November 28, 2005
Cutting room | A chat with Roger L. Cropley II, founder of The Edit Shop in Portland.
By Whit Richardson
Founded: July 2004
Employees: Two
Startup costs: $180,000
Revenues, year one: $138,007
Projected revenues, year two: $181,000
Contact: 774-2080
48 Free St., 2nd floor, Portland 04101
www.theeditshop.com
Describe what your company does.
We are basically a [video] post-production house. What that means is that we do editing, DVD authoring, video for the Web, graphic design, anything that you do after you shoot your material.
Who are your clients?
Most of my clients are ad agencies, and then sometimes people called independent producers, who do mostly video news releases and stuff like that. I do occasionally find a client and put them in touch with a person in production. I'll go after them, sell them an idea, bring somebody in to pitch it with me and they will be the production person and I'll do the editing part.
When did you first get the idea for your company?
I've been in this business since 1991. I worked for a company called VP Film & Tape [in Portland], which was a partnership, and the partnership was dissolving. They were a production company with post-production capabilities ˆ they did the whole thing ˆ and they offered me the chance to buy the post-production side because I was the senior editor. So I decided I had to do that.
What prepared you to go out on your own?
Basically, I was going to end up out on my own as a freelancer, so I decided to buy the equipment and move it to a different location and make a go of it. When I first decided I was going to start this business, I went down to Boston and I spoke with somebody who owns a post-production company. I spoke to him about how to handle the startup and things to do for marketing. He gave me the advice to never lease anything and never buy anything until your clients are asking for it.
Was it hard to make the transition to running your own business?
The clients I had before are the same clients I have now, for the most part. Since I've been here since 91 I have relationships with most of the agencies. They all know me and they can trust my work.
Once you start your own business, it's so much better than being an employee. There's a lot more responsibility and there are times when it gets slow and I kind of go into panic mode, but even then it's so much better to work for yourself.
What's your competition like?
Most of my competition is actually people who do [both] production and post-production. I think I may be the only one who does just post-production in the southern Maine area. I differentiate myself by being a specialist. And it's not like the competition is unfriendly. I've known most of them for a long time.
How do you market your business?
I do sales calls to try to find out from agencies what's going on, what they're going to have coming up. I do sales calls to people that I find interesting in magazines to see if they have a need for a marketing video or a DVD for a trade show or anything like that. We do demos for ourselves. We have a website.
What are your plans for growth?
Well, I have two edit suites and I only have one [editor]. I can't run both of them. I would say a couple months out of the year [the second suite] is usually run by a freelancer, so my goal is to get that room used all the time.
I'm also bringing in ˆ it's kind of a pseudo-partnership I guess ˆ a freelancer who owns an edit system, which is different from the edit system I have.
Did you set any goals for yourself in the first year?
My goal was to have $12,000 a month in billing, and we certainly reached that. We got our first national ad three to six months after we opened. I'd never done a national ad, and we did two for Sylvania.
What is the weirdest thing you've ever been asked to edit?
I've never really done any strange ads, but somebody actually asked me if we edited blue movies. And I went, "Uh, no."
New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to wrichardson@mainebiz.biz.
Employees: Two
Startup costs: $180,000
Revenues, year one: $138,007
Projected revenues, year two: $181,000
Contact: 774-2080
48 Free St., 2nd floor, Portland 04101
www.theeditshop.com
Describe what your company does.
We are basically a [video] post-production house. What that means is that we do editing, DVD authoring, video for the Web, graphic design, anything that you do after you shoot your material.
Who are your clients?
Most of my clients are ad agencies, and then sometimes people called independent producers, who do mostly video news releases and stuff like that. I do occasionally find a client and put them in touch with a person in production. I'll go after them, sell them an idea, bring somebody in to pitch it with me and they will be the production person and I'll do the editing part.
When did you first get the idea for your company?
I've been in this business since 1991. I worked for a company called VP Film & Tape [in Portland], which was a partnership, and the partnership was dissolving. They were a production company with post-production capabilities ˆ they did the whole thing ˆ and they offered me the chance to buy the post-production side because I was the senior editor. So I decided I had to do that.
What prepared you to go out on your own?
Basically, I was going to end up out on my own as a freelancer, so I decided to buy the equipment and move it to a different location and make a go of it. When I first decided I was going to start this business, I went down to Boston and I spoke with somebody who owns a post-production company. I spoke to him about how to handle the startup and things to do for marketing. He gave me the advice to never lease anything and never buy anything until your clients are asking for it.
Was it hard to make the transition to running your own business?
The clients I had before are the same clients I have now, for the most part. Since I've been here since 91 I have relationships with most of the agencies. They all know me and they can trust my work.
Once you start your own business, it's so much better than being an employee. There's a lot more responsibility and there are times when it gets slow and I kind of go into panic mode, but even then it's so much better to work for yourself.
What's your competition like?
Most of my competition is actually people who do [both] production and post-production. I think I may be the only one who does just post-production in the southern Maine area. I differentiate myself by being a specialist. And it's not like the competition is unfriendly. I've known most of them for a long time.
How do you market your business?
I do sales calls to try to find out from agencies what's going on, what they're going to have coming up. I do sales calls to people that I find interesting in magazines to see if they have a need for a marketing video or a DVD for a trade show or anything like that. We do demos for ourselves. We have a website.
What are your plans for growth?
Well, I have two edit suites and I only have one [editor]. I can't run both of them. I would say a couple months out of the year [the second suite] is usually run by a freelancer, so my goal is to get that room used all the time.
I'm also bringing in ˆ it's kind of a pseudo-partnership I guess ˆ a freelancer who owns an edit system, which is different from the edit system I have.
Did you set any goals for yourself in the first year?
My goal was to have $12,000 a month in billing, and we certainly reached that. We got our first national ad three to six months after we opened. I'd never done a national ad, and we did two for Sylvania.
What is the weirdest thing you've ever been asked to edit?
I've never really done any strange ads, but somebody actually asked me if we edited blue movies. And I went, "Uh, no."
New Entrepreneurs profiles young businesses, 6-18 months old. Send your suggestions and contact information to wrichardson@mainebiz.biz.
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