From Passion to Purpose: Balancing Creativity, Technology, and Business with Matthew Gattozzi

Speaker A: I'm, um, Jari Bolander, and welcome to the Entrepreneur Ethos Podcast. This podcast is all about how to build a more ethical, inclusive, and resilient world through educating and inspiring the next generation of entrepreneur through powerful storytelling. Let's get started. Matthew Gattozzi, welcome to the show, man.

Speaker B: Thank you. Thanks for having me. Appreciate it. Excited.

Speaker A: Oh, it's a pleasure.

Speaker B: Thank you.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's a pleasure. You are the founder of Ditto Studios, a, uh, studio that does all sorts of cool videos and social media stuff and all this great things that I probably won't even scratch the surface on, but would love to hear more about as we continue or start the conversation that we actually had a couple almost a month ago we first got introduced, which was pretty cool. You're very prolific on LinkedIn. Love your videos on there, so everyone should definitely follow you for some good advice. But before we get into all that, um, why don't you, uh, tell us how you got to do what you're doing today.

Speaker B: Yeah, there is, there's a story behind before all of the, the content and the ads for brands. That's what we do. That's what you see online. A lot of me talking about, but how did we get here? It's always a good question. The, the, the starting of that is that before shooting content or anything, I was a dancer. I danced ballet, classical ballet. I trained my whole life, worked really, really hard growing up doing this. I grew up in Boston. Once I had finished high school, I moved out to Seattle and I was. Didn't go to college. I wanted to really chase after this dream of becoming a professional ballet dancer, and so danced here for two years. Then I moved to Austin. I was able to dance professionally there, but unfortunately I got injured and I, uh, went through a really hard time of trying to figure out who I am, uh, because so much of my identity was wrapped up in being a dancer, proving people wrong, that I could become a professional dancer and that I could, I could do something then that was different. And being a professional dancer, like, being like, hey, I'm a ballet dancer. What a unique way to start out a conversation, right? That really gets people's ears to perk up. But then when you don't have that anymore, it's, uh, really, really tough. And you didn't realize. I didn't realize how much I leaned into that. Now, the other kind of part of this story of me dancing is that I grew up, like, liking photos. I love taking photos, actually. I took a photography class in high school. I, I Had a senior project in high school where I did. I created a photo book. Photos was always a thing that I love to do when I traveled and I was traveling for dance and all that stuff. And I love photos. And then over time, I started really getting into YouTube and videos, and I love that now. I had this kind of thought that one day I could do videos and photos once I'm done with dancing. I didn't think that my dancing career going to be done at 21, 22 years old. So it ended early. I would say that I didn't have as much kind of training or experience as I thought I would, but I had to pay rent and I was like, I. This is what I wanted to do. And so I just started just on Google Maps, pulled up a, uh, street in Austin, and I just went to every single business and I just emailed them. Here's the two photos I have in my portfolio. Will you hire me? And I did that and grinded it out and, uh, eventually started to kind of understand this world of marketing and where production comes into play. And it's just been my growth as, as a creative person, while also understanding how my creative has impact on businesses. Um, and I think it's just been, you know, six years of doing that and understanding more and more how to speak to marketing people, but also understanding how to understand production and what goes into it all. And the last part of that story is that I realized what I really wanted to do when I first started. I was just trying to make a few dollars, right? Like, that was it. Now I have big ambitions to do big productions. I want to do a Super bowl ad. I want to, but I know I can't do it with, like, just myself. And so I have to build a team. And that's where the kind of the reason why I'm building Goodo Studios is. I need to have a team so that we can do the best work in the world for consumer brands. And that's what I'm building. And that's my mission now. But it's been a journey. And here we are.

Speaker A: Uh, yeah. Wow. Wow. Retired at 21. Dancing. That must have been.

Speaker B: I had, I had a midlife crisis at 21. And if you think about it, because it's like I trained starting at 8, that's 15 years, right? If you started your career at 22 years old, when you're 3740, when most people are going through a midlife crisis, that's. That's real. I had that when I was 21. So, yeah, I had it. I had it younger than most people do.

Speaker A: That's pretty intense. Because when you perform at such a high level, when excellence is expected, and then all of a sudden you can't perform at that level. Like, you just see now what, uh, at 21, that's pretty stark. Like, that's. That's a tough one. How did you. How'd you handle that?

Speaker B: That's poorly. And then.

Speaker A: Okay, poorly, then better. Okay, that's poorly.

Speaker B: Yeah, the story is poorly because I think I. I, uh, think it was a. The poorly part is not wanting to give it up, but realizing that I had to, but also realizing that most of my identity was wrapped up in that and how feeble and just destroyed that really was. And that was, uh. It was hard for me to face that. And I. So I didn't face it. I was running away from that reality so much. I was going out. I was just in situations that just wasn't me. Like, I was. I was fake to myself, and I was running away from my. Who I was, and I was running away from the reality.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And that kind of hit ahead on itself. But the story is, the way I started to turn the corner was that I did get sober. So on May 31, 2018, I stopped drinking. Uh, May 31, 31st, 20.

Speaker A: 2018.

Speaker B: Yeah, 2018. And so really, when you think about my journey to then become an entrepreneur and my next step in life is also in line with me being sober. But I think what my mindset is now is that I am not my work. Okay, I was my work back in the day, but I am not my work. I am chasing this because I. I want to do this now. Am I perfect in that thinking? No. Because last night I had a situation, and I was mad and I was feeling insecure about the work that we're doing and all this and that sort of. I'm not perfect at it, but I would say that I am trying to live a life not like my identity is not because of the success or not success of Go Studios. I am me. I'm a husband to my wife. I'm a father to my son. I am the human that I show up to you as a friend to the people that are, uh, around me, that. That's how people know me, and that's what I want to be known for, is my energy, the things I. I put out into the world, you know, beyond just marketing and creative and all that stuff. So I think, yeah, it started out poorly, but I think it is the Thing that actually helped teach me and build the foundation of, I think, my new identity, which is not connected to Goodo. I will say that that is hard though, at times when you are putting yourself out there so much. Right. Uh, you talked about, hey, I see you on LinkedIn and you're doing all this stuff. Yes, I am. That's my quote unquote personal brand. But it's not me fully. It's a part of me. It's, it is, it is my excitement for the work that I do pushed out to the world. But it is only a fraction of the things that I'm passionate about or who I am. It doesn't define me. And I think that's hard to, uh, navigate that at times.

Speaker A: Yeah, a lot of, a lot of young entrepreneurs had this problem when I was coming up in the day too get so wrapped up in it as your identity. And another thing I, I find pretty cool is My date is May 15, 2018.

Speaker B: Oh, uh. Really? Okay.

Speaker A: I stopped drinking. I've been sober that long too, so

Speaker B: we're, I was just, I was just a little after you just a few weeks later.

Speaker A: Just a couple weeks.

Speaker B: I love it. That's awesome.

Speaker A: But I, I, I, I turned pro drinking for a long time. Cause I'm 53. Right. So I'm a little older than you. So, yeah, I had a little more time to figure out that it wasn't right for me. And uh, congrats. That's a huge accomplishment knowing how much of a challenge it was for me. I'm always impressed when, when people take the plunge because I have felt so much better and had so much more clarity and realized it didn't need. I was filling, I was filling the void in my, in my heart. My wife died the year before in 2017, and, and I had been alcoholic for a long time. I was like a lot of crazy shit. But it just came to a head and thankfully I, I met a wonderful woman who's now my fiance, who's helped me through to understand exactly what you said. Just said, you're more than your work. You're more than this grief and sorrow. You, you, you're worthy just on your own. Uh, hard, Hard to recon. Not hard to reconcile. Hard to reconcile and hard to believe at times. Learning that so young is a gift. It's a real gift.

Speaker B: Easier. But again, easy. It's.

Speaker A: No, I know.

Speaker B: But easy to say on the podcast. Right? But you have that dark night moment.

Speaker A: Yeah. The dark night of the soul where you're sitting there going, it could have been a contender.

Speaker B: Have you heard of the book, uh, called the Second Mountain?

Speaker A: No, I haven't. It's the second Mountain.

Speaker B: The second Mountain, I. I forget who it's by which I feel bad, but I think. I think this guy, he was like a journalist, like a really famous journalist and all this stuff. And so he's written very, like, a lot of political books and stuff. So this book is like, very different comparative to what he usually writes and what he's like, known for. This idea of second mountain is like, the first mountain is the pursuit of a selfish pursuit, right? So some people could say, like, maybe your first business is just to make money, but then the second business is like the thing that's like, you live for the world, like you live for greater good, right? I don't think it needs to be that same correlation. But the point is, is that we have one mountain in our life. And that first mountain, usually you get knocked down. There's some event that happens where you realize this moment of you are not, uh, like, you are not your work, you are not like this identity, and you get this big shift, and then you've got to overcome it to then get to the second mountain. And that is like, where life really, I think, begins, which is like this pursuit of doing, uh, things for others. You are. It's like. It's like a selfless outlook on life because you've pursued life so selfishly for yourself. And I think that is. Is a really powerful way of looking at it. And that book did help me. I forget when I read it. I don't. I don't think it was, like, right at 2018, but, like, I did read it early on, and it at least gave me a framework to view where my. Maybe my next journey was going to be. I don't think you always have to live by that specifically. I think we can have multiple mountains, maybe even. But I like this idea that maybe what I'm pursuing now I can go beyond myself and it not be the same as I had pursued it. Because, like, when I was dancing, I was proving, Trying to prove everybody wrong. My parents wrong, family wrong, anybody. They were just like, oh, I don't know, shouldn't you go to college? All this stuff. I was just trying to prove everybody wrong. I wanted people to know that I could do this thing. I don't have that same proving people wrong. I think where my ambition is now is I want to do. I want to experience something for myself. And I am going to do everything that it takes to do that. But it's pressure that I'm putting on myself. It's not because I'm trying to prove, like, my parents wrong or anybody else wrong. Like, I, I, this is really, I am choosing something that's hard because I want to, not because I'm like, I have to prove that I, I, I can do this. And people disbelieve me. I don't have that, like, same chip on my shoulder, I think, that I did before.

Speaker A: Interesting. Yeah. It's a real thing. It's a real, I don't know. What do you think drove you to dance? What was the motivation?

Speaker B: I think that people think that, like, love is developed very quickly. Passion is developed really quickly. It's not, it's through some consistency of things over a long period of time. Because if you think about it, right, like, most people don't just aren't born to be. Like, I love marketing, I love ad, But I think, yeah, uh, full disclosure.

Speaker A: Yeah. Didn't start out doing marketing.

Speaker B: Yeah, you don't. And I think people then say, then it's, you just can't be passionate. Like, you can't, like, and that's. I don't think that's true because I think you learn you over time, you get passionate. Right. Like, I'm not passionate about finances, but, like, I could see somebody who does investment banking over 10, 15 years. Like, yeah, they actually probably like it. Like, they actually probably love it. And that's a weird thing to say because it's not something that they loved when they were 18 years old. Right. But it was over a long period of time. And I think Cal Newport kind of has this, that idea from Be so Good that they can't. I forget what that this book is. It's one of his earlier books. But he does talk about Be so

Speaker A: good you can't be ignored.

Speaker B: Yeah, exactly. That's the book, right. And it's that which is just do something for a decade and you will fall in love with it. And it's a good, I think, thing to do, especially when you're younger in your career. And so the same thing, Right. I didn't watch a ballet show and was like, oh, uh, this is what I want to do for the rest of my life. It was, I was in a Boston public school. There was an outreach program. I got lucky to get picked. It wasn't because I had some sort of, like, special talent. I just got picked. I have no idea. I got lucky. And my mom, who grew up in the projects in Kansas City, never got Dance lessons. So she thought, you're getting free dance lessons. Why not do it? So I did. Was doing sports. I was doing this, like, once, twice a week. Not a big deal. But I liked it. I didn't hate it. I liked it. And I'm glad that I had parents who were like, I wanted to quit at times, but they were just like, no. Like, they could tell that I liked it, but maybe they just kept me in it. Like, they didn't force me into it, but they just were like, no, like, you should keep trying it. Don't give up. And so then it's. Yeah, year after year after year, you're getting better, you're learning more, you're seeing progress, and you just start to like it. And there's sometimes not a reason why you're like, oh, I love it because of this. It's. No. I don't know. I just. I gravitate towards it. I. I am starting to fall in love with this thing. I am also lucky that I had great mentors, great people who saw me and wanted me to succeed. It's not like they were like, oh, this guy has some natural talent, that he can be a professional dancer. They just genuinely cared about teaching the next generation and passing on this art form. I got lucky that I had great mentors to do that. And those. That combination of things allowed me to fall in love with it because I was surrounded by people who had passion for that thing. I think when I think about. I just have a son. I just had a son.

Speaker C: Oh.

Speaker A: Uh.

Speaker B: And he's. For five months now.

Speaker A: Five months. Wow.

Speaker B: Five months. So fresh. But I think so much about is. I don't necessarily care what he ends up doing. I just want him to see that I'm living with passion and that I hope to have that instilled in him, because that was instilled in me, and that was really special. And I think whatever he decides to do, I don't really care. But I want him to have the example of passion, because I think that's huge. And that can really rub off on to other, you know, people. And that's. That's. I was lucky to be around that. So to me, that. That was a huge blessing.

Speaker A: Yeah, Yeah. Yeah. Passion's important. How do you. How do you balance that with just getting stuff done, you know, because you can have too much passion for something, and then it's sort of.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think it goes to. There's all the other idea of almost like perfection. Right. Are you trying to perfect something versus trying to, uh, publish. Right? And the thing that I think most about is at a certain time, at a certain rate, you gotta hit publish. You gotta. You have to push out the work. Right?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Passion. To me, I'm like, you gotta just make sure that you surround yourself in work that gets you fired up. But then at a certain point, you also cannot be a, uh, perfectionist either that you gotta hit publish. You gotta keep working workings. I think that what I've done and what I'm continuing to do is I've got to figure out what work in this creative space gives me the most passion that I feel like I can actually go and get stuff done. Right. Because I'm not dreading the to do list. I'm excited. I'm. I'm right. I'm getting energy from it. And part of that for me was realizing that I. I felt like I was better at collecting great creative people and creating a space for creative people to do great work versus me being the best technician. Like, I could have decided a few years ago. You know what? I've been doing this freelancing thing. I'm gonna keep going this route, and I'm gonna be the director of photography, which is like the cameraman, essentially, right? Like, I could be the dp. I could have gone that route. But I think for me, what I realized was the thing that I'm best at is bringing people together. And I know that I can create an environment that will empower great creative people to create the best work for the best brands in the world. And I should surround myself in that type of work. Not only does that give me energy, but it's the thing that I want to do. So I think you got to find what works. Work gives you that energy and the passion, and then go from there. I don't get wrong. I love video work, editing work. It's all great, but it's not the thing that I'm like, every day I. I want to be in Adobe Premiere Pro cutting up footage.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: And so I gotta find people that do want that and get them excited too. Um, so that's, I think, how I balance it the most.

Speaker A: Okay. Okay. And entrepreneurship is not for the faint of heart. Obviously started off being a freelancer, and what was the spark that said, okay, this is. This is. Other than the fact that you bring great creative people together, were there any other sort of, aha, uh, moments where you're like, man, this is. I guess I builded something bigger than me.

Speaker B: Look, this. It is. Ain't easy because last night I was like, why am I doing this? I literally said it to my wife.

Speaker A: Yeah. She's. Yeah, why are you doing this?

Speaker B: I was like, this is so hard. Like, why am I making this so hard myself? It never gets easy, I guess. You get.

Speaker A: Nope.

Speaker B: If as you grow, you get bigger problems or just different problems. Right. New problems, and you got to figure that out. I think that's exciting, though. To me, I think at the end of the day, it is hard, sure. But it's. I love the control, and I love trying to figure this out. Look, I think that there's going to be a lot of people that will be like, oh, uh, I was inspired by Steve Jobs and I wanted to create this, all that stuff. Honestly, that was not me. To me. And this is how I still feel. I'm an artist. Um, business is the vehicle for me to do this art. Okay. Like, I want to do video work. I want to do photo work. That. That's the thing that I actually want to do. Okay. Now, I could just do, like, short films on the side, like, for fun, and then go working on a job. Sure. But to make it your full thing, you've got to find a way to connect your work into the real world. I think that's where most artists go wrong, is that they don't live in the real world. Right. And so very good point. I have figured that out is how do we exist in the real world? And the thing is, is, again, what is the thing that makes me passionate? Is it the taking up the photos? Is it. Is. Is it the recording? Or is it the. The building this team and all these other things? It's. Yeah. Like, that, to me, is the thing that I actually love to do. I love connecting with people. I love bringing people together. I love working with clients and collaborating. All of that stuff. That is me. That's. That is where I get the most energy from. So let me go build a business to do that. Now, going back to. The thing is, I didn't want to. It's not like I was like, oh, I've got this business plan. And in fact, like, the reason why it's been super messy, like, it's taken me many years to get to where I am is because I didn't know anything. I literally didn't have an idea. Part of that is maybe that's a good thing. Right. And part of it's like, maybe that was a bad idea. I don't know. But it's just. It's just the story. It's just how it was, um, in 2018, you couldn't get a job without a college degree. But I wasn't gonna spend four years going and getting a college degree either. Right. And so I didn't have that luxury to do that. So I, it was out of necessity, really.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, I don't, I don't need to pretend like I had some inspirational thing and I gotta pay the rent point blank and I still gotta pay the rent. Right. Yeah, I. And, uh, that's why I don't really love identifying as an entrepreneur. Like I. That word to me. Yeah, the word to me is kind of like, I don't know, I feel like people try to use it as a way of their elevate. They've got this higher way of looking at it. And I'm like, nah, I think, I'm not saying that's how every person is. I'm just saying sometimes people like to be like, I'm an entrepreneur. I'm like, yeah, I'm. I don't know, I don't feel that way. I think you can not be an entrepreneur, but very entrepreneur minded and be a great worker within a business or whatever. So I don't know. I, I think it's, that's why I don't like it. And maybe it's because I just didn't have, I've got this grand plan to do this thing and da, da, da, Like, I didn't have that. I just was like, I gotta pay my rent this month, so I'm gonna find out if anybody will pay me for 10 photos.

Speaker A: That's right.

Speaker B: That's it.

Speaker A: Uh, I always say that entrepreneurs are the creatives of the business world because we love creating something from nothing. To me, it really resonated with, with me when you said the artist part of it because as a writer, public publisher of books and just loving to create, I personally feel that real artists ship stuff like full stop, put the art in the world and see what happens to me. That is the ultimate. And I think to your point, which I really love, business is the mechanism for which you can be an artist. Not a lot of artists get that. I would say not probably not even 5% understand that this whole idea of feeding yourself as an artist requires that you do some business. I, uh, don't think they want to sell out, bro. No, like, it's not selling out. Like do it on your own terms a little bit different. So I love that you brought that up.

Speaker B: Uh, because, and you're not selling out because you're, let's say you want to make music, you should know how the music industry works so that you can optimize it for the life that you want to live. If you wanted to be a painter, understand how galleries work. How do you get into galleries? You still need to be business minded. You can still do the work that you want to create, right? If you want to make a film, awesome. Guess what? There's a whole industry and business around it. Understand it, right? So you, it's not. Oh, to be a videographer, to do video work, you have to do ads. No, I don't think that is true. But you definitely got to figure out what you want to do and how does that, how does business fit into it? Because at the day, you can't shoot what you want to do if you don't have budgets. Right? The thing that I was inspired by was this Apple home ad by Spike Jones was the director. And it's when it's like this girl, she comes in from a long day of work and then all of the walls are like moving, they're like shifting and all this stuff. And I was like, wow, this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen. And it was a million dollar budget to have all these walls physically move and do all this stuff. They're not giving that to one person. It is a student. They're doing that for studio like you, uh, like. And that's why I was like, okay, if I want to do the cool things that I want to do, it's not going to be because of just me, right? So I think I knew the business that I wanted to be in and the things that I wanted to do. And so now I think that's where the team came in. Going back to the entrepreneur thing though, I think the reason why I don't like being labeled as entrepreneur, as an entrepreneur, I think it goes back to the second mountain idea, right? This is not my second rodeo. This is not by identity. I am not an entrepreneur. I don't like that because I don't want to be seen like as, like that as a placement of me. I find a lot of startup founders like to do that. I'm an entrepreneur. I need to connect with other entrepreneurs. I'm like, I want to connect with like cool people. They don't have to be entrepreneurs. And in fact, if I'm somebody who's creating content to speak to people, I should probably not be friends with just marketing people or just advertising people. I should just be, um, friends with cool people who see the world and I want to understand how they see the world. And I think that's the same way. It's like, why should I only hang out with other entrepreneurs? I should hang out with the people that we sell to. Right? I should just hang out to anybody. I want to. I want diversity. It's my. Much as I can from culture, background, everything. This is all of it. Language. I want to understand it all. And I think I'm in my second mountain. That's where the second mountain comes in. I'm not, um, that's, that's not my identity. I don't need to, like, live by that.

Speaker A: Yeah, no, it's a really good point because once you're in the echo chamber. I live in Silicon Valley, so it's the Silicon Valley bro ecosystem echo chamber of everyone's wearing a Patagonia vest and crushing it with their ARR. Yeah, whatever. It's so stupid. I feel very strongly that innovation and creativity comes about by the intersection of disparate things. When you go off and do something completely random that you didn't know, you don't know about, you just learn different things. I was in semiconductors, then I was in healthcare, then I was in software. Now, uh, I'm in consulting. I've written books. It's. It's this whole idea that the inputs need to be varied in order for the creativity to happen. Just the other day I, I, for the first time ever, did an open mic at the Moth in San Francisco. Got called up to tell a story, right? Never have done that before. But, um, like, I look around like, none of these are my people. None of these are probably entrepreneurs, this at all. And I stand up. They only picked 10 people. I'm the last person picked. Stand up and tell the story about one of these stories about my childhood. And never perform like that, ever. And the, the rush of that and the. Just the acknowledgment. You're like, oh, huh, huh. This is pretty interesting. And never would have done that a year ago, two years ago. And, and I just feel that those experiences where you put yourself in another find cool people, talk to different people. It's so powerful because after I told my story, a bunch of random people, hey, I loved your story. It's really great the way you did this and that. And you're like, oh, thank you. And oh, by the way, what I do for a living is write keynotes and write PowerPoint decks for B2B SaaS, people and salespeople. Huh, huh. Maybe I should add some of that storytelling that. So anyway, I love. I love the. Just talk to cool people, interesting people. Seems like a good way to go.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a good way to live. Absolutely.

Speaker C: So what are.

Speaker A: What are some of the things you're working on over at. Good. What are some of the things that are exciting you right now? If you can talk about them, if you can, that's fine.

Speaker B: Oh, sure.

Speaker A: Yeah. What are some of the. Like, God, this or. I think that. And then what are the trend, like a lot of people? Cause you do a lot of video. I'd love to just understand how video is changing in the world with Generative. I'm sure you've got some thoughts on that. It's just a, you know, such a powerful medium that there's so much innovation. Yeah. So what's exciting you right now? And then what's the trends that we. We as lay people should know?

Speaker B: The thing. I don't know if it's exciting, but it's the thing that's very top of mind, which is creative operations. And why I bring that up is because you talked about, wow, video is so impactful. More and more people need video. Right. Um, every B2B SaaS, all of a sudden, they're got a podcast.

Speaker A: We do a ton of video.

Speaker B: We do a ton of video galore. Right. As we are gaining more clients, there's how you did it. One way may not be the new way of doing it, or how do you set up for efficiency? I think everybody's always looking for efficiency. So is that the most exciting thing that's, uh, happening? Probably not the most exciting thing, or it's the most top of mind thing, is just trying to figure this out. I think if we can figure it out, it actually is the thing that can really open up value to our customers and potential customers. It's something that I'm obsessive over now, interestingly enough. Yes. I do not like. I'm not like, oh, I'm editing. I. I love to edit 10 hours a day. I can edit, I can shoot. So I'm a technical founder. That's a weird thing to say because maybe you would see it as more of a coding technical founder.

Speaker A: Yeah, for. Exactly.

Speaker B: For software. That makes sense. But in the creative world, I'm actually a technical founder because I can actually go on premiere. I can edit very quickly. I can shoot everything. I can. I've done every job that exists at Goodo because I've done it all the processes. I did those processes. I created those processes. I was doing everything at one point. Right. I Am more, I think tuned into inefficiencies or things that are not working a lot more than others because I am very close to that work. But it's definitely something that I'm thinking a lot about and I think that we are the, we have the right team to figure it out because a non technical person will be like, oh, just edit this, this and this. And it's. Oh really, just edit this, this and this. That's easy.

Speaker A: The worst, the worst word is the just. I hate that.

Speaker B: The just, just do this. You're like, yeah, oh yeah.

Speaker A: Planet are you on, bro?

Speaker B: Exactly. And, and I think that we are in the right place to do it. And I think that we're going to be best in class. And that excites me because I think like more than just having great ideas is being organized and being able to do it consistently is I think more powerful because over time you're going to find stuff that works, right? You got to take as many bets, as many swings as you can get. But if you can figure out how to get more at bats, the better off you are. Right? So 100. That I think is what's exciting. But it's also the biggest problem right now. So it's, it's a, uh, not, it's like a. We're slogging through trying to figure it out of like how do we, how many editors do we actually need? Do we need as many, do we need more? How, like how do you, who's on which project? Which project? And like how do you figure that really out? Not every video is created equally and that's a whole thing. Right? And it's hard. And then also on top of all of that, the question is, are you efficient or are you creative? And what's the balance there? Because sometimes creativity is not always doing it the most efficient way. And so, uh, how do you balance that? How do you balance that in a space? When you're trying to serve clients, right? The clients have, they want performance, like they want the ads to do well, but they also want creative ideas. But then you're like, okay, I'm almost serving two masters in, in some ways and that can be really hard. And so trying to figure out how do you optimize for creativity in a timely manner? Consistently, very difficult. But I think we're figuring it out day in and day out and it's going to always be a problem or a thing that we have to think about. It's top of mind. But to me it's really exciting. Uh, and I like it. We could talk about AI though, but I'll let you if you have.

Speaker A: No, I think what I always like to say is ideas are worthless. Execution is all that matters. I've had so many people, they have all these great ideas, but then they don't do anything with them. And I'm like, okay. Like, that doesn't mean anything to me. I've tons of.

Speaker B: I have.

Speaker A: I have 20 great ideas every day. If I don't do anything with them, they're worthless to me. So I love the fact that it's.

Speaker B: It.

Speaker A: There's that one, there's that balance, but the. For me, it's propensity for action. Oh, uh, this. If this is really something you want to do it, you should do it. And you know what? Sometimes it doesn't work out. And I, um, love the, love the idea of the tension between creative and efficiency and what works versus what is creative. Because some, some ads will work way better and they're not that creative, as opposed to these super creative ads that are memorable but don't give you an roi. So you got to balance that. Are you. Yeah. So what, what are you. How are you guys using AI for this sort of efficiency or creative workflow? Um, or creative operations, I think, is what you called it, which is a great, great name. Creative Ops. I love it.

Speaker B: So I think, you know, A.I. well, first off, Adobe has been an A.I. company since forever, right. So I think when people think about, uh, creative work, oh, everything's going to be displaced. It's not like we go into every single pixel and change every single pixel to change the exposure on a photo. Right. That's AI. It's not been called that, but that's what it is. It is machine learning to do those things. So we've been on AI tools forever, right. As creatives, I think what's cool is to see more and more integrations within the tools we already have. So that's exciting. So there's definitely certain workflows that just get faster, like noise reduction and cleaning up audio is just that much faster.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Even than it was four years ago. So there's a lot of things where I'm like, yeah, this is awesome. So like you, it makes things a lot faster, which means you could do more. Where we're. We're trying to understand where does. How do we use writing and kind of things like a clot and. And writing scripts. Do we use that? Do we not? How do we do that? How does it, like, feel natural? Doesn't feel natural. Um, right now we do a lot more on the data synthesizing side of things with AI. So we might take like a CSV file of all 10,000 reviews from a brand and we put it into Claude and we're saying, hey, what? Why are people buying? Basically, can you go through a lot of this qualitative data so that we don't have to read 10,000 reviews? Yeah, you can just summarize that stuff for us. Right. Which then allows us to then think about new ideas to create new content and new ads and all this stuff that actually is speaking to the customer because the customer said, this is why I buy a wow, I love it. Because of X, Y and Z. Right. There's more of that than anything. And then look, people will say, oh, you're never going to need to shoot anything again. And all this stuff, I'm like, listen, does the barrier to entry for somebody to make something come down a lot because of AI? Absolutely, absolutely. But guess what? People have had cameras on their phone for a very long time and they still yet have been able to create content for themselves. So I don't care how easy it gets, if you don't want to make it, it ain't gonna be creative. Yeah, you don't want to do this, it's not gonna happen. And then on top of that, for the people that say, oh, like creatives are dead, give me the same tools, I will cook. Trust me, like, I will be better than a non technical person if I have the same tools as you. I'll be better. I will. And uh, everybody on my team will be better than that. Sure. Could somebody that doesn't know how to edit finally start to edit a lot easier? Sure, yes. But also think about the person who does know how to edit and gets AI tools that's just only supercharging them. So to me I'm like, there's no replacement. We're just going to get better, we're going to be more creative. And I think you're going to see that people will want to pay for ideas less than the execution. Meaning the execution will be easier. But the ideas is the thing that's the most valuable thing. But that's been the case forever. Friends, the office, those were all shot on cameras that was worse than your iPhone camera right now. But the reason why you watched that show was not because it was shot in an um, on a camera or a nice camera or a bad camera. You watch it because the idea was interesting. The, the stuff was compelling to watch.

Speaker A: Exactly.

Speaker B: You just Gotta keep doing that. That's all you gotta do. Keep making compelling things. The tools just allow you to do that.

Speaker A: Wow. Matthew, thanks for being on the show, man. What a great conversation. Just lots of. Lots of great insights. And yeah, good luck with Good O Studios. Can't wait to see what you guys do. And if you ever get a commercial in a Super bowl, just make sure you let me know. How cool would that be?

Speaker B: We're going to do it. We're going to do it.

Speaker A: Oh, no, there's no doubt.

Speaker B: Yeah, no, uh, no, there's no doubt. It's just a matter of when.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Great.

Speaker A: Hey, thanks again. Cool.

Speaker B: Thank you so much.

Speaker C: Thanks for listening to the Entrepreneur Ethos podcast. I hope you enjoyed this episode as much as I did creating it. My hope is that you learned something that can make you a little bit better. If you enjoyed the podcast, please do share it with friends and review it on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. You can also join my email list by visiting theentrepreneurethos.com to get my thoughts on, uh, what I'm doing to get better, as well as what I'm working on. You can also pick up my book, the Entrepreneur Ethos. If you want to learn the traits, values and beliefs that I think we need to build a more ethical, inclusive, and resilient entrepreneur and, frankly, world community. Feel free to follow me on Twitter hedaily MBA and let me know if you have any questions or recommendations for a guest you'd like me to talk to. Also, drop me a note if you try anything we talked about on this or any other episode.

Speaker A: I'd love to hear what's working for you.

Speaker C: Until next time, keep getting better.