6 Reasons Filmmakers Are Entrepreneurs
Filmmakers often don’t like to think of themselves as business people. Often, they’d rather be creative, and focus solely on the art of cinema. Unfortunately, this is not the way to create a career crafting moving images. In order to make a career, you must understand how to make money. The easiest way to do that is to think like an entrepreneur. here are 6 reasons why.
1. Filmmakers and Entrepreneurs both Must Turn an Idea into a Product.
At its core, the goal of both being a filmmaker and an entrepreneur is the same. To take an idea, and turn it into a market-ready product. For an entrepreneur, this product can be anything from software to food products, and everything in between. For a filmmaker, the product is content. Generally speaking, that content is a completed film, web series, or Television series.
This alone should be enough to see how filmmakers are entrepreneurs, but it’s not the only way the two job titles are similar
2. Filmmakers and Entrepreneurs are both creative innovators birthing something that has never been seen before.
Every successful company does something no one else ever has. Every successful film brings something that’s never been seen before to the market. Some innovations are minor, others major. Both sets of innovations are born by iterating on another idea that didn’t quite make their product in a way that the entrepreneur or filmmaker thinks is the best way.
Innovation is at the core of both filmmaking and entrepreneurship. Both involve intelligent and creative people who want to change the world. Some through technology, some through storytelling.
3. Filmmakers and Entrepreneurs both must figure out who will buy their product.
If either a filmmaker or an entrepreneur is to be successful, then they need to figure out who will buy their product when it’s ready to ship. If they don’t know what their target market is, then it’s impossible to make enough money to keep the company going or help investors recoup so you can make another film.
Market research is key to this. If you want to find out more, check out last week’s blog by clicking here.
4. Filmmakers and Entrepreneurs both often need to raise money to create their products.
While everything else on this list is true nearly 100% of the time, this one is only true 80-90% of the time. While some entrepreneurs and filmmakers can finance their companies out of pocket, most filmmakers need to consider how they’ll pay for the things necessary to create their chosen product.
Both filmmakers and entrepreneurs must develop a deep understanding of fundraising if they’re going to be able to make their career in their chosen field a long-term sustainable one.
5. Filmmakers and Entrepreneurs must both assemble a team to turn their idea into a product.
No one can make a film or build a company all by themselves. Both must build and manage a team of creatives and business people to create their product and take it out to the world. Without the ability to build and lead a team to success, the film or the company will not succeed.
6. Filmmakers and Entrepreneurs must both figure out how to take their products to market.
After coming up with an idea, figuring out who will buy their product, financing their vision, and assembling a team in order to create a product, filmmakers still need to get that product and figure out how to take it to market. For both, this is generally referred to as the distribution stage of the process.
For filmmakers, it’s relatively well-defined despite the information about it not being widely enough available. For entrepreneurs, their distribution plan will vary greatly by industry. But in either case, if the end user/viewer can’t access the product, they won’t buy it.
Thank you so much for reading. If you’d like to become a better indie film entrepreneur, you should check out my FREE Indiefilm Resource package. it’s got a free e-book called The Entrepreneurial Producer, several templates to help you organize your operation including a pitch deck template, and monthly blog digests to help you expand your knowledge base.
