00:00:00:02 - 00:00:11:11
Paul Bzeta
So you're taking sales calls or managing projects when there's either air raid sirens going off or when members of the staff are running to a bomb shelter.

00:00:11:27 - 00:00:23:25
Tim Aleksandronets
I understand it sounds absolutely crazy for foreigners and it would have sound absolutely crazy for me if I wouldn't have experienced that.

00:00:26:08 - 00:00:39:04
Paul Bzeta
Welcome to Video NBA, the podcast where we dove deep into the dynamic world of video production and explore the art and business behind the lens.

00:00:41:13 - 00:01:07:22
Paul Bzeta
Today on the video NBA podcast, where we interview the world's leading video production company owners. Another super treat here as we take you inside a war zone. Believe it or not, thanks to Elon Musk's StarLink i n video is still being produced for an international client. Well, we're heading to live Ukraine and a conversation with him. Alex Cronuts, founder of Blue Carrot Productions.

00:01:08:09 - 00:01:38:20
Paul Bzeta
Tim shares his experience running a production business in the midst of a war zone. We talk about managing a remote team, handling regular power blackouts and even taking shelter during missile attacks. Tim's journey provides a unique perspective on the war's ripple effects in daily life and business operations. This interview provides a captivating narrative of running a video production business under some well challenging circumstance.

00:01:38:20 - 00:02:05:05
Paul Bzeta
CES Blue Carrot Productions stands as a testament to the industry's resilience, adaptability and the power of creative expression. And you should really should serve as an inspiration for aspiring video producers and professionals anywhere. Navigating the dynamic landscape of video production. If you can do it in war torn Ukraine, I think you can do it pretty much anywhere. Is that fair?

00:02:05:26 - 00:02:19:07
Paul Bzeta
Well, let's find out. And so without further ado, I bring you Tim, Alex, erroneous. I'm here with Tim. Aleksandr on it. Tim, thank you for joining us tonight.

00:02:20:08 - 00:02:22:16
Tim Aleksandronets
Everyone who is listening to us.

00:02:23:04 - 00:02:31:03
Paul Bzeta
Tim, first of all, you're in a in a war zone at the moment. You know, you're in western Ukraine. Ukraine. You're in LA View, correct?

00:02:31:11 - 00:02:32:10
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, that's correct.

00:02:32:29 - 00:02:46:25
Paul Bzeta
So even though you're in the western part of Ukraine, which at least geographically away from the act of frontlines, but you're still very much in a in a danger zone. Let's start there. What's it like to run a production business in a war zone?

00:02:48:10 - 00:03:18:04
Tim Aleksandronets
A couple of years ago, I visited my classmate in Israel and there were you know, they have a war that have different intensity over time. So sometimes they have missile attacks. And I was kind of apprehensive to go there because of that fact. And now, sure, here I am at 2022, like full scale war started because we have had war even before, but it was very localized on the east of the country.

00:03:18:04 - 00:03:55:12
Tim Aleksandronets
And it's but it's almost one year and half run. This war is a full scale and it's definitely affects living and business because first of all, everyone are united to to withstand this challenge and also to work to support our economy. Someone goes to military, and that definitely affects business because part of the labor is on the frontlines, part of the labor has migrated to other countries.

00:03:56:07 - 00:04:31:24
Tim Aleksandronets
That has not affected our industry as much as some other traditional industries like construction or others, because in the video production, people can work remotely. But basically things have changed and also in particular, last winter we had a lot of missiles, missile attacks that Russia wanted to make, electricity blackout in Ukraine. And that was challenging because in most of the country, we had blackouts for a couple of hours per day.

00:04:31:24 - 00:05:01:29
Tim Aleksandronets
So it could be like 4 hours with electricity and 4 hours without electricity and then 4 hours with electricity and then, first of all, we realized that the Internet is dependent on the electricity and whole. Our work is dependent on electricity. So we basically, as well as other businesses, we equipped our office with electrical generator. And we also are installed StarLink Internet.

00:05:03:09 - 00:05:31:06
Tim Aleksandronets
So yeah, so basically we became kind of independent of the electricity. And then yeah, there is also the factor of missile attacks. But as you correctly mentioned, we are on the west part of the Ukraine. So it's fortunately a little bit safer here. So, you know, it's like I'm afraid to say this, but you're kind of like getting used to this kind of constant threat.

00:05:32:20 - 00:06:03:22
Tim Aleksandronets
So some like with years, people started to understand how to distinguish us where there is a real threat. And the one the threat is like really small. So sometimes we go to bomb shelters. Sometimes, like we understand that the risk is very small because like missile attack alarm switches on each time, for example, one of their planes takes off.

00:06:04:09 - 00:06:30:00
Tim Aleksandronets
And just in case, because this plane might carry a weapon that can reach our region. But everyone knows that, like the chances that this specific plan will release it is relatively small. So you're kind of like sometimes you are on the call with the client speaking about video production and they hear an alarm.

00:06:30:11 - 00:06:31:29
Paul Bzeta
So that's happening.

00:06:32:20 - 00:06:50:03
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, that's happen. I understand it sounds absolutely crazy for foreigners and it would have sound absolutely crazy for me if I wouldn't have experienced that. But for us it's like we are just muting our microphones not to distract too much from the business.

00:06:51:26 - 00:07:03:05
Paul Bzeta
So you're taking sales calls or managing projects when there's either air raid sirens going off or when members of the staff are running to a bomb shelter.

00:07:04:28 - 00:07:35:21
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, yeah. Sometimes it happens, and especially in the very beginning of the war, when we shouldn't have so much experience and didn't understand how to distinguish when there is a real threat on the ground, there is a very small threat. So one of our clients was hiring our team for building a serious different explainers, and she was aware of the fact that we have this missile attacks.

00:07:36:04 - 00:08:16:06
Tim Aleksandronets
And she wrote us an email and that the theme of this email was Illustrator at the Bomb Shelter. And she was saying, like, Guys, I understand what's happening. I know that one of your people is currently in the bomb shelter because that was what was communicated by our producer. We had some delays on this project. And this client, she just proposed us just just to pay all the money she budgeted for this project and to take this project for another team from another country.

00:08:16:19 - 00:08:40:12
Tim Aleksandronets
So it was kind of very supportive for us, but nevertheless, we found a way to produce what we committed to, even in the bomb shelters, even with Internet shortages. We did that and that was managed, but it was very supportive from them and really appreciated that.

00:08:41:19 - 00:09:03:02
Paul Bzeta
So let's talk a little bit about that. How are you able to convince its customers in other countries around the world because that you are a global company? How are you able to sort of convince them that blue Carrot is the studio to hire, given the circumstances that you're in?

00:09:04:19 - 00:09:34:15
Tim Aleksandronets
Well, frankly speaking, I haven't felt that these circumstances is a huge factor in our business, because in the end of the day, part of our team is abroad in Europe, because some some people immigrated and they work completely remotely. And then there is an understanding that even those who are in Ukraine, they continue working. They have all the facilities and everything.

00:09:35:07 - 00:10:08:04
Tim Aleksandronets
And basically it's like only in our mind that like war is happening, but like still lives go on. And for example, even when it was Second World War, like people said that, oh, like Nazi were coming, the Soviets were coming, but enterprises were working and it business didn't change like too much during this period. So I think your question I question I haven't felt so that this is too much of a factor.

00:10:08:08 - 00:10:36:17
Tim Aleksandronets
It's probably also because it could have been a factor for I.T. industry because they have large projects was huge risks that if if the team does not deliver or does not support a solution whole enterprise in the United States can or in Canada can stop or a logistics company who control like hundreds of vessels, for example, can stop.

00:10:36:17 - 00:11:12:04
Tim Aleksandronets
So it's some variable risk. But in our case, I think explainer video is kind of short project, which is being completed within like six weeks and that's a bearable risk even if something is going on like war and additional people for work with us. The parts of people, at least for sure, I know that they understand that they supporting Ukraine in this way because they paying us, we paying taxes, we hire people.

00:11:12:04 - 00:11:18:01
Tim Aleksandronets
So it's part of the economy and economies are very huge factor. It's war against Russian.

00:11:20:05 - 00:11:37:24
Paul Bzeta
What is blue carrot's value proposition and I'm not sure if that's a term that you're as familiar with as we are over here in the West. But what is it about blue carrot that distinguishes itself from other explainer video companies out there?

00:11:38:27 - 00:12:13:13
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, that's a very good question because there are a lot of similar studios on the markets, all creating animations or video productions. So how do you stand out trade? For us, the answer is we have different value propositions and different niches. For example, inside the explainer video markets, we do work a lot with apps, software, solution shopping user interfaces, explaining how complicated apps work.

00:12:13:24 - 00:12:42:21
Tim Aleksandronets
And this is Sphere where we have a lot of experience and we kind of stand out and we try to communicate that. If you if you have an native solution, if you have an app, we know how to handle this because we created like dozens of videos in this and this specific niche. This one example, another example of niche is where we focus and we specialize is elearning.

00:12:43:11 - 00:13:10:01
Tim Aleksandronets
We do videos for learning more than more than that. We are capable of creating curriculum, learning design, instructional design, and basically produce videos. So not only video production, but also we do what is scripting in marketing videos like learning, designing and learning videos. That's another initial.

00:13:10:01 - 00:13:20:04
Paul Bzeta
Now are you getting most of your work direct from the foreign companies or do you get a lot of your work through third parties like agencies?

00:13:21:23 - 00:14:08:00
Tim Aleksandronets
I think more work comes from direct customers. We work with really different companies like start ups, but also with Fortune 500 companies and NGOs. There is quite a big segment on the West that don't see any hassles in working with overseas company and a lot of a lot of companies have experience working with Eastern Europe, with Ukraine in particular, and they understand the value that they can get like budget costs with the same I call it like European in art, right?

00:14:08:00 - 00:14:34:11
Tim Aleksandronets
So it's kind of on the same paradigm of our mentality or in ours. So in other words, a little bit more for the same money you can get, not the little bit, but but because we do work also with us, not only with agencies but with studios, for example, some studios they specialize in, they work in the United States or in Canada.

00:14:34:11 - 00:15:12:18
Tim Aleksandronets
We're in Europe and they specialize in life productions. And sometimes clients ask them to create animations and they hire us for creating animations and even for animated studios. While no one is listening to us, I can say that some animation studios are also like hiring us to completing some product products if they are out of capacity, if they need better costs, if they don't know certain technique, for example, 3D or 2D like different for different studios, they hire us.

00:15:14:03 - 00:15:30:09
Paul Bzeta
Got it. Got it. I want to talk a little bit about how you're able to sort of manage and motivate and your team and grow the business in just a second. But yeah, yeah. How did you find yourself in video production? How did you get into it at first? Can you talk a little bit about that?

00:15:31:14 - 00:16:07:05
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, I it's it was unexpected because I was studying at Polytechnic College University and I was obtaining masters degree in electrical engineering and I met there, my friends and I grew group my age who was studying also on electrical engineering faculty and she was jumping for the parachute. She broke his leg and in hospital she hadn't had much to do other than like having a computer.

00:16:07:15 - 00:16:41:14
Tim Aleksandronets
And then she tried to open to it to dove into computer graphics. She found Adobe after Effects started to experiment and kind of obtained skills of motion design. Their basic skills. And then it was me who is more always been more commercial oriented person, so more client oriented person. And we always wanted to do something together, something rather ambitious.

00:16:42:27 - 00:17:18:23
Tim Aleksandronets
So we decided why not to like he, he, he, he, he's able to animate something. I'm able kind of sell something. So we decided that's why not to and we registered on the freelancer com platform. I think it still exists and we found a client because we bid like super cheap, like $50 per minutes of completed video and like we were students and it still was some money, like 5 minutes of work.

00:17:18:26 - 00:17:56:02
Tim Aleksandronets
And for these days, for young girls and for Ukraine, it was like some even some money, you know, some small. But and and then we realized that motion graphics skills is not enough. You also need to illustrate and and then yeah, we were looking for Illustrator, so we found someone bad. They produced bad illustrations. Our client fired us and end of story.

00:17:56:13 - 00:18:19:09
Tim Aleksandronets
But then boom, in a couple of weeks, he comes back and says, That's another company that he hired another another freelancer that he hired from India. He had some family troubles, I think some loss in the family, like grandmother or something. And she just ask, okay, guys, if you want, you can I can give you a second chance.

00:18:19:09 - 00:18:33:21
Tim Aleksandronets
So we hired another artist. This one was better. And Alex, my partner, she animated the stuff and we accomplished our first project. So this is how it beginning began.

00:18:34:21 - 00:18:51:24
Paul Bzeta
Amazing. How how did you go from those sort of early days, Tim, to where you are today? Because Blue Carrot has a you've got some overhead now you've got some costs that you've got to cover that's just more, more than, you know, you and your partner are.

00:18:52:00 - 00:19:19:06
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, that's a good question. A lot of smarts, persistent work and unsatisfied moments. Basically what it takes, I think, in every business to reach some kind of goals that you're set for yourself. But yeah, I think we might have. It's Ed.

00:19:20:12 - 00:19:47:21
Paul Bzeta
Yeah, I'll ask the question you've how is it that you've gone from those early days of $50 projects now to projects that are tens of thousands of dollars? How did you how were you able to establish yourself where you could charge those kinds of prices?

00:19:47:21 - 00:20:28:21
Tim Aleksandronets
Well, there were multiple years of sweat and tears, a lot of work done right, basically doing things, getting results, doing things, failing, doing things again. You probably one of our strength of our ability to push at the same at the same spot for a lot of years. And then like with years, some experience came, portfolio was created, some network of clients were established.

00:20:28:21 - 00:20:31:27
Tim Aleksandronets
And yeah, today we are where we are.

00:20:33:06 - 00:20:43:29
Paul Bzeta
And how is it that you're getting clients today? Could you briefly give me an overview about sort of the techniques you're using to find clients even though you're in Ukraine?

00:20:44:12 - 00:21:28:12
Tim Aleksandronets
Yeah, first of all and this would be definitely advice for everyone who wants to start an agency. It's important to mix this two components commercial side and creative side. And in our case, my partner Alex was and is currently responsible for the production of parts for creative parts, as we call it in videos and me is responsible for marketing, sales, finances like strategy kind of for some people boring things, but they are essential if you want to establish yourself, not just as a cool video guy, but also as a business.

00:21:29:05 - 00:22:07:12
Tim Aleksandronets
So I always answer this question as we're using all the means that are that exist, are we do like search engine marketing, like we really blog articles are we find the clients, we search for clients on LinkedIn, we do email outreach campaigns. As we test different approaches, we are present on different, different, different platforms like Upwork. We do bidding on Upwork.

00:22:07:12 - 00:22:23:22
Tim Aleksandronets
Still, there are some good projects for us. We registered to different catalogs that people can find us and contacts us. Yeah. So basically we are working on in all directions of marketing.

00:22:24:11 - 00:22:41:18
Paul Bzeta
Got it. So Tim, how do you manage your team and do you have any sort of thoughts on that and not just manage, but continue to motivate your team, you know, to work together cohesively on these various projects that you do?

00:22:41:18 - 00:23:42:04
Tim Aleksandronets
When I was working like my first year in Korea, I, I was under the impression that I can influence motivation of my team very extensively, but my current experience is that there is only certain parts of motivation that you can kind of adjust for your team and but the core motivation is already inside them. And basically I try to hire people who are motivated to work to achieve some professional and personal goals with us and then do my best to adjust this small part of motivation that I can influence and this is not something I do like consciously and purposefully, but it's just a way of management or leadership, if you want to call it

00:23:42:04 - 00:24:21:04
Tim Aleksandronets
like that. We do have a results oriented culture. We don't kind of like track hours or force people to do some unnecessary reports or something like this. As long as a person achieves their goals and goals are always reasonable, we encourage such person to be work with such person. We don't over control. We try to find a mixture between what the person wants and what person needs to do.

00:24:21:28 - 00:24:51:08
Tim Aleksandronets
And it's possible, even in projects that are very limited in terms of creativity for example, there are there are a lot there. All there also might be some space for creative things. Like, for example, this is how we started to do traditional animation a lot of years ago. It was just a simple request from a client to create, I think, whiteboards, video.

00:24:51:18 - 00:25:19:27
Tim Aleksandronets
And then we thought, okay, we don't want to create like another whiteboard video. We want to create something more interesting, something more creative. Let's just invest our resources, invest our budgets, and create what our team wants. And this is how they created traditionally animated video. And like client was like, we propose, okay, do you want to pay us for small product what we will create?

00:25:19:27 - 00:25:48:27
Tim Aleksandronets
You are huge products. And of course the client was happy and the team was very happy as well. And this project gave us a robust boost in the marketing because it was very nice. So it's kind of a win win win story. So we're always trying to find this type of stories for every people working in all departments so they can achieve what they really want by achieving company goals.

00:25:50:04 - 00:26:20:15
Paul Bzeta
And a great way to align everybody. You've touched on it a little bit, but let's get into it a little bit more. If you had some advice for people wanting to get into video production, you know, these could be students. Maybe they're already newcomers in the business, or maybe they're old, salty veterans already. But what advice do you have for those wanting to get into and grow their video production business?

00:26:20:15 - 00:26:52:06
Tim Aleksandronets
I think video production is an excellent sphere to work and it enables you to work remotely, which is a factor, enables you to express your creativity, to create something. And this is always possible because creativity is a tool for achieving business goals. I mean, the right type of creativity, not the type of creativity. One person wants just to have some self-expression.

00:26:53:02 - 00:27:22:29
Tim Aleksandronets
But this is also something that you can have in video production if it's not at least contradicts with what the client wants. So it's ability to work remotely if it's animated production, right? Of course, if it's a video or shooting that it assumes that you should be available locally or at least eager to travel. Then this is, as I said, it's like creativity.

00:27:22:29 - 00:28:10:19
Tim Aleksandronets
You're kind of like little Guy Ritchie, and you can direct things. You can create small words, worlds, characters, interconnection between scenes like it's so very interesting. And then I also would advise to look at the air field. We do use it a lot and some e-learning projects like for example, when you have a talking head video series, instead of shooting a professor at location, we do create a generated synthetic avatar that talks to audience.

00:28:11:10 - 00:28:46:23
Tim Aleksandronets
And this is faster, cheaper and the learning outcomes are the same for audience, which was a bitch was proved by the university study that was conducted by one of our partners, Daniel, who procedures his PSG, a program at University of London. So they, you know, they did the focus group and they used air generated avatar versus normal talking of professor.

00:28:46:23 - 00:29:48:02
Tim Aleksandronets
And in terms of learning goals, there were no difference in the outcomes. So we drew leverage. I, I think everyone should do it. It does not substitute a lot. It does not like change everything drastically. But this is something that can give you additional advantage when it comes to cost effective solutions that are needed on the market. Also, I would suggest for Canadian and American companies to look towards outsourcing of some productions because when they need to create animations or and they cannot do it or when they are out of capacity, they can hire companies from Eastern Europe or some other regions with lower salaries, but with kind of similar mindset and provide better value

00:29:48:11 - 00:29:50:03
Tim Aleksandronets
for their and clients.

00:29:51:10 - 00:30:21:13
Paul Bzeta
So what I heard there, just to summarize, you have to be creative to start with and then you have to have this ability to somehow remove yourself from the creativity and adopt a business mindset. You have to be open to sending project work out. If you're if you don't have those skill sets in the house and yeah, those are terrific ideas.

00:30:21:28 - 00:30:35:28
Paul Bzeta
What about yeah what about what about things like, you know, going out and buying a bunch of camera gear. Do you think that's necessary when you're at the very start? Like, talk a little bit about that.

00:30:37:14 - 00:30:43:16
Tim Aleksandronets
Bank, a bunch of camera cameras. All right.

00:30:43:16 - 00:31:06:23
Paul Bzeta
Let me rephrase let me rephrase the question. So do you think it's necessary for those getting into video production to go out and invest a lot of money into things like cameras, sophisticated computer systems, studio rentals and all those sort of things? Do you think that's necessary? At first.

00:31:06:23 - 00:31:46:24
Tim Aleksandronets
No, I totally don't think so, because if you really need an expensive camera, you can rent an expensive camera and it will be cheaper and you will not lose money because you buy a camera. Then it becomes older and like cheaper. You will not sell it for the same price that you bought it. And in case you would like to shift focus, for example, you started a large production and then you realized that your heart wants to create animations.

00:31:46:24 - 00:32:03:16
Tim Aleksandronets
Then you don't need this camera. So I would rather like be careful and choosing safe strategies. Like you'll always have a chance to buy an expensive camera, but to sell an expensive camera is much harder.

00:32:05:02 - 00:32:16:06
Paul Bzeta
That's for sure. Tim, you've been great. Where can listeners find Blue Carrot online? How can they find a little bit more about you and your company?

00:32:16:23 - 00:32:28:10
Tim Aleksandronets
Oh, it's it's very simple. They can just Google Blue Carrot and we'll be there or it's upside Blue Carrot I Oh, great.

00:32:28:11 - 00:32:43:08
Paul Bzeta
Well, Tim, thank you very much for taking the time. It's obviously, what, nine, 10 hours ahead of where I'm at right now. And so it's in the evening. Really appreciate it and good luck to you and Blue Carrot in the future and keep crushing it out there.

00:32:44:08 - 00:33:15:07
Tim Aleksandronets
Yep. Paul and I also want to take a minute and appreciate your work, because it's very important to motivate other people who work in the industry. You show them examples, educate them. If anyone has any questions, they can send it to me at email team at Blue Carrots or not to AOL. I'll be glad to answer. So this is the great things that you're doing for the industry I love to take to be a part of it.

00:33:15:16 - 00:33:27:07
Tim Aleksandronets
I'm not too skilled audio podcaster, but this is probably was my second in life or something like that. But it's amazing experience and thank you so much for that.

00:33:27:27 - 00:33:30:22
Paul Bzeta
Thanks again, Tim.

Video MBA - Wojtek Jeżowski. BlackRabbit.

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