Dr. Nehemiah Mabry began STEMedia while pursuing his PhD in engineering. During his transition from full-time engineer to full-time digital agency owner, he talks about the mental and emotional parts of the job being the hardest to overcome. Hear him talk about firing himself to realize his company's full potential. Learn more about the incredible work STEMedia is doing at https://www.stemedia.com/
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[00:00:00] Nehemiah: when you let go of control, ideally you wanna let go of control to people who can do it better than you were originally doing it. And because they can do it better than you originally doing. , it there may be times where you feel tempted to remind them like hey, I was, Hey, I was doing this before you came alive.
[00:00:14] You know what I mean?
[00:00:15]
[00:00:46] Angela: Hello everyone. Thank you guys for joining us today. I'm here with Nehemiah Mabry, who is the founder of STEM Media, which is also based here on the Raleigh Durham area, and I said thank you so much for coming on with me today, Nemiah.
[00:01:00] Nehemiah: Hey, my
[00:01:00] pleasure. Thanks for the invitation.
[00:01:02] Angela: Absolutely. Absolutely. Nehemiah is a man of many hats. He is still a practicing engineer
[00:01:09] in addition to being the founder of STEM Media, and he is growing his ed tech company to really service The gap between education and stem and really the visual side of things and the kind of entertainment side of things, if you will, through his podcast through a show that he's produced with PBS and probably so much more that we don't know about right now so Nehemiah, if you could, for those who are listening and. Maybe you're interested in thinking about how they can use their profession and their skills and their knowledge to meet the gaps and meet the needs of people who are looking to learn and get into a certain career field. Can you talk a little bit about your transition from being a practicing, like full-time practicing engineer to saying, okay, I wanna use my skills and educate other people about the work that I do.
[00:02:03] Nehemiah: Totally.
[00:02:03] I use this analogy, right? I know you, you're a cam you're a shooter, you do media, you do video production. The lens makes a difference. The lens through which you see something makes a whole lot of a difference, right?
[00:02:16] And I feel like when I was growing up, I always looked at stem, which is like the technical subjects, math, science, things of that nature through a lens of.
[00:02:26] I never really saw it as something separate. I saw them as tools to invent something, tools to create something, tools to make something work that was really based on the idea in my head. And so as I went through school, I always found ways to like picture things and visualize things that were unique to me, but helpful in me understanding engineering and those types of concepts.
[00:02:48] But also what I felt were ways that other people could be inspired. . And so as I got into my field, my goal was to really take a lot of what I saw in my head which was entertainment, right? , and put it out into the world. And I think that is really to answer your question a way that other people can begin to think about their fields, right?
[00:03:11] It's a different lens of looking at things, not just as, Hey, I gotta. This problem done, or Hey, I just gotta get this work done, or check, check. But ultimately you're actually creating something, right? And you're creating something. So for me, I just continued to follow that passion to create, and it actually led me to move from creating and designing bridges, right?
[00:03:33] To designing ways to teach people about bridges. And so that's the really, the real shift that made, that I made as I began to build stem.
[00:03:42] Angela: Nice. Yeah, I think like sometimes you know that thing you can do like the back of your hand. Other people are
[00:03:48] like, how, how can I do that? And a lot of people are visual learners. That's just the reality. They may not. be as good at sitting down and reading a textbook for hours on end and trying to decipher that information and make it real for them.
[00:04:02] But if they see you do it, they see you talking about it. They see the way that you visualize the work that you do that could really bridge the gap between knowing and doing for them. And I think that's what ideas are all about, is bridging that gap between, man, I've been thinking about this and now I have the knowledge to execute on this.
[00:04:19] Nehemiah: Yep. Yep.
[00:04:20] Angela: So when it came time for you to create STEM Media in a legal sense what was that like for you? Because to my knowledge, you had never owned a business before.
[00:04:29] Nehemiah: I haven't I didn't at that point, and it's crazy. have this perception that it's so hard. Oh,
[00:04:36] how do you start a business? And then it comes down to just really a few basic steps that anybody could do to, as you said, formally form , hey business. And I just learned that yo, you go to the Secretary of State, you fill out a form, you pay a nominal fee.
[00:04:56] The next thing you know they're holding. , write that name for you, at least in your state. And then you apply for what they call a e i N number, which is like a social security number for your business and how they can track you tax wise, And once you get that from federal government, you are officially a business now when it comes to selling and marketing and getting paid and growing and becoming more profitable.
[00:05:19] That's a whole nother art in science. But the legal side of things are pretty straightforward. You get a bank, Keep your money separate from your own, personal spends spending. So you can very clearly see what was part of the business and what was not. But here's the thing, like people were saying, I had a business before I had a business, Angela, and that's the part that really made me try to figure out, all right, what was this kind of like behind the veil process?
[00:05:43] And I discovered that it really wasn't that much. People were asking me, Hey, I created this video. When I was in grad school about engineering, it went very well, won this contest, and people was like, Hey, can you create this for this? Can you do this? How much do you charge? And at first I was like, I, I just did it for a hobby.
[00:06:00] But it wasn't until again, people began to approach me as if I had a business. In a very legal sense that I said, why don't make this actually legit? And so that was the process. But it still was daunting, if I'm honest with you. Like the day I was going to secretary of state, of turning in, I think I did like a camera phone video.
[00:06:19] Cause I was like, oh, this is it. I'm about to, and it was just all that. It was like, okay, that's it. Get back to your grind. But that was, that's how it was.
[00:06:28] Angela: So when it
[00:06:28] comes to you figuring out okay, how do I make this a little more official? How do I standardize the processes that I use to sell and to market
[00:06:39] my business and to ultimately work on projects that I really am passionate about and that make me enough money to maybe go part-time?
[00:06:48] being an engineer, what was that process like for you? How long do you feel like it took for you to really get comfortable in STEM media being like a money making business?
[00:06:59] Nehemiah: Yeah, that's a
[00:06:59] good question. I think because we were initially doing like video production, much like yourself, we were getting everybody who like, Hey, I got this wedding. Hey, I got this bar mitzvah.
[00:07:08] Hey, I got this event. Can you do this? Can you edit this video? And at first I was just like, yeah, sure. But I knew that I started this because I wanted to make STEM specifically come alive.
[00:07:23] STEM Media was the name of the company. And so at first it was. , okay. How do I get people to know I'm not about to do your wedding? That's not my particular niche and that's the advice I would make to other people. Get very clear on what market you're serving. And so I got very clear I'm serving higher ed people in education, people in the workforce.
[00:07:42] that are trying to get more people in stem, because that was the initial goal of mine. I was still very much in engineering. I hadn't even finished my PhD at the time in engineering. And so it really came down to me just honing in. And that helped, right? Because when things didn't align with what I was trying to do, I could easily pass on them that was like, More than half the battle knowing what to say no to.
[00:08:05] But then when it comes to actually making money, then it became like, all right, let me see how much the market can really take. All right, I charged $300. All right. $500, right? You start trying to see what the market, cuz that's what it is. Like it's feedback and sometimes we get offended when people are like, nah, I'm not paying for that.
[00:08:21] It was like, that's just like what they see the value is. And so for me it was getting. it was getting an idea of how much I should charge and then also trying to find the right people who may have had the grant funding or had the budget to be able to pay for the things that I wanted to do. And yeah it snowballs from there.
[00:08:40] So in terms of the, how soon did I get comfortable? I probably got comfortable, lemme be honest with you, probably two, three years because I was still in grad school and I was still trying to get schooling. Still running the business on the side, but when I graduated, it's like I felt free. I didn't have to do it undercover, , or whatever the case may be.
[00:08:59] So that's when I got comfortable.
[00:09:01] Angela: Okay. I
[00:09:01] feel like that sounds about right, like that tracks like, I think like the expectation is like as soon as you file for your L C and get your e i n, you're gonna be out to the races. Everything figured out, everything's good to go, you're already profitable. And that's really not the case for
[00:09:18] Most people wasn't the case for me,
[00:09:20] Nehemiah: Doesn't taste for me either. Not at all. Not at all.
[00:09:23] Angela: Yeah.
[00:09:23] Um,
[00:09:24] Nehemiah: speak on that a little bit more. You get those projects where like, how much am I making from this again? And , you did way more work than it was worth. And then even that, you're like, all right, something.
[00:09:35] Something's gotta give. Because I don't know if this is actually how it's supposed to be.
[00:09:39] Angela: Yeah. You're like, how can I get this sustainable? Especially when you're starting part-time, yeah, I know it's gonna be hard. I know it's gonna be a lot of work, but I also know there are people out there doing it. So if they can do it, I can do it. I just need to figure out how, in a way that works for me.
[00:09:55] So when you finally got your PhD, I'll say finally, I'm sure it was a long time and it probably felt in lucky
[00:10:00] Nehemiah: it was finally
[00:10:02] Angela: So then you got it and you're like, okay, I wanna use this degree that I put in all this time and effort to get, but I also wanna bridge that with this creative passion that I have and this business that I have.
[00:10:14] What was that conversation like for you and for your family and for the people in your life that had been supporting you up until that point?
[00:10:22] Nehemiah: Yeah I definitely wanted to get a return on investment on that degree.
[00:10:24] So I went right into industry and got a job and so it wasn't like I, I graduated and I went straight into full-time entrepreneurship at that time. So I did go and take a salary, as you said, work part-time on the business. And it worked out well because, , while I wasn't necessarily competing with my engineering firm, the skills and the services I was providing through STEM media was complimentary.
[00:10:49] It still had a lot to do with understanding engineering. It still involved some of the same network of individuals where over here they're looking for design services. And then over here now these same people are looking for ways to communicate the situation. So there were certain situations where yeah, hey, the firm works over here, and then.
[00:11:08] Contact will remember me from the firm as an engineer and say, Hey, can you make a video for this program? And so those are the things that like really worked out for me. But nevertheless, I had to make sure the wires didn't cross. I didn't do like video editing at the company or anything like that.
[00:11:26] But for me it was really a goal of getting closer and closer to that career or my day being something that I could. Start top to bottom, this is where I'm supposed to be. This is what I want to do. This is like uniquely me. Doesn't mean it's not hard, but it's still uniquely me. And I knew it had something to do still with the world of engineering and the world of STEM that I was a a practitioner in.
[00:11:51] But I still had this, desire to empower people, inspire people inside of me, that I wanted to increase the capacity in my.
[00:12:01] Angela: So you talked a little bit about the challenges that you had first trying to kind of balance, Career,
[00:12:07] your engineering career with kind of like getting STEM media off the ground and making sure there's wires staying crossed. What would you say is one of the hardest things since going full-time for you with STEM media?
[00:12:18] Or not even just one of the hardest, one of the things that you dislike the most that you know you absolutely need to do for your business?
[00:12:26] Nehemiah: Yeah.
[00:12:26] Since going full-time, I would say that the biggest challenges for me have been mental and emotional, and I try to be as transparent with that as possible because there's a certain sense of security you get when you got a job and that paycheck or that direct deposit is hidden on a consistent basis, and not just financially but when it comes to just, Hey, there's somebody.
[00:12:48] that can worry about the business. When you just don't care about it. You can go on and do your thing Like that doesn't leave. And because it doesn't leave and because you are the founder and ceo, that means that no one else is gonna worry about the business like you are. And so then that can be very lonely, right?
[00:13:03] And you can start wondering yo, I'm over here by myself. Like just plowing away in the dark. And things like mental health, physical health feedback, looking for ways to get. Honest feedback that is going to help you, but at the same time not crush you. Like all these types of things, you're balancing from a mental and emotional standpoint, those have been the hardest parts.
[00:13:29] I think when it comes to being more profitable. Those are shift challenges as well. But I think those are, there's formulas involved in that, right? There's formulas you can go and say, all right, let me increase my prices, or let me find, let me pitch more or let me grind through that. And that is good because that comes to a lot of like just. Pushing yourself to the limit. But as you push yourself to the limit, as you continue to pursue all the more, that emotional and mental state becomes very important to stay on your square. So I like to say that because that's the thing that people probably don't realize for me, has been more challenging.
[00:14:04] Angela: Yeah. And how
[00:14:05] have you been working through that? Hopefully in a healthy way. Please don't tell me you started a drinking
[00:14:09] Nehemiah: Oh, I was at the gym, listen, I was at the gym right before we hopped on this. I was at the gym, listening to a podcast. I was, that's important, right? And
[00:14:19] it feels lonely, but you know what you can do sometimes instead of maybe the coworker that understands what you're going through, you can get online and listen to some other entrepreneurs, right?
[00:14:28] Talk about their struggle. Or you can get it a part. other groups and things like that because while you all are in different companies, there are some similarities among entrepreneurs that then it may feel like, okay, I'm not that alone. Even though they're working on a whole nother business and their business could be killing it, , yours is not killing it.
[00:14:46] That you could find some of that camaraderie. So I look for that online through podcasts like this. Shout out to yours, honey and hustle. And yeah, these are things like that, that are incredibly important. So shout out to all our entrepreneurs watching this right now as a form of, dealing with again, that mental and emotional.
[00:15:06] Angela: so
[00:15:06] Nehemiah: yeah,
[00:15:07] Angela: No, that's good. That's good. I definitely say I can identify with that, I think there's always that phrase like, oh, if you're the smartest person in the room, you shouldn't be in that room. And it's sometimes sometimes that gets comfortable because see, when you're in the room with people who are like crushing it, and we're in the triangle for people watching this Millionaires walking around you know
[00:15:26] Nehemiah: man. They
[00:15:27] Angela: what I'm saying?
[00:15:28] There's people who are a thousand percent crushing it in their entrepreneurial pursuits. And so like when you're not there, it can be very intimidating. And to that point, it's like sometimes you have to be cognizant of what you're letting into your mental space because it's man, you see somebody doing so much better than you all the time, that can feel like I'm not getting there fast enough.
[00:15:48] And you start taking your eyes off of your own race. So that can be really hard. You have to temper that with okay, who are the people beside me that are doing at a similar level? Who are the people doing much better than me? Who are the people who are maybe just starting out that are doing things a different way that I did it when I started?
[00:16:07] And just learning at all these different levels. But
[00:16:12] Nehemiah: It's, you gotta navigate. It's something to navigate for sure. And like I said, like the feedback is, , but then if it's like too much sometimes it's that did the opposite. That made me feel now, and then the inspiration is good, but it's don't over inspire me. Cause then I'm gonna sit here and be like what am I doing with my life?
[00:16:28] You know what mean? You gotta get just the right amount of doses, your what is it like a nutritional chart for your mind and spirit, right? It's that you gotta make sure you just eating the right things and you let the right things into your space to keep. , keep you sane, but also keep you, motivated
[00:16:46] I know, I know this is getting really good, but I just wanted to take a minute to say thank you. Thank you so much for watching and listening to the show. Whether you're a day one fan or day 100 fan, I'm so glad that you found Honey and Hustle and have decided to stick along for the ride. As a thank you, I wanted to give you a little gift that this show has so graciously given me the ability to continue to connect with thought leaders, industry leaders, business owners, and other entrepreneurs.
[00:17:12] No matter where I. Link offers a digital business card that is a natural extension of my website and social media platforms that allows me to easily send people to strategic landing pages so they can learn a little bit more about me, the resources I offer, and how we can continue to stay connected.
[00:17:29] When you click the link below, under description, you'll get 15% off any of their wearables, phone taps, and hopefully the last physical business card you'll ever need. When you do. I get a little percentage back at no extra cost to you, which helps me continue to host guests and industry leaders so they can give you advice and help you crush the hustle.
[00:17:48] Thank you so much again for supporting the show and our show sponsor link. All right, let's get back into it.
[00:17:55] Angela: So speaking of people doing extremely well, as I introduced Nehemiah, I mentioned that he is producing a show for P b s. So can you talk to me a little bit about how that partnership came to be? A little bit about the host of the show, that whole magnificent, beautiful situation you have going
[00:18:11] Nehemiah: Oh man. Listen. I appreciate you saying
[00:18:14] extremely well, it feels different. It's all relative. but no, this is, I have some incredible partners, uh, some co-producers on the show. one by the name of Justin Schaffer and Stephanie Castillo, who is, who is also a part of this. So pbs, they've been able to do some work.
[00:18:32] as STEM media for years now has been building like a track record on, just online through the content we put out events we put out, and so those were contacts that they had from past events. They were able to see STEM media's track record, and then they kinda reached out and said, Hey, we would like you all to maybe produce a show, and they had an idea.
[00:18:54] But they wanted us to help flesh out an idea that they already had. And so what we did was we got, the three of us got together, we started thinking about ways we wanted the show, the look, the feel, the style, the format. And from there we started thinking about, okay, who can host us?
[00:19:11] Who can capture this vibe? And the beauty about that, right? When you're looking for talent, so to speak, you have a lot of people on social media. already have like audition reels right there on Instagram or right there on TikTok. And you can just reach out and say, Hey, we're doing this project, would you be interested in?
[00:19:27] So we were able to link up with this incredible, incredible Doctor Tina Sisi, who is a biological anthropologist, as we talk about this show called Why Am I Like This? Who's Fantastic, not just in the. In her delivery of the science. for a long time I had been working with, I would say a long time, but prior to this I had been working with Taylor, d Adams for a while, who's a phenomenal, just all around producer.
[00:19:56] He is great behind the camera, fantastic editors, one of the best editors I've ever worked with. and extended the opportunity to him to come on board and got another partner that he. Keaton Lusk, who's great on sound, sound engineer, and really just the six of us linked up and, started making it happen.
[00:20:16] We started making it happen. Start producing the show. Right now we're still live. We still have some episodes to drop. It's on PBS Terra YouTube channel, called Why Am I Like This? By Dr. Halsted. By Dr. A Lassis, produced by STEM Media and all the phenomenal people I just mentioned. And yeah, it's been going well.
[00:20:33] Great reception. Yeah, just really happy about that opportu.
[00:20:37] Angela: When it came to,
[00:20:40] Nehemiah: So for some reason I zeroed on that question. I'm gonna have to ask you again what the second part of that question
[00:20:45] was. But the release and control part you have to be, you have to let go of your. First of all, because when you start a business, you're doing everything. You're editing, you're shooting, you're scouting, you're logistics, you're doing the accounting, the budget, like everything. But at the end of the day, you're limited. You're finite. You can't do but so much, so you have to let go control.
[00:21:10] So let's just talk about that first of all. But when you let go of control, ideally you wanna let go of control to people who can do it better than you were originally doing it. And because they can do it better than you originally doing. , it there may be times where you feel tempted to remind them like hey, I was, Hey, I was doing this before you came alive.
[00:21:26] You know what I mean? And then, but if you do that now, you can insert your ego back into it, which can really sabotage what you're trying to do. And so it's a process of constantly reminding yourself that you have to let go in order to go up at times, and somebody put it to me like this get to a point where you can fire yourself from certain. and hire somebody better than who was doing that role before, which was you, and that is actually the sign once you can get comfortable with that. And I still have moments I feel like I'm a lot more comfortable now with that, but there's still moments where you gotta remind yourself, like this is part of the process, there's another one, the founder's paradigm. People can look that up, right? It's this thing where it's like, all right, you wanna be a king or you wanna be rich, like what you wanna be, you know what I'm saying? And it's like, all right, cool. You could actually probably maintain very small people maintain full control and actually hits their potential.
[00:22:23] So it's like the potential on one axis, and then there's like control on the other axis. And you gotta move to a place to where your potential can go up, but you can let go a little bit of the control so that you can ultimately get to the place where, where you believe that your company can be.
[00:22:38] Angela: Yeah.
[00:22:39] Nehemiah: what was
[00:22:39] the other part of that question though?
[00:22:40] And I'm sorry, that
[00:22:41] Angela: The other part of the question was how did you go about cultivating these relationships with the people that you are hiring? Because they think, at least for me and a lot of other people, once you leave a full-time job and start running your own business, hiring wasn't something you had to worry about.
[00:22:58] You know what I'm saying? Whoever your coworkers were, they just showed up one day, , You
[00:23:01] Nehemiah: didn't pick them
[00:23:02] Angela: No, you didn't
[00:23:03] Nehemiah: didn't like them, then it's man,
[00:23:05] know,
[00:23:05] Angela: Yeah. But now
[00:23:06] Nehemiah: I'm not gonna talk to you. I'm gonna go over here and do my thing
[00:23:10] Angela: Exactly. You really didn't have to have a relationship with everybody you worked with. You really didn't have to have a hand in who you worked with. But now that's all different and now it's up to you to put the puzzle pieces together about how all these people are gonna fit to for your company to reach the goals that it has.
[00:23:28] So how is that kind of like mental puzzle work for you?
[00:23:31] Nehemiah: Yeah, I you said that relationships are key and this type of question. I, it is one of those areas where it's honestly, I'm still trying to figure it out. So I don't wanna I have all the answers but relationships are key and I consider myself extremely blessed to have had the relationships that I currently have.
[00:23:51] in the space that STEM media exists. And that's the intersection between, science, technology, engineering, math, but also creativity and media and production. And I've been able to do like short-term projects, like we have a summit called the STEM Success Summit that was started back in 2019 and really started, as an opportunity to collaborate with several other individuals who are in their own way creating platforms and media. Around this idea of elevating, empowering stem. And that gave an opportunity to get to meet, know people. , in addition to that prior to this, I started a thing called STEM Media Live, which was kinda like a podcast like this, right?
[00:24:30] And I just reached out to people in the community and had interviews with them. And those were ways that relationships got started. Being active and really even just doing things for fun can help establish relat. Now, when it came to the business side of things though it did. I am learning even more so that needs to be strategic.
[00:24:51] And what I mean by that is sometimes you can be really cool with somebody, but they may not be, they may not have the skillset that your business actually needs right now. And sometimes people make a mistake of just hiring somebody that they just cool with. They just kick it with, we have fun. But then it's you actually adding dead weight on the business side of things where. if you are patient sometimes and you just pay attention to not just how well you get along with someone, but just what type of skills they bring to the table, that's where you can be a little bit more strategic and you can extend the invitation to certain people because business is about becoming a well-oiled machine that's like producing something that people are continuing to pay for at a high level.
[00:25:32] And if you only hire homeboys and your home, that's not necessarily the formula for success. You know what I mean? It could be if everybody has complimentary skills, but you have to ask yourself that question.
[00:25:42] Angela: Yeah. And I
[00:25:43] think one thing that your comment reminds me of is , when businesses have huge layoffs, and people are like they mess with these many people's livelihoods and that sort of thing. And part of me, and I hate that, I think this, but part of me is like, , if a business realizes that it can do the same amount of work, have the same
[00:26:04] Of output, same amount of profit with 100 less employees, it's going to do that because a business is not meant to be, not, its sole purpose is not meant to employ people.
[00:26:16] Sole purpose is to make money and
[00:26:18] to
[00:26:18] Nehemiah: make money. Yeah.
[00:26:19] Angela: And and I hate that. It's like that, it's for people that get laid off,
[00:26:23] Nehemiah: Mm-hmm.
[00:26:25] Angela: Considering so much is tied to your employment, I see why people are upset. I'm not saying people shouldn't be upset for getting laid
[00:26:30] off in a mass hiring, but the reality is a business is meant to be profitable,
[00:26:35] Nehemiah: Yeah.
[00:26:36] Angela: And so there, if things are not working with an employee for every reason with the section of the team, and they know that they have to go, like they're gonna do that. If that means saving the business and getting it back to a point where it's profitable again. And that can also be like a hard thing too.
[00:26:51] As someone who's work with people that I no longer work with. It's it's not that they're bad people, it's not that they're maybe even bad employees, but for right now, this isn't the best fit for other business needs. And having those hard conversations is not easy, not something I was necessarily prepared for,
[00:27:06] Nehemiah: Not, yeah.
[00:27:07] Angela: something that has to be done.
[00:27:10] Nehemiah: Yeah. I want to talk more with you about that offline too. I won't flip the interview, but I got some questions. I'm just curious about, yeah.
[00:27:18] Angela: Okay. Yeah, happy to share. That's what I'm here for,
[00:27:23] Nehemiah: Yeah.
[00:27:23] Angela: But yeah, so going back to happier
[00:27:26] Nehemiah: Mm-hmm.
[00:27:27] Angela: things,
[00:27:28] So we talk about. Doing some of the overarching planning for your business. So for people who are
[00:27:35] watching, listening to this, we're recording this in December, so this is a lot of times for myself and probably other people, other business owners, you start to reflect on how the year went, what things went well, what things could be improved, what things just didn't go well, what changes you gonna make to help the business continue to be lean and grow and be successful in the new.
[00:27:55] what are some things you tried that maybe you felt like were successful and you wanna implement at a higher level in the new year? All these type of things. So for you, when you think about your planning process and like the growth trajectory and really doing big picture thinking, what does that process look like for you?
[00:28:14] Nehemiah: Yeah, we're
[00:28:15] shifting in the direction of ed tech, right? And that is a business that is scalable, not solely based on every time we produce a piece of content.
[00:28:25] but also the ability to be able to leverage the same content to multiple customers. And one of the ways, there are a number of ways, businesses or ours can be monetized, right?
[00:28:35] You can get sponsorships, you can charge subscriptions to individuals. You can starch subscriptions to institutions. You can provide SaaS, as they say, software as a service. And one of the things that since our goal is really to elevate and. , the individuals, the students and the professionals.
[00:28:56] We really want to become a platform that institutions that benefit from hiring or educating even this same demographic that we want to empower, can become our core customers. And so we're looking to build a platform. We already have an MVP right now, an app that's on the app. That is right now, I say MVP minimal viable product for the content distribution.
[00:29:20] But we want to continue to leverage that and build that out to where it is valuable for people who, who need the talent that we're engaging, the talent that we're educating. And so that's the big picture goal, to be able to get to a point to where we are scalable. Again, not just on the shooting, the editing, the producing, but the, here's the.
[00:29:41] and here are multiple ways we can monetize and leverage that content to, to grow. And that's where we're going. So talk about firing myself as I hire people. I want to get to a point to where. , not still media is fired totally, per se, but the regular ongoing grind of the production schedule is largely replaced or leveraged for greater return over the long haul.
[00:30:08] And so that's the big picture. I want still media to be the espn, the Disney, the MTV of stem. I'm getting into my visionary bag now, , I feel like these are brands, and I'm gonna be honest with you where I don't remember when they didn't exist, but can you imagine there was actually a time when there wasn't a channel, like M T V, there was a time where there was like this imaginary place of where imagination runs r like the Disney.
[00:30:31] There was a place where there literally was no 24 hour sports. We got tons of them, right? I want to become a media to become a brand that's sy. with this new vision of what STEM looks like. That's creative, that's empowering, that's inspiring. That's edifying, that's educating that's allow people to reach their potential while also be themselves.
[00:30:50] And to the point that somebody can say, look, I don't even remember a time when, I actually had to look for places to find this dope STEM content. It's always, the media has always been there.
[00:31:01] Angela: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:31:03] All right. There we go. There we go. We got the big picture thinking here. Hopefully get somebody else some ideas on where they can take their creative business. And thank you so much for joining me here today, Nehemiah. I really appreciate it.
[00:31:15] Nehemiah: Yeah. I listen, that was a, this was an honor, it was a privilege. I appreciate and admire the work you've done. And yeah, I look forward to just collaborating, connecting even more.
[00:31:24] Angela: Absolutely. Absolutely.
[00:31:26] â
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