00:00

And what I learned from my tech background is that when things catch on a broad level, there will only be so many companies that could compete in that space. You know, you realize that while all businesses are tribal and all businesses run on relationships, the entertainment business is the, I mean, legitimately the most tribal business in the world. So this, this teaches you how to build that audience, how to make sure you're not wasting time.

00:28

trying to just make everyone your audience. The hardest part of ending is starting again.

00:37

listening to the Radcast. If it's radical, we cover it. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Hey guys, what's up? Welcome to the latest edition of the Radcast. It's radical today, folks. We've been creeping down the entertainment path with celebrities and the other way, but we're kind of going down the tech and other highway, I would say, of the entertainment industry, both the tech, even though...

01:05

This guest is both an actor and a writer and a speaker and all those things. He's also the founder of a bad-ass platform called Stage32. Richard RB Botto. What's up, brother? What's up, Ryan? Great to be here, my friend. Thanks for having me. Hey man. I'm excited. I, uh, been talking with your team. I got to learn a lot about you. And I was like, all right, I want to talk to this guy. Want to learn more about Stage32. And I, you know, I'm excited for our audience to hear more about, you know, your journey and, and really.

01:34

the nuts and bolts because you know, look, the entertainment industry is, and I don't have to tell you, has gone through this evolution the last 10 years. The streaming wars, if you call them, of Netflix and Disney and Peacock and everybody's, I mean, there's so much content being developed, but it's, it's different, you know, because of not only the volume, but just the avenues with which they go, the democratization.

02:01

Of the industry, which I know you've been a big part of. And I want to talk about that. It's fascinating to me. So I just was thrilled to have you on to kind of talk about that journey. Oh, it's a thrill to be here. Big fan of the show. Big fan of everything you do. I mean, I think, you know, it's been wild to see and impressive to see everything that you've grown. So, uh, yeah, it's, it's fantastic to be here, my friend. Well, cool. I know you're in New York. You're in my old stomping grounds there, right? Right there. Uh,

02:28

Uh, Tribeca where I lived for a number of years. So I'm a little jealous because I miss some parts of Manhattan. I sometimes I don't miss with what's happened with COVID. I'm going like, I don't think I would have been there. I wanted to be there during that, but hopefully if we ever get the hell out of this thing, we'll, uh, I want to get back up there, but, uh, let's talk, let's get down the positive road. I w for everybody listening, let's talk RB story. Um, let's start there. Let's kind of give them, you know, your professional journey.

02:56

and leading up to, of course, Stage 32. Sure, yeah. I actually grew up here in New York and started as an actor in theater. Always loved the arts, always was a writer, was involved in everything film early on, theater early on, and was also involved to pay the bills. I got involved with a few technology companies, particularly in the software space, the billing space, and helped exit,

03:25

a couple of companies exit, so it did pretty well there. And then an opportunity arose to start a magazine, which interested me a lot because it was, you know, at the time, print was having this sort of resurgence and the men's lifestyle category to me was lacking, you know, everybody was following the maxim mentality. GQ and Esquire had kind of...

03:52

You know, dumbed down a little bit, you know, GQ had gone from, you know, athletes, Michael Jordan on the cover, you know, in a $3,000 suit standing in front of a Bentley to Lindsay Lohan in panties and standing in front of a barrel of cherries, you know, with the very subtle, very subtle messaging. I call that the race to the bottom. Race to the fucking bottom, man. And I was like, you know, what there needs to be, you know, a men's lifestyle magazine that long form journalism.

04:22

You know, men, like I used to joke, you know, when you're done with your maximum years and not ready for your Esquire years, what's that magazine that fills the gap? So, you know, started a magazine called Razor, which was a men's lifestyle magazine. It was national, competed right in that space. And we routinely outsold GQ and Esquire. It was amazing for a single title publisher, but that was our problem. We were a single title publisher, competing against the kind of NAS and the hearse of this world. And also at a time where...

04:50

especially after 9-11.

04:53

even though this was years later, what started to happen was that a lot of these companies, a lot of these brands were taking their ad dollars away from print and putting it into digital. They weren't creating a new budget. And so it was a problem for us. But during that time, even though we were routinely outselling everybody, our ad dollars were pretty good, but it started to level off and you could see the decline. And even though we tried to transfer to digital, digital side, nobody was really ready to do

05:23

ready for that. In fact, you can see even today the paywall type situation is still a challenge for a lot of big media companies. But during that time, the blessing of that time was not only, I mean...

05:35

incredible experience and obviously meeting a ton of people but getting to know a lot of people in the industry and in entertainment and Being able to segue back into you know a writing and producing career Because of it because I started meeting people in the business and now of course There's a new proving ground that to prove that I could do this so the journey took me back into film Started producing some films in and one of the first ones I was involved with was Barry Levinson's son Sam

06:05

who of course now does euphoria and on HBO and has forged an amazing career. But his first film was a movie called Another Happy Day and I got involved with that. And it was during that, you know, it was a typical independent film experience where you're in the middle of nowhere. We had some great stars, you know, we had Ellen Bark and Thomas Hayden Church, Demi Moore.

06:24

uh... kate bosworth you know you've got a lot of good a lot of people and you know i was just saying at a hotel in the middle of nowhere and that's the big doing the indy film guerrilla style nobody about it well when it's over everybody kind of goes their separate ways and when the tax incentives dried up in michigan which is where we found it everybody was looking to me to come out to l a to you know say how you can help me get but job can you help me you know help me and

06:49

You realize that while all businesses are tribal and all businesses run on relationships, the entertainment business is legitimately the most tribal business in the world. And that got me thinking about what was the embryonic idea of Stage 32. At the time, Facebook was blowing up, Twitter was just launching, they had just had the big South by Southwest debut and was starting to get rolling.

07:14

And what I learned from my tech background is that when things catch on a broad level, there will only be so many companies that can compete in that space. And we've seen that borne out over the last 12, 15 years where you have your Facebooks and you have your Twitters and you have your TikToks now. And every once in a while, one will pop up Instagram, so on and so forth. But I figured that what would happen was these things would filter down to niche levels. And so what I wanted to have was the first platform.

07:43

for film, television, and digital content creators and professionals worldwide.

07:48

dedicated to the business and you know I just went about building it to be perfectly honest with you. I did it backwards, not a way I would recommend to anyone else or that you would read in a book. I just put my money in my mouth, built the first iteration of it and then went to a hundred of my friends in the industry and said you're going to use it and you're going to tell me what you like and you're going to tell me what you don't like. And I said you're going to help me build a community, we're going to invite people and that sort of mantra has stayed there today or is still there today and we've gone from

08:18

our original 100 members, over 800,000 people worldwide, and now also the biggest education platform for film, television, and digital creatives and professionals, and also a marketplace. Hey.

08:32

That's a lot brother, lot to unpack there. And you know, exciting, I remember Razor, you said that and I may have skipped over that or like bleased over that, I didn't know you were involved with that, but I remember that magazine, I like that magazine. Look at that subscription. It was a great ride, I mean it was so much fun. I'm sure there's people that are listening to this because I know you have a lot of entrepreneurial minded people and that.

08:58

and

09:15

at the end was the highest it ever was. Every issue was outselling the last. And, and, but the, the advertising, you know, was challenged because again, Hearst could go out and sell seven titles at once and discount against my one. So that was the challenge there. Interesting. Uh, is, uh, let's, I want to explain for people because if you're not in the

09:43

overwhelming and also some ignorance just because there's not, if you're not in it, you don't know how complicated it is to make these films, to make the TV shows from production to writing to all of that. I'd like to do a little 101, like talk to me like the layers of the 800,000. Like

10:09

What are the main categories of people that are on the platform and what they're doing? Yeah, well, I mean, a bulk, it's everybody above the line and below the line. There's a home for you on the platform. We have everybody from managers and agents to craft services. I mean, you know, you name it, you could be on the platform. I would say the majority of our members fall into the acting, screenwriting, filmmaking, producing arenas.

10:38

But we work with now close to 5,000 executives in the business, and those are development executives, again producers, people that can make the content, managers, agents, financiers. So it really has become sort of this marketplace between the content creators and the content makers. And that's what we, when you talk about democratizing, this was always the idea, was

11:08

Because you know, if you're just starting out and you're a writer, it's true. I'm glad you said it that way that people don't realize how difficult it is.

11:16

there are no overnight successes. Everybody believes that. This is a very much a brick by brick business and a marathon business. And like I said earlier, relationship and tribal business. But the way that you can shorten your path is if you can get your material or your talents in front of those decision makers. And really, before this platform existed, the only way to do that was, you know, sometimes through a contest or sometimes through, but.

11:44

really it was through your champions. It was through people that, you know, if I come up to you and you know, you're a manager and I say, man, my, you know, my writing's fantastic. That manager's getting in, you know, just inundated with material day after day. They're like, yeah, sure, you and everybody else. But one of their clients or one of their peers or somebody comes and says, no, no, no, you gotta read RB's stuff, it's really good, goes to the top. That used to be the way, the only way it really worked.

12:13

This platform allows you to literally be able to get in front of those executives that we work with. And it's a perfect two-way street because those executives in this era of an amazing amount of content being produced and the need for content and the need for speed, they want to get in front of material that nobody else has seen.

12:35

Because in this business, people go, how come there's so many shitty movies that get made? I'll tell you a couple reasons why. One is because there's so much interference from people that the business people don't understand the creative, but they think they do. That's one problem. But the second problem is that...

12:52

Good material goes to the biggest places first. It goes to the studios and the Netflixes and the streamers and everything. And then when it gets passed on, it filters down and filters down and filters down. And then eventually, if you're a small production company, you've got to make something. And you go and you make it, and it's not at a higher level. This helps those companies as well get in front of material that they're getting a first look at.

13:22

Like the business gets away in the way of the creative. Oh,

13:27

book about that. Every good ad we've ever written gets watered down by the business. But at the same time, hey, we get it. Everybody's got to get paid and they think they're doing what's best. And I'm like, hey, if you get out of our way, we can actually do some good work. So if I'm a screenwriter or a production company or something like that, I come sign up on the platform.

13:56

I start engaging with content, educational stuff, some of your writing, some of your team stuff. Um, and then everyone's just kind of cross pollinating, like, you know, sharing their book, their reel or whatever it is responding to posts that might be looking for stuff like that. Am I, am I kind of breaking it down to how it works?

14:20

Yeah, I would say this, you know, the way we look at internally is we say we have three divisions to stage 32. The first division would be the social networking, natural relationship building part, which is sort of the same way you would sign up for Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever. You create your profile. In our case, you know, you said you upload your reels, your screenplays, all your work, your bio, and then you go about.

14:45

networking within the platform. We have all these types of forums that we call the lounge. We have a million different resources and this is the way that you can do this is all free. This is a way that you can just go about and control your own destiny. The more work you put in, the more you get out, right? The second division is our education division and what was really important to me when we launched the platform and it took a few years to get there and we knew it would.

15:07

was we wanted to build a library of education and have tiers, you know, webinars, classes, and labs.

15:16

the labs having tiers where people could graduate up and you know, and get, but being taught by people that are professionals in the industry working right now. So the whole idea is okay, we're connecting them, we're training them, and that brings us to the third division, which is the marketplace, or what we call development services. And in that instance, we have executives that say, we wanna be a part of what you're doing, we will offer these services, whether it's mentoring, whether it's you know, looking at scripts

15:46

and consulting calls, whether it's doing line budgets on projects, whether it's doing producing, mentoring, this is how I would go about raising the money, this is where this project fits in the marketplace. And then you as the content maker.

15:59

get to come in, choose the executives. So if you have a horror film, for example, we might have three development executives, five development executives, or producers from some of the top horror production companies in the world, and you will get to put your material in front of them and talk to them about it. So it's a straight line to the people making the content.

16:24

Let's transition a bit to the business of stage 32. Um, I think it's fascinating. I think what you just described is actually true community. It's what you've built, you know, like it's like, that's what it is. Like people talk about it all the time, but that's actually what you've built when you are adding value at all layers. And you know, like that, that's, that's community. Um, so I applaud you for that. The, uh,

16:49

But let's talk about how does Stage32 make money? Like what is the, you've built this amazing community, you're doing it the right way, you're adding lots of value, giving, giving, giving. But at the end of the day, it is a business. So what is the kind of revenue channels for Stage32? Well, first of all, I appreciate you saying that about the community. It's not easy. People say, what was the most difficult part about building this thing? And in a lot of ways, you know,

17:19

Building a community of 800,000 has not been easy, but it has been all about, we always look at everything about the value we're bringing and what we can bring to the community. And the fact that you can come on for free and you never have to pay for anything is something, and you still get this tremendous value is, you know, something that we're very proud of. However, of course, as you say, we are a business and we do have to make money. So the three divisions that I broke out, Division 2, Division 3, Education and Development Services, or that marketplace, those are premium.

17:48

So the webinars, the classes, and the labs are all premium products. We do offer a lot of free education, but our webinars, classes, and labs, you're paying for them.

17:59

And those, like I said, are just world-class training. It's almost like going to film school at one one-thousandth of the price in a lot of ways. And then the development services, you get in front of those executives that we talked about. If you want mentoring from somebody at, I'm throwing out a name, Warner Brothers, Netflix, and we're partners with all these companies. We're partners with Netflix. So if you want to get in front of them, there is also, there's gonna be a premium. But you're getting back value, of course. You're getting back mentorship,

18:29

feedback, you're also obviously paying for the access, which is tremendous. And, you know, to be quite blunt, I mean, a lot of our executives who even teach for us are so, and this is the power of the community that we built, they're so blown away by what we've built. A lot of them don't want to get paid. A lot of them want to, or they want us, you know, we offer to donate their fee to charity, and a lot of times they accept that.

18:56

Because people in this business really do want to get back. But even more importantly, again, in this, what I've been calling the great content goal rush of 2021.

19:05

They need material. They need the access as badly as, as the content creators need the access. So that's, that's where we make the money. The content creators, um, the people looking for the education, uh, they pay for that education and they pay for those development services. That makes sense. Um, and you guys just make a percentage or a fee on what those things are. Right. We handle everything and, and, you know, we, yeah, that's, that's our revenue stream right there. Yeah. How have you grown? You know, I know.

19:35

and talking with your team and I see that this platform could, I mean, you know, 10x, 20x in the next few years with everything going on. I'm sure that's the vision. But how have you grown the 800,000? What, what, call it, and I know it's been, you know, community building is not easy. And there's been marketing involved and there's been, you know, natural word of mouth, I'm sure, but I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like, I'd love to know like some of the marketing that it took.

20:05

and or tactics and or community building. What you had to do to get it to this point? Yeah, sure. It's funny, it was a lot of decisions that were made immediately, early on. And one of them was that I was gonna stand out in front of the company and be the face of the company because I was working as an actor, writer, producer. So basically the messaging was gonna be, look, I'm not just some business guy that had an idea and I'm coming into this industry and filling the need. Yeah, I'm filling a need, but I'm doing it just like you are.

20:33

I am just like you. I have a joke that if you've been in this business for more than five minutes, you can tell somebody that's been in the business for more than five minutes because of their cynicism and somebody that hasn't been in the business for more than five minutes because of their optimism. Right? So-

20:46

So the first thing we knew we had to do was cut through the cynicism. I mean, it's a tough business. It's a lot of no, it's a lot of rejection. So the welcome letter that you see today on Stage 32 is almost exactly the way, almost exactly word for word. A couple of little changes that was there on day one. And this was the idea that, look, we're all in this together. We're going to build this together.

21:09

Okay, we're not going to there's going to be no trolling. There's going to be no hate speech. There's going to be no you got to stand in front of your own name because in this business you do you can't be Joe 12345 like you could be on Twitter. Okay. And we're going to build this thing together. And if you like what we're doing and at the time it was crowdsourcing, although I didn't realize it at the time, but that's I didn't realize that was the word that we were going to be using. But the idea was if you like what we're doing, my ask to you is invite at least

21:39

five fellow creatives or professionals. And people started inviting their whole film crews, their whole acting classes. People just started inviting, you know, community in their communities in droves.

21:52

and they were becoming champions of the platform. So to be quite honest, we went from that 100 to 800,000 mostly through crowdsourcing, mostly through word of mouth. Now over the last couple of years, have we done some Facebook advertising, stuff like that, of course. We have partnerships with Netflix, we did a gigantic global how to pitch to Netflix, how to do a TV pitch deck for Netflix. That of course brought in a ton of people as well.

22:20

But most of our community has been built through word of mouth and through crowdsourcing. Yeah. Which actually is a great lead into a book you wrote. Crowdsourcing for filmmakers. RB, you are a natural. I got to tell you, like, uh, you lead a guy, an interviewer straight into it, man. I love it. The, uh, crowdsourcing for filmmakers, uh, the power of the crowd. I know you wrote that book. Let's talk about that. I know it gained a lot of notoriety and popularity in the industry.

22:50

But it's right down that avenue, right? Yeah, it's a book for everybody. I kind of hate that, you know, wrong word hate, but I kind of wish that it would have been, it was published by Focal Press, which is there specific to film mostly. And I was asked to write it after giving a talk at the American Film Market in 2013, and it took me about three years to agree to do it.

23:14

But it really is talking about, it really fits any business, it fits everything. It's more important today than when I wrote it in a lot of ways. And it really is all about how you identify, engage, and move a crowd on behalf of the brand of you and everybody listening. You do have a brand that if you don't know what it is, you have to start thinking about it right now and probably begins with what you're putting out there on social media, by the way. But it's also for the brand of your products or in this particular case, the brand of your film. So...

23:44

It was, you know, it was a fun.

23:48

experience to write the book and to show people that it's very, very possible in this day and age in this business that it's a dinosaur business, I like to say, although that's changed dramatically over the last few years because you do have the disruptors. We always knew this convergence between entertainment and tech was going to happen. We just thought it was going to happen a little bit earlier. The thing that has accelerated it tremendously has been...

24:15

COVID, you know what I mean? Because with day and date and with Netflix committing to so much original content and putting out 42 films in the fourth quarter, which is insane, the bottom line is there's no way the middle can hold. There's no way that the standard ways of doing things

24:34

uh... can operate anymore so what crowdsourcing filmmakers teaches you is that you have more control than you realize you have and you can control the process but you can't control the process without champions and without an audience you know what i mean this just teaches you how to build that audience how to make sure you're not wasting time trying to just make everyone your audience because that's not the way the world works you gotta you know identify your audiences

25:04

Engage them in the proper way by bringing them value, like you said earlier, being selfless. You know, I have a rule of three, which is I give three times before I ever ask for anything. Right? So you're building that trust and you're building, you know, that community. And then once you've built that trust.

25:21

you get them to go, then you go for your ask. Then you ask them to go move on your behalf. And we've seen this throughout history that this is how businesses are built. And especially in this day and age, we've seen how brands all across the world are asking their communities to move on their behalf and to grow and to help.

25:42

help them grow. Peloton, for example, is a great example of this. They've gone from hardware to software to really everything that they talk about is community. This is our pride. This is our people. So we're seeing it everywhere. But that's all that crowdsourcing is. And the book has done exceptionally well and has been one of Focal's bestselling books over the last 30 years. I couldn't be more thrilled about it. I wish mainstream audiences would read it because it fits.

26:09

It fits any, any, any pursuit, any business. Well, then there's so many principles you just described there. I love the power, you know, the, the rule of three. Uh, Hey, I always say there's powers in three and that in a good and bad thing seemed to happen in threes, but, uh,

26:25

But it's so true, like you started talking about brand, you know, building your personal brand, which I am near and dear in my heart for anyone out there listening, and RB's doing this, he has a great one, you need to go check him out. We'll link to all that and we'll talk about that at the end. But, you know, whether you're a production company, a person or whatever, there's so much opportunity, you know, we talked about the democratization of content, but you have these social media channels, you have places like Stage 32,

26:55

building your brand, the opportunities are so much more wider than they used to be. It's certainly crowded, but there's just so many channels that you have to kind of start laying the foundation of relationships before you even have them. And it sounds like you've got a lot of great principles in the book that might be towards that end. Definitely. There's a ton in the book towards that end, and we preach it all the time. I mean, a lot of what...

27:23

You know, if you do look at my social media, like my brand is inspiration, aspiration, motivation. That's the way I look at it. You know, certainly I put up some things that are, you know, more personal. I don't want it to be so business, business, business. But I. So there's some perspiration. Yeah, there's perspiration. There's always perspiration. But the point of the matter is, is that you do you're 100 percent right. You have more opportunities today, especially given the fact that you, you know,

27:53

You're basically carrying around a connector all day long. And you have so many opportunities in a given day to be able to give and to be selfless and to be empathetic in a manner that allows you to build your brand and build your audience. Right?

28:11

and to get you to really where you want to be. And I'm not saying that in a manipulative sense, like we'll be in Machiavellian, like let's make these connections, and then oh my God, I'm gonna come back behind you, and I'm gonna be like, okay, now, now you gotta give me what I'm asking for. No, it's not that, it's building relationships in a community that lasts over time so that you're able to accomplish your goals, but you're able to help other people on that path and on their journey as well, which of course is the priority really, or it should be the priority in audience building.

28:41

So yeah, I think people are hindered. Look, and I understand, there's probably people that are listening to this right now. There's a few things that we run into all the time. One, you may be introverted. I totally get that. Two, you may be a little paralyzed by being in isolation for the last year, year and a half, and dealing with COVID. Clearly, we talk a lot about mental health on stage 32 very, very often. Artists in general create alone, and then they have to go out and collaborate.

29:11

and

29:39

put out good vibes. You know, like I always say to introverts, like here's three ways that you could step out today because a lot of people are like, I'm afraid that, you know, it's imposter syndrome. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm new. How do I?

29:50

Thank people for posting great content. Just thank them. That's value. Share things. If you read something this morning that is intriguing or something that you found really interesting, just share it. And never be afraid to ask people questions. Never be afraid to say, why did you try that? Why did you say that? People are going to respond to you. Maybe not everybody, but just dip your toe in, and before you know it, you'll be swimming. And really, it's so vital that you

30:20

and

30:34

behind the computer, like, and when I say that, like alone, not on close, you don't have to like, I don't know, you don't have to be Gary V, but like, it's like, but there's somewhere in between, you know, like, you have to kind of put it out there. I mean, like, you're building relationships, whether we like it, love it, or hate it.

30:52

with between COVID and just the realities of technology, you've got to use these platforms in a way that you've got to show behind the curtain a little bit. And if you're not leveraging that, you're leaving a lot on the table. And I do want to ask you though, like you're an actor and you're involved in some projects and things like that. I mean, some of your passions, like...

31:17

Like if, if you had your druthers, I mean, do you like the nuts and bolts of stage 32 business building? Or, I mean, if it was up to you, would you just be making movies and writing or all that, or is it a combination? That's such a great question. I mean, I do more screenwriting producing now than I do acting. Um, I love the business end of it. I love, you know, putting projects together. Um, I, I mean, it's certainly love.

31:42

Stage 32 and I love the business. I've always had an entrepreneurial mind and I always say if you're an artist or an entrepreneur you just are. It doesn't matter if you come together to make that film. When you're done making that film everybody goes their separate ways and you're back to creating again. So artists or entrepreneurs, you're the CEO of you. I love both is the answer. I really, really do. I love the fact that

32:07

they mesh. I mean obviously my personal interest and my creative interest align perfectly with a platform that services that industry. So I wish I had sometimes a little bit more time to be working on the creative because stage 32 is behemoth and takes up my 60, 70, 80 hours sometimes a week. So it's a lot of work. And the growth that we've had.

32:34

has been so tremendous that it's, you know, the demands on your time are massive. But I still get to be around people that are creating all the time, get people around making projects all the time, you know, working with the upper echelon as far as the professional end all the time, you know, to be able to have a direct.

32:54

channel to, you know, the, you know, the development heads of Netflix, you know, on the television and film side, that's, that's fantastic. But it's also, but it's much more in service to the community than it is to myself. You know what I mean? Like my creator gets a little sacrifice in the mix sometimes. That makes sense. Is a

33:17

What is your thoughts on all that? Like the Netflix and the 42 films and you know, the purists say the movie business is dying, you know, the movie theaters have been around and I, I kind of get that perspective. The, you know, when quantity goes up, quality usually goes down. Yeah. What is your perspective on all that? It's, it's a tough one. I get asked this question a lot and it's a really, really tough one because I see it from two different perspectives. I've always been a theater guy.

33:44

I like, you know, I've never been sort of the big blockbuster temple type fan. So I'm the guy that's usually in the theaters when I do go to the theaters, usually between like, you know, October and December for all the prestige. Are you cons? What's in from ears? But you know, here's the thing to me. Do you want opportunity?

34:10

Or does everything have to be excellence? Because I think there is gonna be a place for all of it. You're still gonna have prestige films. Cannes not gonna go away. Venice is not going away. You're still gonna have all these prestige films. And in fact, you may end up having more of them because the desire now to make lower budget films and to try to make more personal stories has all of a sudden become much greater. It's not that Netflix is doing 42 films in the fourth quarter that are all 100 million.

34:40

and above. They're doing smaller movies as well. The problem is, of course, you know, and the argument that I always hear back is that the quality has gone either the quality has gone down a little bit, you hear that often, or you hear how do you find them? Like there's just so much content like, you know, should you know, I, yeah, I spent all these years putting this film together, but like, you know, the algorithm has pushed it to, you know, page 10 and I, you know, nobody can find the damn thing.

35:08

the

35:26

The Avengers and Superman attack Batman on Planet Wonder Woman. Yeah. I know. And you know, I like a good Star Wars movie, but you know, it's like, that I watch, but, uh, where's it all going, man? I mean, what's, what's, uh, I know you're headed to, I think you said South Africa. You're on your, yeah. Yeah. And like, but

35:55

It's both short term and long term. Where's RB headed?

35:59

Well, you know, I mean, as far as just kind of piggybacking on the answer to the business, one of the reasons I'm going to South Africa is to meet with the South African Film Commission. What's happening with the business that I also think is interesting and I think where the opportunity lies is that Netflix, for example, is looking to do foreign language productions that play to an American audience, right? So you're looking at Lepine, you're looking at Sabara, Narcos, things like that, right? How do you train those people? How do you...

36:29

you cover the earth, you know, basically. And fortunately for us, they're kind of turning to us to help them do that. So that's part of where I think the industry is going and part of where we're going, you know. On a personal level, you know, for me, right now it's all about creating an atmosphere, continuing to create an atmosphere where...

36:53

where this marketplace can thrive, where these content creators can capitalize on this need for content. Netflix is not gonna stop spending money, which means that all these other streaming platforms are gonna start upping their spend as well, which means that more content is gonna be created, more opportunities are gonna be created. We wanna be that bridge, and we have been. So that's a big part of where we're going and where we're spending a lot of our time.

37:20

We are certainly upping as well, you know, the education aspect of it, the demands for that, because, you know, it's affordable education. Again, why would you go to film school and put yourself in tremendous debt for years and years and years when you can learn, you know, the same skills from people that are doing it right now and then have access to those people? So that's a lot of where we're going. And then, you know, personally, I have a few films in the works and a television show that I'm out there.

37:46

that we have some interest in, which is really, really cool. Something that I wrote and, um, you know, you just keep pushing the, you know, the proverbial rock up the fucking Hill, man. You know what I mean? Brick by brick, brother. Rick, man. And now, you know, I hope if you're listening today, you know, we're listening to this at any point, that's such a lesson. It's probably one of the biggest lessons I've learned in life, man, in business is that

38:12

It is a brick. I hate you know, I hate all these cliches and everything like that. You know, you can't run before you can walk and everything like that. But but really, if you kind of embrace that mentality alone, if that is your sort of home base that all I really need to do today is win today and I keep winning the day and I keep winning the day and all of a sudden I look back and it's like, holy shit, look what I built.

38:33

If you can embrace that as a foundation for everything you do, even what we talked about earlier about stepping out on social media or stepping out and building your brand, your whole entire psychology changes, your whole mentality, your whole perspective changes. And suddenly you look back and you've been doing this, we're in our 10th year and it's amazing to me. And I remember sending out those 100 letters to, 100 emails to my friends saying, you're the first 100 I'm invited.

39:03

And now to know that we're you know closing in on a million You know and have all this. I mean it it was a brick-by-brick approach man, and you know so Don't give in don't give up, but get get up and do something. I love it brother Where can everybody keep up?

39:22

with all things RB and all things Stage32? Sure, so I mean look, if you're in the business at all or wanna be in the business, if you're anything, like I said, actor, writer, producer, filmmaker, have any interest, you know, like I said, if you could be in the credits or if you're on the professional side, you have a place in Stage32, just go to stage32.com and you can create a profile. As soon as you do, you will see me on your wall.

39:49

That is an automated message, but everything after that will be me. I respond to everything. It's not my team. Um, so, but if you're not, and you know, you're on the entrepreneurial side and want to follow what I do business wise and everything like that, uh, my Twitter and Instagram is RB, my initials, RB walks into a bar, um, uh, on Instagram and on Twitter and of course, you know, I'm on LinkedIn and other places as well. I love it, brother. And I love the platform. I'm on it.

40:19

collaborating and sharing some marketing knowledge with some of your great subscribers and followers and community. Yeah I'm looking forward to doing some more stuff with you too my friend because I love what you're doing. Yeah man I'm excited I think this is the start of a great friendship partnership and I can't be more appreciative of you coming on the show sharing your journey being transparent and I love your energy man. Thank you brother I didn't write right

40:49

and I love what you're giving back to the community. You bring value every day. And I mean, that's what it's all about. If you listen to this podcast regularly, I hope that's one of the lessons you take away is the value that Ryan brings to the community with every show and everything else he does.

41:05

Appreciate it, brother. Hey guys, you know where to follow us. We're at the radcast.com. You can look for all of these highlights. We aggregate everything. Search for RB search for stage 32. You'll find all the highlight clips from this episode. You know where I'm at. I'm at Ryan Alford. I'm on Twitter. I'm on tick tock verified on the platforms. Go find me, go find some motivation. You know where to find us. You know what? Find RB. We'll see you next time. The radcast.