Two Peas in a Podcast

Episode 103 - Sharon Raijman

Sharon is the CEO and Founder of beTRUE Group in the heart of Hollywood. beTRUE Los Angeles is a 7,000 square foot space featuring 3 fully equipped influencer studios, a podcast studio, designer-inspired lounges, and a fully transformable 4,500 square foot space that hosts some of the best events in the Hollywood area.

To connect with Sharon reach out directly to:

https://www.betruegrp.com/

Duration:: 48m
Broadcast on:: 12 Sep 2024
Audio Format:: mp3

Sharon, I am so, so excited to talk with you first thing this morning since it is super early morning in California. First and foremost, thank you so much for making time for me and our audience. Awesome, thank you. Now I will let you take off and give yourself an introduction and tell our audience what it is that you do today because you do so many things. My name is Sharon Rekman, I am originally from Houston, Texas, living in California right now. I came here to start a kind of creative safe space that overall does everything you need as a creative. So we are a studio space, podcast studio, and then the whole thing becomes like a cool event space and it just fully transforms. So we get people here doing farmers markets, to gallows, to weddings and then obviously photoshoots, music videos, and podcasts. Now how did this creative studio idea come to you and where did you start in the creative space? So I actually met my old business partner, oh my gosh, now I feel like it's in five years, it's been a lot. I feel like time keeps going so fast, I met him about five years ago and he was starting an influencer agency and at the time I was actually studying for my medical board exams because I had just graduated medical school. So completely took a big turn there, but yeah, met him, he was starting an influencer agency and kind of on the side, I was helping him a little bit just as a friend and I always have had a passion for that creative side of my brain as well and so I started working with him on the influencer agency and then COVID hit which kind of was a crazy time obviously for everyone, but like crazy in the medical world, being able to apply for residency would have taken probably another like years time to go through the application process and then actually get in. So I was kind of in this weird limbo and like what do I do? I was working for a doctor at the time too, but then again with COVID it was just a little tough and so I sort of took a big leap of faith and started really working with this other guy I met with the influencer agency. We actually grew that agency to become the largest agency of its time so it was dedicated specifically to the LGBTQ+ community so that's all we represented and we were getting a ton of campaigns and you know helping to manage them working with different brands and spreading just obviously diversity and inclusion and this was again kind of at the beginning of COVID which then that all took a whole other journey on its own which was great and then once COVID ended around late 2021, 2022 kind of when it was on that cusp of like being done, we decided that we wanted to move to California because we had a lot of creators here and wanted to kind of like expand on what we were doing as a creative community in a sense and figure out a way to like just keep the business growing. So we moved out here, we got this place, started kind of DIY projects, blood sweat tears, everything we put into this place so like fix it up, make it look good and then we opened it and about three months later he quit so I kind of had to like figure out what do I want to do, do I like I'm didn't want to quit and we had just moved out here, obviously put everything into it and so he and I just split for different reasons but we split and then I took over the space, renamed it, rebranded it, came up with all the new things, new logo, everything and then just continued so since August of 2022 I've been running this place by myself and just making it work and it honestly has evolved as time has gone on right like it was initially supposed to be for influencers but then we figure out influencers don't pay for anything which is fine we all, I should have known that right like we helped them get stuff for free so we realized that they weren't going to pay, they just kind of wanted to like oh well shoot up, give you an IG story or something in exchange for studio type which is great but then obviously as a business who wants to make money I started putting ourselves on like every third party platform you can think of, pure space, gigster, all the things, try to just like get people to see what we have to offer here and then really just like word of mouth also helped a lot so it became more of a creative space for all kinds of creators to come and so we've had again like model photographers, actors, people who are aspiring musicians who want to shoot music videos or whatever they want to do they now found our place to come and be able to do that. Yeah I love that story so much specifically for this leap of faith that you took because first and foremost it's so hard to do and there are so many people who think about doing it at some point in their life but they just get scared, now what I find with people who are the most successful is this idea that they just understand the process. They understand the process of getting good at something, they understand the process of studying for something, tell me first about this background in medicine because first and foremost it is so hard I mean to go through the entire process of going through med school to get to the point of going to residency and that feels like the craziest time to take a shot at doing something outside of the system. Yeah it was a tough decision honestly I, since I was a little girl, always wanted to be a doctor, my dad's a doctor, I just literally, everyone always knew a chair in the doctor like that was just me and my identity but at the same time growing up I was also so creative like my dad's also a painter so we kind of have those mix of our half split brain on the science and the art but in a way I feel like both sort of connect at the same time too and different in many ways but I've always been very creative and always like when social media became a thing you know a while ago like I always was so fascinated by it, really liked it, wanted to be part of it in some way but of course was going through the medical school process and medical school was tough like I'm tough and I don't quit but it was, it was just like a tough journey and I actually went to medical school in Guadalajara, Mexico so my parents are from Mexico City so I speak Spanish too and it was just like a family friend had told us about that school, applying for med schools like in college and stuff I graduated college in December so it was like a weird time again to like apply to medical school it was a whole process but it ended me up in Mexico which was awesome like wouldn't change it for the world, got to live there for two and a half years and then it was like a dual program with the state so it was like a private school out there where you do a lot of your studies and then you come back to the state and partner with the sister school to do like all your rotations and clinicals so I then went to Arizona and was finishing out all my clinicals and rotations and that's where I met my old business partner so yeah it was a tough decision to say okay take this leap of faith but so many things were kind of playing into that that I was like I need to just try it and do it and we'll see what happened you know and like still what I do today I feel like my passion for helping people in the medical world has now just kind of evolved into like a helping people in a different more creative entrepreneurial type of way which I love so it's like still getting to like continue doing what I love in just a very different way obviously but the knowledge and the you know the studying for medicine I still love to look into things and you know my mom will still be like hey what do I do for this problem I'm feeling this I'm like mom it's been five years but yeah I think I still got some stuff there it feels like you're still a family doctor now keep in mind that I have no idea about what it's like to actually go through medical school and I feel like a lot of people in our audience have no idea either and what you hear a lot especially today is this kind of horror story horror story process where a lot of people kind of feel burnt out by the time they actually become a doctor then they have all these crazy amounts of student loans and then even if they think about changing a career at some point they just go it's probably too hard here is what I'm gonna end up doing forever yeah what was the process like for you and what are some of the differences between going to a school in Mexico relative to the school process in the United States that was kind of the hardest part I think actually not even the language barrier because I speak Spanish and the classes were for the most part in English until you got to again it was like a dual program where you can do part of it there a part of it here so most of the first like two years in the studies of like classroom stuff was all in English but a lot of my classmates were all from other like Spanish-speaking countries too or from Mexico or from like Puerto Rico was very popular so all of us really spoke Spanish there was maybe a handful who had like didn't speak any Spanish which was kind of crazy so sometimes we would just tell the teachers like just teach us in Spanish because it was just come came more naturally to them as well um I was honestly such a great experience and fun at the same time but also like again it was my passion since I was a little girl so getting to do that getting to learn um I don't think I ever actually felt the burnout process and I don't think many people do until you actually start studying for your board exams those are brutal those are definitely intense and as much as you know a lot about medicine a lot about people and what you've been studying and you're really good and comfortable with what you're doing it's just like the testing process is crazy and it's like tests that are eight hours long and you go to sit there you know it's like you could prepare so much but the difference to going to an international school and then going to US-based school is also very different on how they prepare you for that exam right because in an international school they're not really their main goal is not to prepare you to go be a doctor in the US and in Mexico or other countries they don't have um they have certain tests obviously you have to take but not like what we do here in the US so all of my classmates and I who wanted to come back to the US to you know finish out here we all had to take like certain courses and classes and how to actually properly study for these exams whereas if you went to school in the US you're kind of start from day one answering similar style questions and similar like you're learning basically it the whole time to get there so really until I started studying for those board exams and mostly once I got to like the second one because there's multiple I feel like that's when it started to just like I was so hyper focused on medicine only that I like stopped working out I stopped you know being social and hanging out with friends and like all the things that you're um wanting to just focus so much but then you like I started personally like to lose myself so I think I found this kind of new exciting thing with my other business partner and like getting an email from a brand excited me I was like what that's so weird it's just an email but it's this brand saying they want to have a call with me and I just got so excited about and it was like being excited for the first time in a while since just like the study journey that I was so focused on so I don't know it was like a weird mind trip I think in a way too where you're just like oh my gosh what do I do I'm not sure and I've obviously talked to my parents and my dad was like I it doesn't really matter to me like if you're a yoga teacher in Spain I don't really care as long as you're happy and you're like you feel happy and I think my family and friends could also tell a difference in just me because again I like like of all socialness and like just was so focused that they were like you're different but we understand it because you're going through this process and I think until I actually kind of got out of it and like really was focused on something else that was a little more light-hearted maybe and like I don't know just a totally different side of my brain not as much pressure sort of I think yeah I then was able to see like oh my god who was I like that was so weird like that wasn't really me I don't know you know what I mean like I love that so much and it resonates yeah it resonates so much more than you know because I spent so much time working for a big bank and in the finance field and the entire time that I was working there I always talk about this disconnect between who I was as a person and what I was doing for a living in a sense of like being super super involved and interested in holistic well-being and exercising and stand-up comedy and a lot of people just doing things on the creative front and at the same time having this job that like told me to stay off social media that told me that every single thing that you do and say is a reflection on the company so there was just always this disconnect between what I valued and what the people who I was working for valued and now I don't have as much of background in the medical field so maybe this is a stupid question but let me ask you because you're the perfect person to ask this like common sense tells me that holistic well-being just means eating healthy food going and exercising regularly making sure that your mental health is taking care of being part of the community and making sure that you're following your passion it feels like today's medicine has an huge emphasis on big pharma and putting band-aid on things that are wrong with people and just going hey if you take this drug you're gonna feel better or you just want to be as miserable in whatever it is that you're feeling this divergence of who you are and who you want to be in and we almost just treat that as a normal thing in today's society now when you are on your path to being a doctor did you see the influence on big pharma on how the medical field operates and the specific system that it operates within yeah that was another reason honestly I think also it was tough for me because everything you learn in school you're you're the one who's learned it all like you practice you've done all this you've read so much you you know what you're talking about right and to a to a point and I think what also started to like really get me and many other doctors too was once I got into the actual like clinical side of things and was shadowing other doctors going through rotations of all different types of you know different physicians and different rotations um I one either started to like have to actually talk to patients and go through that process and then figure out okay I need to order them this medicine and this is what I've learned this is what they need this is how much physical therapy they need and that whole process but then it's like big pharma and insurance companies tell you hey you've studied for so long but nope that's not what we're gonna do your patient has to actually do this instead and at that always kind of obviously like or to me but also just like I don't know it just made me so upset in a sense of like what I've literally learned all of this and this is what will really be better for my patient in the long run if they are to do this I know that you know like they should get better but then big pharma in and insurance are saying no they actually are gonna do this instead and like hopefully it works I don't know it just never none of it ever made sense to me but then every doctor I shadowed also of course that's just like an ongoing thing that they're everyone is upset with the way that our system works but so many doctors also were like get out don't do this like stop when you get you know like I think it was again a mix of all these feelings and I don't know what our medical industry is and does not really feel a feeling the same way about it once I fully got into it as much as I was so excited about it before because everything is really then becomes more business transactional not so much about patient it's like what's the business side of it so I think that was kind of tough too but yeah you're definitely right holistic approach on mental health well-being taking care of yourself exercising lifestyle changes that will obviously help you in the long run all the time but yeah when when it comes to big pharma and insurance it's wild so again I want to pre-phase this by saying I'm not a doctor and my understanding is right now you're not a doctor either right I technically am because I have the MD I have graduated I just never went to residency so it's a weird in-between kind of phase but I guess in a technical study yes I have an MD behind my name so you're an MD you're just not a practicing doctor and like what my frustration with the system has always been and why I just hate going to see my doctors first and foremost he is always a bearer of bad news no matter what you go into it always feels like hey here are the seven tests that like your insurance covers that you are supposed to get this year like you have to do them now and to me I just always want I feel good I exercise here are the specific things that I do for my health here is the thing that I'm coming to you for which is most of the time something that is not covered like I want to do a full blood panel to see if I have any allergies to specific foods and then the conversation with the doctor is never like hey oh that's a really really great question we should get to the bottom of this it's hey let's make sure that we get these markers for your insurance company to make sure that they get this data and I just go I don't give a shit about like the insurance company and what it is that they want as a consumer and as someone who like wants to have this relationship with his doctor it just feels a lot of the time like system is set up to get me out of the office as quickly as possible asking ask few questions as possible and as soon as you start that conversation it's like well there's a specialist for this let's see if you like need someone designated to like send you there and why are you curious about this and my answer has always been at the end of the day all I'm trying to do is just be the healthiest human being possible with the tools that I have and it's so so hard to find the information on food the information on like what it is that they're even putting in the chemicals in the water and all this other stuff I just go I'm like I'm not a doctor I don't have all the time in the world to do all this research and it just frustrating that it can't be a common sense conversation of here is what I need from you please help me as a doctor yeah it's I've been added it for a while now so I'm not sure you know where they're at now but when I was in it it's it's always you do have to follow certain rules obviously by what the protocol is for wherever you work so there are certain guidelines a lot of times there is like a time frame like you know you should spend 45 minutes with your patient or whatever it is based off of the type of procedure exam etc like problem that they're coming for but there was always like very much so rules what you should do how you should you know a process that you follow and I think too like there are certain things your interns will cover certain things they won't cover but the reason they're not is because a lot of times like you wanting to go do a full blood panel I get it from like a human standpoint of like I just want to know everything like I want to know how I am but from a medical standpoint there's not really necessary to do that unless you're actually feeling certain ways right so we always have the standard panels that you have to do all the time just to you know your cholesterol right like you don't know how you wouldn't feel that until later on when it's a little too late to feel like oh shoot my cholesterol so those types of things we have to study all the time and test um but other like hormone levels unless you're actually having symptoms it just doesn't make sense to really test them and from like that kind of standpoint but at the same time if you want to test it you definitely can go do it somewhere else you're just gonna pay a lot of money to go do it on your own so insurance won't cover it but yeah yeah to me it just it has always been a feeling of we are not trying to treat anything until you actually show symptoms and it's exactly the thing that you were talking about rather than having a preventative approach of hey let's try and jump ahead of this as much as possible to make sure nothing bad happens it's always like let's get to the point where something bad did happen and then try to give you a bad date on top of it so I just always had this giant appreciation for the work that doctors do but a distaste and what I call healthy trust and when my wife calls being crazy about approached the doctors of like I just wish there was a better approach that was like a middle ground between actually trying to get you better yeah it's definitely sorry I dragged into no you're fine I haven't talked about all this and forever so it's funny to like go back in time kind of but yeah I feel like doctors most doctors I think feel the same way and like like me for my example like I went into it I loved medicine I was so passionate about it passionate about helping people I learned how I think I was supposed to help people and then when you actually get down to it and you have all these rules placed against you that was the tough part you know it made me kind of like okay well then why did if I'm the one who went and studied for five years you're the insurance company like who are you to tell us like I don't know we know what's best for our patients and they're the ones kind of put obviously certain limitations on what we can do so yeah I think you do you think many people agree with you on this feeling yeah but I was gonna say do you think that that feeling that you just described that feeling of like hey I when I was going to school this is what I thought I would be doing I idolized it I had a perfect idea of what it was going to be then I got here and I just hated and it's not what I thought it was going to be and it's a big industry that just at the end of the day is a money-making machine because I feel like regardless of what career that it is that you go to unless you try to do something on your own unless you try to build your own brand it feels like you see it in every single industry where you get you know a young person who is kind of naive and doesn't fully see the world for exactly what it is going into that field having that idealized feeling and then once I get there I just feel like we have this society and this maybe it's a generational problem but we have this generation of people who are just not very happy with what they're doing and just don't find the passion in what it is that they're doing day to day do you think that's as common of a problem as I think it is I think so and I also think like like you said generational I feel like I don't know how old you are but I feel like our generation we're probably closer in age um our generation yeah I'm 30 and we're the same age because you're 30 as well um I feel like our generation was kind of like the last one to like understand what it means to work hard for something and like really have to show up and do things and like you know I don't know just work hard in general I feel like a lot of the younger generations and again it's social media obviously but like nowadays there's so many other ways to make money without going to like an office right like we learned growing up you you do your school you go to work but like going to work meant at least for me it was always like going to an office going to the hospital going to a school right like that was your work and now I think so many people can work from home which is awesome but that has obviously changed the work ethic I think of the younger kids now getting into the workforce where they're like oh I have to show up here oh I have to actually like lift things and clean things and you know like those kinds of extra things that you have to do in your job it's not all pretty and like fancy kind of work so I feel like that's where I don't know I'm not sure how everything's gonna play out but like that's just what I feel like when I've interviewed some younger kids who want to potentially work here I start talking about what we have to do and cleaning and painting and fixing the studios and it's just like okay I don't want to do that like I thought I could come here and just sit and like play on Instagram or whatever it is so hopefully I don't know I love that you say that because I have so much appreciation for it because you know part of being good at your job regardless of what you do is like this approach of doing whatever it takes to make the project that you're working on better sometimes that means something as stupid as painting the walls going above and beyond and like being a garbage person for the event that's like being thrown at your studio because you understand that at the end of the day it's about the user experience for the person that you're trying to provide it for and the customer is always right and it feels like the younger generation just doesn't have full appreciation for exactly what that means and they are caught up in the TikTok world in the Instagram world of like every day is the best day ever here is a picture of someone vacationing somewhere and I could be doing that too I just have to find out the path to get there now you've worked with a lot more influencers than I have have you found the influencer space to be full of a lot of people who haven't necessarily learned the work ethic and just head a home run on the algorithm side of the social media space um I actually don't I feel like a lot of the creators I've worked with and people I know and also like kind of knowing the back end of the way things work it's a ton of work like those who are fully involved in it that is their job like that's what they're doing and they're making money doing it and they're doing it the right way it's so much work like the planning behind it just creating the content it's not as simple in many ways right it's not as simple as like holding your phone up taking a selfie and that's it sometimes sure but like usually if you're actually like working for a brand where you're gonna make money on a sponsorship it's a process like you work with them you go through a whole creative brief most of the time right like you have all these rules and things that you have to follow things you can can do can't say can't you know all those types of things and it goes through a process of most of the time you know creating your content and then submitting it for approval to make sure everything looks good and we followed all the rules right so I think it actually does become more of a job than many people think and it's a lot of hard work I have a ton of friends who are influencers and seeing what they have to go through and doing and all that so is I feel like there's two different sides of social media it's like the ones who are actually doing it and doing it well and like hard working at what they're you know because it is actually their job and then the younger generations who just see all of that but all they see is the front of the camera shiny like oh my god look at they're in Italy and traveling and it's so fun and on the back end that creator yeah it looks so fun in the front but that creator actually took so much time had to get up at 6 a.m. to get the perfect sunset sunrise view you know what I mean like they have so many things they're following a whole itinerary like it is a lot more work so I think the younger generation is just seeing this as like oh this is so pretty and I want to be like that and I'm going to travel the world but when you actually want to do it properly it takes a lot of work um I don't know I think once you get there and once you actually put it in like you're doing a good job like you actually work really hard for it but it's the the early stages when you're like shiny ball like I can do that anyone can do it and it's really I don't think I mean yes anyone can do it but you still definitely have to put in a ton of time and work I am so so happy that you're here to provide some of this insight and that is genuinely exactly the direction that I wanted to lead you in because I know based on what we're doing with the podcast that it's not as simple as hey you just released this thing and like let it go and it's going to take off the next day what it is is I mean building blocks for painting a mountain one layer of paint at a time and you're hoping that you're taking steps in the right direction and what I find kind of the most difficult and frustrating thing of social media in general is that there is no blueprint for exactly what you need to do to move to the next level it's like solving this complex puzzle of hey if you knock door to door and you talk to each one of these people who's involved in this maybe one of them will take you to the next level but who knows and I find that challenge like so so interesting and so so difficult at the same time and I have now different understanding of what it means to be a content creator based on you know starting to be one and I go I got this is actually like hard work this is a lot of unanswered calls this is all these emails to all these important people who you know you a lot of the time get to 90% there and sometimes things just don't work out in your favor how do you find the passion and the mental strength to in the times when something doesn't go right to make sure that you keep moving and just go onto the next thing I I don't even know I mean I think you just have to keep pushing and keep working like when I first started this business so first you know started it with a partner he quit shortly after we opened and then which is crazy which is crazy because so many people would have uprooted and quit at the same time just going like hey this didn't shake out my way it's time to move on to the next thing and why I appreciate you so much is because you want hey this sucks I have to find a different way to do this than I was expecting but I'll make something of it right yeah you all the things and you're gonna be like how have you not quit yet but um but when that happened obviously you know what I mean so like we put so much into it and for us to just say like okay we failed after three months like I'm just gonna leave it just didn't make sense to me so when he left I just came up with a new name new logo new website everything and just went full force I didn't know what I was doing I clearly have had a medical science background my whole world until I finally just you know stumbled upon this guy did you know social media for two and a half years or whatever and then we came out here so I didn't really know much about this world or anything about production and lighting and videos and sound and none of that um but I wanted to make it work and so I just kept pushing and was like we're gonna make this I'm gonna give myself another year you know like actually see this through and we'll see what yep and so that was August and then that following January so holiday season was kind of slow like everything was a little slow but I was also still just like figuring things out and then January in LA there was a horrible storm like the streets were all flooding and everything the entire studios all flooded everything showing up here um I was like down the street and it was raining so hard and I was like I should probably go and check on the space like I don't know I had this weird intuition I was like I should try to just go and like make sure everything's fine and the water whatever I came here and immediately the whole place just had water all over the bottom floor and I obviously started crying I was freaking out I was just like what do I do this is crazy there was nothing to really do in that time I mean there's just water so we had to wait called the landlord um he kind of said the same he was like I'll come in tomorrow but there's nothing you can do right now and it ended up being to where they had to rip out the bottom two feet of every wall everything so wow all my studios in a studio normally has like the full um seamless white floor white wall everything it's like a curve so imagine that but without the curve without the floor because then it's just the bottom two feet and everything are ripped apart so unless someone could do a photo shoot from the waist up you couldn't really use the studios yeah so at that time too I was like okay do I quit like what am I supposed to do again like how do I keep this business running if no one can use the studios no money's coming in right and I didn't want new clients to come into a studio that was half broken because they could shoot with their waist up like it just wasn't a good look so then um one person reached out about potentially doing an event here and we were never really supposed to be an event space we were maybe going to be like brand workshops simple things right and so someone reached out and they wanted to do an event like a month after we had all this damage it was never going to be fixed by that point so I was like okay what do I do so I ended up draping like getting white drapes that I went to um downtown LA to the fashion district bought all this white draping cut it all myself with some friends like they all helped me and we got up there and like stapled it to the ceiling and just made it drape super pretty around every single wall so it just looked like a cool white drape kind of backdrop and then with our studio lighting we could change the colors so it made it actually look really nice and we had that event with draping with holes behind the drapes like no one knew that there was no wall there and they loved it the clients loved it the guests loved it no one had any idea that there were holes behind the wall right behind the scene um I love that so much so from there I was like okay we can maybe do this instead and then you know from one event to the next to the next to the next more and more people I started posting more pictures of the events and videos and putting us again on every third party platform as an event space now too and that just continued to grow so really for like the next six months I never had a fully operational studio it was always draped and just became an event space so then everyone kind of started to know me as the event space like a new event space in hollywood um and then once the studios finally got fully fixed and insurance and that whole mess then by that following summer was when I actually had like fully operational studios and event space and now it's just sort of transformed as I've gone into like a full blown event space but then also now we have studios and now the newest is this podcast studio that I'm sitting in so it has definitely grown and evolved and I still don't know fully what I'm doing but I've learned a lot along the way and I worked pretty well under pressure so figuring all of the out in the moment and you know becoming an event coordinator and all of this yeah and what I appreciate about that story so much is that the best of the best business owners just find a way it doesn't matter what the like initial thought words there is always some opportunity that comes along the way to transform your business and to do something else yeah tell me about some of the most successful and the coolest events that you've had at the space because we both know that holy smokes there are events going on every my right every weekend at this yeah which is so so crazy because it just speaks to the level of hard work the incredible amount of talent and success that you've had to go hey I'm doing this but I can also at the same time provide so much value to other people with an event space yeah um we've had all kinds of events and that's another thing too is I think I've once I saw one event I'm pretty creative too so I started to picture and be like okay I think this would be kind of cool so anytime someone would come in for a tour I always try to like give them a tour while giving ideas so people can fully see it because really when you come here where our big event space is technically our parking lot so you have to get people to see beyond the parking lot and so hey this is a parking lot but it has become really cool farmers markets and it's become a wedding and it's become a sunday fun day party with a DJ in a stage like it's become so many different things so you have to get people to like visualize it and then I show pictures from what we've done and then they're like okay this is really cool I can make this work um but we've done at like one of our clients they do cannabis farmers markets which I've never heard of before but because it's a private space we're fully in close like I don't care people smoke weed so California it's legal if we do those they used to do it monthly and now it's like every other month but those are super popular and they get like close to 500 people coming for that so you know it's a lot of people in here in here then we've done now two years in a row we've done a holy type event so it's like the um holy festival uh Indian color throwing powder type of thing again super cool and they the client of mine who did that they were like normally we do it at a park or we do it in different places because it's outdoors and we can do that with the color powder um but having it in hollywood it's like very different for us and it's cool and because it's our parking lot like we can also do that too it comes every color you can think of but you know with some water it's fine um god I love that I love that so much yeah one client they had their wedding here it's kind of the perfect client for a wedding because it was a filmmaker and an actor so it like was perfect combining the studios and you know having their wedding here and then last summer for pride we were packed I think I had eight events eight or nine events in one month it was wild but it was one of my clients they did an event every Thursday for pride last year um and it was a full-blown production like they brought in all this crew all this talent it was a show so it was like a show and a party and they performed on our roof in our stage on our parking lot like through the crowd it was to me one of the coolest events just because it like one it had so much meaning to it it was an all LGBTQ cast so like they all came in and performed for pride it was kind of like sexy show but also um just empowering in every way possible so that one was really cool to me um and the level of production like they killed it so they did a great job but yeah we've had all different kinds of things all of all events you can think of yeah and the fact one of the biggest gauges for me of whether or not someone actually does good business and good work is the repeat customers are people coming back and going hey the experience that was put on is exactly what I wanted so here you speak about all these people who are just so so excited to be working with you repeatedly it's just one of the most satisfying things to me because I go either has to be so much work on the back end to make sure all of these unique people are so so excited to have their event repeatedly at our space and I have so much appreciation for the hard work that you do now let me ask you this difficult question what is it like watching your baby and this thing that you had a specific vision for turn into something incredible something so complex and kind of branching off into different things that you might not have ever thought about um I think sometimes I still don't even like realize it it's happening like even just talking to you right now and telling that story I was like like took me back I was like oh my god that was two years ago like it's wild how much time has passed but then also to think of where I was two years ago and also like me physically mentally emotionally everything right like it was completely different starting this out than where I am now like so I think I still have to take a step back and be like whoa look at what I did like this is really cool and I've done all of this too with no marketing so everything that all the clients that we have it's either because of word of mouth they show up to another event and then find me afterwards and say hey I was just at that event I want to throw an event or what does it look like or hey I was at this event realize you have studios I want to use your studio so word of mouth and networking and stuff has been amazing and then of course we're on third party platforms so that helps for sure get people in the door but once they're here and they know of us then a lot of times they just end up booking directly as repeat studio clients or whatever it is but yeah so I think I always also think about that from like an old marketing standpoint I'm like wait I haven't even done a single ad or anything to this place and we're already at this level like now I'm kind of to the point where I'm like okay what if I did do ads then I'd really be like killing it and trying to get more people so probably gonna dump on that soon to at least for the studios events where you're pretty booked out like every weekend which is awesome so on the studio side definitely need to get some more people in here but once people find out about us we have private parking we're in a great central location in Hollywood not downtown like people really love it so I think that's become the biggest thing and I've learned okay I need to now let people know we exist on the studio side so these can be booked all the time but yeah oh that's amazing it's just a perfect setup and here is the final question that I'm gonna hit you with today Sharon and this one is going to be a doozy hey your business over the last you know four to five years has transformed has taken on so many shapes already when I ask you about the next five and ten years where do you see the direction of what you're doing now headed and what is it that you would like to accomplish let's say five ten years out from today because I know that your goal and your vision is so much bigger than the incredible work that you're already doing yeah that's a long time from now and obviously you know you can see what has happened in five years already and I didn't even plan it you know what I mean so it's like wow to see how things change but there are some new things coming out for this space in general starting out with a clothing line soon but more so like merch but elevated merch right so it will say be true on it and that's you know the name of the studios but if you in Chicago never knew that we had a studio space but you just saw a really cool shirt that said be true like anyone can feel back right like anyone should be true to themselves right so coming out with that soon so that will be a whole nother adventure and journey but I guess I just don't like to quit and I keep adding more and more things that's that entrepreneurial side of my brain but then the ultimate goal I mean I since I started this our goal was always to have many of these right like the point of this is to be a creative safe space where people can come and be authentically themselves shooting whatever content they want posting the events they want and just like coming to a cool safe creative space and feeling inspired and then you know putting out whatever they want to so the goal is always to actually build many of these so this is be true Los Angeles ideally we eventually have be true Chicago be true Miami be true Houston right like it can be anywhere major cities small cities and each one to me I think looks a little bit different than the other because I think it would depend on the you know the city and where you're going Nashville would probably need a recording studio right so maybe instead of um to cyclal studios for photoshoots we have a cyclo studio a photo shoot or a podcast studio and a recording studio for the artists right in Houston where I'm originally from like probably don't need as many studios but maybe a bigger event space or more private offices that we have here we have a couple you know so it's like those kinds of things would you'd always continue with the same pillars of what we have in this original like headquarters of a space but then transform it based off of what city we're going to so that's like big gold big dreams having these all over the place ideally one day that's where we head to but I don't know I'm still taking it day by day having maybe a one-year plan at this point to know what am I doing so we shall see yeah now I love that so much because what you keep coming back to is this solid foundation idea of we have to figure out exactly what we are that we will have an idea of taking this all over the country and creating different plays on the original idea just to make sure that we're hitting the target market making sure we connect with our audience and making sure that we continue to do great work I have so much appreciation for the work that you're doing I have no doubt that wherever it is that you're headed it's just an incredible journey and it's so so amazing watching you succeed because you are genuinely an incredible story of success thank you so much for sharing your time with me and our audience we are so so excited to see where you go next thank you thank you for having me of course we cannot wait to speak with you next time and thank you guys for listening. 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