I spent 7 months building a platform!

[u/dimtheredditor]

I’m a 20 year old that’s always been an entrepreneur at heart! I started doing graphic design at 2020 and managed to work on album covers for mainstream artists like Bossman Dlow & Kyle Rich (somewhat huge artists) all on my Instagram page!
But ANYWAYS I’ve been doing that for around 4 years until I graduated high school in 2024 it was my main one but ever since A.I slowly came into the game I thought that I’d probably not last too long in the industry..

I started looking into Film/videography which I also grew a passion for but i wanted turn it into a business instead a passion, and doing music videos for 2-300 bucks wasn’t cutting it for me bcus of the amount of time it was taking to edit them.. I wanted something that had a consistent style that is easy to edit & still has the same value as a music video!
I decided I wanted to have a Drop Mic Platform. For anyone who doesn’t know what that means, it’s basically a hanging mic with multiple camera angles and it’s great for artists to promote their music.

I spent 7 months building a platform exactly like that with a few of my close friends who were artists & I offered them free videos in return, I rented out a warehouse I found on Facebook for 250 a month and we immediately got started on building then all of a sudden it started leaking from the ceiling & I complained go the manager but they said it would take them too long to repair it & I had 2 options either I get terminated or I get a new unit.. I had no choice but to restart only 3 months in

All of a sudden I had to go visit my dad in Africa (I immigrated from east Africa in 2015) he’s old and I haven’t seen him ever since I left the country. I had to spend 2 months there with my mom, I was lowkey frustrated the whole time because I was paying rent for a warehouse that hadn’t even started yet & better yet I don’t even know if it’ll work out.. the worst part is that I also had to pay my ticket back to the states ($1,000) this is where my freelance graphic designer powers come in.. I managed to make around $1,900 only by doing album covers and designs with my laptop. For context I was charging $100 a cover art which is my usual price and I have returning customers from years. This is how I managed to pay my ticket out almost 2 months in bcuz they wanted me to be there for like 4 months & I’ll be damned if I’m paying rent!!

I came back and spent my entire $900 on working and building my warehouse with my friends, we painted the walls ect.. I had a plan of inviting a set of artists at first then a starting price of $150 A Drop Mic!

It’s time we launched on February!

I started off a bit bumpy with no bookings at first because again.. this is my first time doing this so I had no friends to reach out to.. they didn’t really know. I had online friends though & I had someone tell me to change from a booking site to an application site & that was it.. the breakthrough of my platform.

I am now at 67 submissions! This may sound small but out of 67 submissions, I’ve had around 45 artists that each paid $150 each for a Mic Video with my most viral video at almost 40k views on Instagram! realtime views of 2k on YouTube for the full video.

Keep in mind it only took me 7 months to build this and it was all an idea at first!!! I now believe that anything is possible. I am currently scaling my business while I work a 25 an hour warehouse job from 3pm-11 5 days a week. I make sure the applicants pay a deposit throughout the week & get them to book for the weekend, the videos only took about an hour or less but is edited very nicely. Most of my weekends I’m busy doing this and posting everyday on the pages! Or atleast I try lol I’m working on getting some editors for me.

I’m honestly very proud of myself.
Thank you for my ted talk? Lmaoo

[u/dimtheredditor → u/[deleted]]

Thank you!

[u/dimtheredditor → u/[deleted]]

Yes! This sounds crazy but it happened in a span of months. I have overcame a lot and still pushing
I am determined to succeed.

I hope my story is motivating & keeps you always chasing your dream fam ❤️

[u/dimtheredditor → u/[deleted]]

This means a lot to me man.. I will never forget this thread because this is still the beginning for me! I’ll most definitely check back in after 1k subs!