakness is never the goal.
I love my job. And I know I am on a very short list of people who feel that way. So when people tell me that they’re not inspired by their work or just don’t care as much as they should, I truly KNOW that it can be different.
We released our reel for Mighteor over the weekend and I wanted to share it with you because I think many of our clients know this too. And it shows in their vision and HOPEFULLY how we made it come to life visually at my company.
The companies in our reel this year are all from very different backgrounds, but they have one thing in common: they LOVE what they’re doing. They believe in it. And they are willing to stretch the traditional norms of how things get done in order to build their company. I try to learn from them all the time.
If you don’t love what you’re doing, you don’t necessarily need to go get a new job right away. I promise. So much is about perspective and latching onto the things that make us happy in the day to day. That can be turning your morning meeting into a once monthly breakfast with the team. Or doing walk and talks with your colleagues so you keep moving.
Have a little love for your day job. After all, we spend most of our lives there. We should at least make the effort to make it worthwhile.
