Lafayette Julius
Good afternoon, everyone. I’m excited today to present to you guys another edition of the Atlanta Startup Podcast featuring one of the top finalists and winner of the Startup Runway cohort number 10. We’re very, very excited to have Miss Carolyn Pitt today and myself, Lafayette Julius of Valor Ventures, and Rodney Morris, also of Valor Ventures. First, I just want to congratulate Carolyn on being the finalist and winning the cohort. I mean, that’s an extremely competitive achievement you’d beat out a hundred startups to definitely be recognized. It’s funny we talked a week before and just discussed your company and then the following week, you end up winning the whole event. That’s very great. I just want you to comment, dive in, and tell the world a little bit more about what you do with some milestones that you achieved so far.
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, thanks very much, Lafayette and Rodney. It’s a pleasure to be here with both of you. It was an honor to participate in Startup Runway and certainly exciting to win cohort 10 as well. As you mentioned, I’m the founder and CEO of Film Connx. We are the job marketplace for production professionals. We are headquartered in Atlanta, which is the busiest production hub in the world. Our platform makes it easier for studios and producers and music labels and corporate brands to source vetted local crews. Not only are they driving workforce and economic development locally, but they’re also saving a tremendous amount of their production budgets by hiring, experienced and talented vetted local professionals. A bit about my background, I’m an intellectual property and entertainment attorney. My background also includes management consulting, strategy, and business development. It’s helpful to have that background in pulling together and ideating and creating our platform. I also have an incredible team that assists with product development, and a number of other factors, including business development. We’re reaching out and expanding as we see as we speak this afternoon. So, just a pleasure to be here, and looking forward to the conversation.
Lafayette Julius
That’s incredible. Thanks for sharing it. Let’s dive into the Startup Runway experience for you. What did it actually do for you? And would you recommend it for other founders?
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, Startup Runway was an awesome experience, starting with the mock board room. Getting a chance to run my own board room filled with people I had yet to meet. Although fortunately, I did know one of the investors who was randomly placed in our room. It was a challenge to make sure that I had an agenda that covered an actual item that I would talk to my board about. So that was an interesting experience, and certainly valuable and helpful. We went into the main event, where all 10 of us got a chance to showcase our companies and answer a few questions. What was exciting for me was in the chat, after I finished pitching and answering questions, I had a number of people reaching out who were interested in learning more about what we’re doing. It was an exciting experience and as you mentioned, it was really thrilling to find out at the end that we are the winners.
Lafayette Julius
Great. Rodney, do you want to chime in on that?
Rodney Morris
Yes, sounds great, Carolyn. A lot of the finalists always say that the board room situation allowed them to hear something that they didn’t think about, or they didn’t think about. What can you share that the board shared with you that kind of stuck with you and landed?
Carolyn Pitt
I’m trying to think. It’s interesting because Lisa asked the question right after we were all put into the main room. I can’t remember exactly what that nugget was but there were so many gems. What was great was, it was a diverse group of investors from all over the southeast. They were very candid and they asked great questions. They gave me things to think about that I might not have considered. I’d have to harken back to my notes to see the specifics. One of the things I remember now was a range. It was talking about your race as a range instead of as a static number. They talked about the pros and cons of that. That was an interesting point of view that I definitely looked into after and I’m considering going forward.
Lafayette Julius
Let’s dive into your customers with Film Connx and what kind of customers are you looking for right now for building your business?
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, that’s a great question. So we are already partnering with studios and production houses who are creating content. Everything from independent projects all the way up through feature films and TV shows. We welcome more opportunities to work with studios, not only those who are here in the Atlanta area where we’re based or working with folks out in California as well, who have created and greenlit content and are planning to shoot it here in Atlanta. I should mention, as a footnote, we don’t just work in the production hub of Atlanta, Georgia. We actually are working throughout the US and various production hubs. We started here and intended for this to be our pilot city and state and very quickly, have gotten interests from New York, Chicago, San Francisco, and some other hubs. We have a couple of independent celebrity producers who are creating content with who we’re partnering with. And interestingly enough, we are now working with major music labels. Sony Music is a new partner and we are assisting them with finding production talent for some of the projects that they have coming up in Q1 of next year.
Lafayette Julius
Wow, that’s amazing, Carolyn. To get that much traction early on in your business, I think is amazing. You mentioned not just being in Atlanta, but being in global markets. I have another question. What do you think right now, and your market is like a marketing channel that you feel is utilize right now?
Carolyn Pitt
I think in general, hiring locally, is a methodology that’s underutilized and entertainment and there’s a number of reasons for that. The most pressing one is that there really hasn’t been a good mechanism until now, to find local folks and why it’s so important to hire locally. We have talented people across this country, who don’t often get a chance to work on a lot of the major productions that occur in their hometowns. And so for them, it’s the struggle of wanting to work within their craft and having to buttress their income doing other things. While they wait for opportunities for the studios, it makes a ton of sense to hire locally. On average, studios are spending $6300 per month per crew member to import talent into hubs like here in Georgia, rather than hiring locally. And so just as an example, as I mentioned, during the pitch the other day for Avengers Infinity War, that total $79 million spent just on per diem travel and housing, that could have been spent otherwise by the studio on top of wages. I would say that one thing is really the power of hiring locally. Now, there’s a mechanism like Film Connx to really be able to surface the talent, know that it’s vetted, and have a manner of a way to easily hire them and pay them directly on the platform. That’s thing one. And the second thing is, as has been talked about a lot this year, there’s an opportunity to create more diversity. In fact, there’s a need to create more diversity within entertainment. Women and people of color are severely underrepresented in both film and TV, and we have the opportunity as a platform. Although we work with crew members of all backgrounds, we have the opportunity to elevate the profiles of women and people of color making it easier to identify them. We’re proud to do that to help level the playing field. I think most folks don’t realize some of the statistics and just how stark they are. So for example, two times of the folks who are working in the industry are men, so men are twice as likely to have an industry job as our women. Caucasians are two times as likely to have a job within film and TV as are professionals of color. There are a number of organizations that have called it out, their number of actors and other people in the industry who’ve said something about it, but to actually have a solution that can make it easier to identify underrepresented crewmembers and hire them, we’re really proud to be helping in that second facet of a trend within entertainment.
Rodney Morris
I would say nothing is super important. Media entertainment background is definitely where the numbers are very stark but also the barriers of entry are high. I think what you’re doing is great. Could you please just share with us, like the founding story floors? I think that would be very interesting to hear. What was that moment for you to know that this is what I need to build and I’m gonna go for it?
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, it’s a great question, Rodney. So as I mentioned, my background, I’m an IP and entertainment attorney. I have always had something to do with the film, whether it was taking film classes and undergrad and in law school, creating my own content, working with clients, and having friends in the industry. I kept hearing over and over again that they were challenged to find work and even when they had a job, they were worried about finding their next job. I thought that doesn’t sound like it makes sense, especially here in Atlanta, because as you both know, over the last 10/11 years, the industry has really exploded. There’s a ton of content being created here. And so I thought, “Well, let me just look into this and see if it’s just a fluke that only my friends are experiencing this or my clients are challenged by this.” I started doing a sort of informal customer discovery. I started going to industry events around the city. It was always topic number one. The first thing that was brought up was, how do we find out how to get on these, these productions queued up. I decided to enroll in an incubator. Digital Undivided is an incubator for black and Latinx women. It was previously headquartered here in Atlanta, it’s now headquartered in Newark. It’s a fantastic organization. I got a chance to do formal customer discovery and really understand a lot more about how to go about building the platform, and just really understand the different methodologies that are required to really build a sound startup. And from there, I kept going, I actually enrolled at Atlanta Tech Village as it takes a village pre-accelerator at the same time that I was in the incubator. And from there, I did the same thing with a few other programs and ultimately, participated in a couple of really amazing programs that Google has. One is the Black Founders Exchange, and the other one’s the Atlanta Founder Academy, which really helped to elevate our game, helped to make additional introductions to investors and potential customers, and really to partner with a community of like-minded founders who are also building incredible companies who also happen to be folks of color and women. That’s kind of where we started and from there to now we have a team of seven people. We’re working with clients, as I mentioned, we’re onboarding candidates every day. We’ve got some more exciting things coming out that we’ll be sharing in the coming days. Most exciting, this week we are announcing Include by Film Connx, which is our answer to the lack of diversity within the industry. It’s a formal way for our clients and prospects to be able to source women and people of color for production opportunities that they have.
Rodney Morris
That sounds so great. I’m just happy to hear about all of the different initiatives around getting people into film and TV. Actually one of my mentors, Brandon Williams, he’s the COO of Steve Harvey Global. They just created an initiative to get black executives in the film to connect with songwriters and things of that nature. Starting top of Q1. So it just is just great to hear that we’re gonna have a more diverse representation within this industry.
Carolyn Pitt
See how small the world is, Rodney? Brandon and I used to practice law together at Alston & Bird years ago.
Rodney Morris
Alright, so I used to work at Alston & Bird.
Carolyn Pitt
Yep, that’s where I practiced law as an IP litigator.
Rodney Morris
Yes, absolutely.
Lafayette Julius
I think that’s amazing, Carolyn. You touched on so many points, just what we do here at Valor, and with inclusion premium and really driving that mission to underrepresented founders in areas where capital and resources are needed. I think for me as a founder, and investor also, I know my journey was different, but I’m curious what your journey is especially being a woman of color. How different is it for you to raise capital for a startup?
Carolyn Pitt
It’s a great question. I always preface it by saying raising capital can be difficult for any founder. However, what I know to be true is that it is indeed harder for the founders of color. And it is indeed harder for women founders and intersectionality really is a thing. As a black woman founder, it’s challenging. I know that there are investors who, when they think of a founder, might not visualize a black woman with an entertainment platform that’s already doing really well. Oftentimes, it’s an educational process of being able to get in the door. I’ve always lived by the notion, if I can get in the door, I can close the sale and close the deal. Getting in that door, however, can be challenging when this is a system that was not set up for founders of color or for women founders. Still, we rise, we still charge ahead, but I will say it’s definitely been challenging, just as a black woman founder to identify the investors who are open to having the conversation. But we’ve had some success, we’ve secured a number of investors and angels and we’re in discussions now. It’s going well, however, it shouldn’t have to be an unlevel playing field. I hope that we will see some changes to that in the short term.
Lafayette Julius
With you paving the way, I will definitely see some changes. I think we will all see some changes. In these different industries, so I think that’s great. I know everybody’s going through troubling times, like you mentioned, with COVID and pandemic. What are some ways that Film Connx is still growing faster with the stress and staying to be innovative in their market?
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, that’s a great question. So it’s interesting. COVID really has negatively impacted, in fact, devastated the entertainment industry. Every production immediately ground to a halt, many have not restarted. Here in Georgia, we actually have more productions going on than anywhere else in the country, which is normally the case, but we’ve started up faster and sooner. Part of that is because we’ve had access to COVID testing and also to compliance officers. Travel is so much harder now for the crew. And so ironically, Film Connx value propositions even greater than before, because hiring locally now makes sense and is necessary in many cases, because it’s difficult or impossible to fly folks. In addition to doing what we’ve always done, Film Connx now provides COVID compliance officers, and also we partner with an organization to provide pop up COVID testing to productions so that they can get restarted very quickly, and also as safely as possible. We will continue to do that for as long as we need to until we are on the other end of the virus and its threat.
Lafayette Julius
That’s incredible, Carolyn. I guess we can go back to one of the biggest lessons I guess you learned from Startup Runway and just from an investor, what was maybe one of the biggest lessons that you might have learned?
Carolyn Pitt
I’d say just always be ready. I found out pretty close to the time that I was selected that I would be pitching, unfortunately, I had my deck, and what I was going to say ready to go. That has been probably the most helpful thing throughout just building a business and now pitching it with investors is always being prepared. And then just ready for whatever comes your way you don’t know what questions you’ll be asked, either have the right answers in mind or just know that it’s your business. You know more about it than anyone else. You may even know more about the industry than the folks that you’re talking to. Stay confident and poised and ready for whatever comes your way and you’ll persevere.
Lafayette Julius
That’s always a great mindset to have, especially building a company and as the founder and CEO you’re the captain of the ship, and you have to always be ready and be able to pivot. I definitely agree with you on that. Carolyn. What is the single most thing that differentiates you guys from the competition?
Carolyn Pitt
I’d say our team. I really believe in our team. I happen to know that what we are building is of great interest to a lot of people. There are folks who are interested in building something similar that I would say authenticity speaks volumes. I would say truly living and walking in your purpose matters. Because our team is so devoted and so innovative, I believe we will continue to stay ahead of any competitors that are out there that might arise. First move advantage definitely matters as well as relationships. We have been developing relationships for almost three years now within the industry for Film Connx, we know relationships matter a lot in business as well. We look forward to bringing those to bear and staying ahead of any competitors and we welcome it. It’s a free marketplace. We know that we’re going to be a leader in this space.
Lafayette Julius
That’s amazing. Yes, I think having a supportive cast and team is definitely fuel to have. You definitely seem to know who the right people to pick, building his disciple business, so I definitely commend you on that. Rodney, with your background in entertainment, I know you have some other diving in questions you might want to ask her.
Rodney Morris
Yes, absolutely, Carolyn. I’m interested to hear about the goals and the milestones you want to achieve.
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, so it’s interesting. What we know is on the other end of COVID while we’re still working now with our clients, we know there’s going to be a huge boom of hiring that will occur. We know that space is going to be an issue, we know that talent is going to be an issue. While we can’t help with space, because there’s a finite amount of soundstages, we can definitely help with studios and producers, and labels and brands who are looking for production talent because we can provide them very quickly the folks with the skill set in the right geography with the right availability very quickly. We can onboard them very quickly to their projects, as well as pay them and manage the reporting and compliance. Knowing that we’re going to be a resource and a leader in that space when the hiring boom occurs or even before it is exciting. In addition, we know that there’s going to be a lot more diverse content coming down the pike that’s already been happening. We also know that the authenticity of the stories and the narrative that we appreciate as a society via TV shows and our films, it matters who’s taking part in the creation of that content. Whether it’s the person who is in front of the camera behind above or below the line and because we can provide women and diverse talent for these projects, we have milestones related to getting as many people working who previously have not had a chance to work on some of these productions as much as they should. So it’s really around more users, more crew members working in the industry, and then dollars saved by those who have traditionally been importing talent, bringing sand to the beach, disrupting in all the best ways so that all of those things can occur.
Rodney Morris
Sounds great. I think it’s time for it. I think being ahead of the curve is definitely important as you say, a lot of these things are going to get uplifted. I think the film industry is definitely ripe for disruption. We’ll see a lot of interesting things there at post-COVID as a lot of things are not happening in LA right now. But they’re searching for things to happen so it’s going to be interesting to see. I think you’re on the cups of it, so congrats to you on that. How can people get in touch with you if they want to talk about your business and want to be a potential customer or interested in the platform?
Carolyn Pitt
Yes, that’s a great question. So the first thing I mentioned is that you can follow us on social if you want to see how we’re growing and what we’re up to. We are @FilmConnx, and that’s on IG, Twitter, and also at the ends of the URL strings for both Facebook and LinkedIn. That’s really the best way to find us and you can reach out. I’ll definitely get a message through any of those platforms as well if you’re interested in knowing more of what’s on the horizon and how you can be a part of working with Film Connx.
Lafayette Julius
Incredible, Carolyn. Well, I think that pretty much wraps it up for another edition of the Atlanta Startup Podcast. I want to thank Carolyn for joining us and being the winner for the Startup Runway 10th cohort and also Rodney, also with Valor. I love the product, Carolyn, and love you as a founder. I’m just really, excited to see Film Connx grow and scale to the next level.
Carolyn Pitt
Thank you very much and thanks again for having me. It was a pleasure.
Lisa
The Atlanta Startup Podcast is produced by Valor Ventures as a service to the startup and investor community. We couldn’t do it without the support of our sponsors–Atlanta Tech Park, the global innovation center, and Write2Market, Atlanta’s favorite tech, and healthcare marketing firm. If you’d like to get your information on the Atlanta Startup Podcast, our share a message with our listeners, visit us online and check out our affordable rate card. All advertisements here are tax-deductible donations to the Startup Runway Foundation, a nonprofit whose mission is connecting underrepresented founders to their first investor.
