A Pandemic Startup? – We Did It And Here’s What We Learned
Our Pandemic Story…
Someday in the future years from now we’ll sit by the fire telling these tales – “It was a dark and stormy night… the year was 2020…” To say that 2020 was a hard year for many of us would be an understatement. But the hardship brought resiliency and change, and in a lot of ways it taught us some important lessons.
Before we really even thought of making video production into a business, Jeremiah and I were creating music videos and promos for our own alt rock band, Robots And Magic Powers. Then in March, the shutdowns came and suddenly a full year’s worth of show bookings went down the drain. Not only that, with the local venues shut down, we were afraid many of them wouldn’t survive.
The thing I love most about the Indianapolis local arts and music scene, is the sense of community. If there’s one takeaway from last year, it’s that creativity and community will prevail. So the first thing we did when we saw our neighborhood venues in peril was pick up our cameras. We created a commercial featuring 3 of our closest venues– Black Circle, Melody Inn, and The Mouse Trap. It focused on their carry out options – because while people automatically think of their favorite restaurant when they’re hungry, you might have forgotten music venues offer carryout too and desperately needed support.
As the year went by, we watched these venues pivot and adapt with creative ideas such as building outdoor stages. We even saw new businesses pop up, like one of our local favorites GoldLeaf, under some of the most challenging conditions. We helped a non-profit spiritual center, The Hermitage put up their 2-day seminar as an online course.
Seeing our community navigate and pull through these challenges and how we could help is what inspired us to found RadBot Video. What we’ve learned from the past year is that with enough creativity, determination and community, any challenge can be met.
-Sara E. Jones, CEO & Co-founder, RadBot Video
P.S. to see the full video highlighted in this story, check below!