Can you elaborate on specific challenges or pain points from your commercial film production experiences that sparked the idea for Buddisystems? Any memorable incidents that solidified the need for a solution?

Absolutely. In film production, especially commercial film production, you have only a few weeks to start and complete a project with so many moving parts. Still to this day, producers and production managers are still using spreadsheets, Dropbox folders and paying people via ACH for things. It started to dawn on me back in 2018 that people needed to be paid faster and the process of booking needed to be streamlined. I started conceptualizing a few project management tools and testing them with friends in the space and things gradually turned into what is now Buddisystems.
As a producer and former production manager, one of my least favorite moments in the process was always in booking people. I would need to call someone for their availability and they would sometimes not promptly respond because they were working on other jobs.. It forced me to be attached to my phone waiting for that one person. Once they would respond and tell me they CANNOT do the job, I would need to try my next favorite freelancer for that same job. Again, waiting on them. If they would get back to me and tell me they were on hold for another job, I would have to try yet another person for safety. I always found this process to be wildly wasteful of time and energy and was always something I thought could be done better.
That’s why one of the first features we created on Buddisystems was the booking system where you could choose to create job offers for your top 3 favorite freelancers and the system would do the waiting and reaching out for you based on the responses from the freelancers until the position was booked.
Another moment that I run into quite often is finding available people. This problem sparked us creating what is called the Buddi Feed which is a forum to find available freelancers, jobs and items for sale. Our goal is to help anyone hiring in music and film to have a resource to lean on and find top talent but also use our platform to schedule the jobs, pay people fast and report taxes.

Development of Buddisystems Platform:

Transitioning from the idea stage to development, what were the most significant challenges faced, particularly in terms of time and finances? How did you overcome these challenges, and were there any pivotal moments in the development process?

Our initial ideas for Buddisystems were very different. We came in and tried to make a lot of really cool things and the most challenging part of it was answering the question of “What do people really NEED”. As we started building, we made the common mistake of overbuilding and it wasn’t until we started alpha testing with a closed group that we realized there were things we speculated would be useful that ended up not being as needed as we thought. Thankfully, we were able to quickly pivot in some of these cases but when you are trying to build with speed, it’s almost inevitable that you will run into some things that won’t get used.

Reflecting on the development journey, you mentioned considering books like “The Lean Startup” and “Traction.” How might a different approach informed by these books have impacted the early stages of Buddisystems?

These books are invaluable in my opinion. I wish I had stumbled upon them earlier in my journey but looking in hindsight, I can relate to them much deeper and moving forward am more apt to adopt their methodology especially when it comes to developing new features.

The Meaning Behind “Buddisystems”:

The name “Buddisystems” has a unique and meaningful connotation. Can you share more about how you settled on this name and what it signifies for you and your team?
When we were finding our new name (formerly Benji; short for Benjamins in reference to the hundred dollar bill and Benjamin Franklin’s portrait), we were looking for a friendly yet powerful name that could help sum up what services we were offering. We had friends in advertising helping us brainstorm and the word Buddy came up. Because this is such a commonly used word, we started playing around with the spelling and then found that Buddi by itself had connection to other software companies so we decided to try out Buddi System and decided to connect both words and pluralize them.

If you were to search the meaning of Buddy System on your computer, you would likely find a definition similar to:
a cooperative arrangement whereby individuals are paired or teamed up and assume responsibility for one another’s instruction, productivity, welfare, or safety.

As we started to realize, this was the perfect solution as it describes the cooperative arrangement we are trying to strengthen between companies and individuals. When the tax component came into play, it really started to make even more sense when thinking in terms of compliance between businesses and individuals when reporting and paying taxes with the state and federal governments.

We try to keep the definition of the Buddy System prevalent when thinking about what makes sense for our customers and the Buddisystems community as a whole. It currently acts as a mission statement for the brand at this juncture.

First Successful Job on the Platform:

Running the first successful job through Buddisystems was described as thrilling, scary, and vulnerable. Can you provide more details about that experience and the specific impact it had on shaping your vision for the platform?

The first jobs we ran through the platform were happening simultaneously and as people started onboarding, we were on the edge of our seats. It was if we knew something was going to go wrong but we didn’t know what. There were a few hiccups with onboarding but there wasn’t anything detrimental to us or our customers, thankfully. We can say there were definitely a few people that were frustrated with onboarding but on the whole, people were really happy to be paid so fast and have such a cool experience with the job.
We learned so much from that experience that it helped us tremendously with refining our user experience and how we are communicating with users about why we need to do things the way we do but it came with a few bumps on the head. It’s certainly never easy to hear that the product you spent seemingly endless hours creating isn’t making someone completely happy. Especially when the intention is to help make someone’s life easier.
The most difficult feedback was about user experience in onboarding. In short, security is such a major component of our platform that we need to make sure we are taking the steps necessary to ensure a secure yet smooth experience. Sometimes the element of security doesn’t always lend to a smooth experience but in the end it’s critical.
The bright side; when users made it through the onboarding, the rest of the experience was like a dream and since then, we have made massive progress with our user experience and without that experience, we wouldn’t have been able to make things easier for future users. As scary as it is to put your product out there, you just need to do it.

Influence of Musical Journey on Entrepreneurial Spirit:

How has your background and experiences in music influenced your entrepreneurial spirit and contributed to the development of Buddisystems? Are there specific skills or lessons from the music industry that you find particularly valuable in your role as an entrepreneur?

I have been playing drums professionally since I was 14 years old and from that young age, I learned so much about business and entrepreneurship without even realizing it. Everything from promotion to working out the deals for the band with the club, there were many elements that I was exposed to at a very early age. By 17, I was playing in a international corporate party band to make extra cash and that taught me a lot about bookkeeping, organizing my schedule and learning about different avenues in the music business. As I progressed, I ended up touring with a grassroots band which led to me starting my own project which really put me in the driver seat with being an entrepreneur. I was responsible for creating promo materials, scheduling rehearsals, booking gigs, creating relationships with the venue owners, keeping track of our fanbase, communicating to our mailing list and the list goes on. We eventually started getting management and booking agents but I found that sometimes, the job didn’t get done as I had hoped so I would just be back in the driver seat with those roles.

It was exciting to be able to guide the band in that way but it also came with a lot of responsibility. I think having all of that experience wearing so many hats prepared me for the journey I started embarking on later in life with film and now with leading a startup.

“Life Without the Degree” and Life Lessons:

The potential autobiography title, “Life Without the Degree,” suggests a unique journey. Could you elaborate on what this title represents and share any significant life lessons you’ve gained from your unconventional path?

I think the potential autobiography “Life Without the Degree” speaks about a lot of entrepreneurs out there. In my case, I dropped out of college and just went head first into experiencing music and life on the road. I lived on almost nothing for many years and learned so much about risk and what comes with that. Sometimes you take the risk and it pays off and most times it doesn’t but even when it isn’t what you thought it was going to be, your life finds you with immeasurable experiences and people you would NEVER have met going to a 4 year college.
I also think the significance of traveling the world, meeting so many different types of people and learning how to navigate through those experiences and still come out in one piece is worth writing about.
There is something to be said for going to college, learning a skill, meeting peers in your field etc. I think that is a path that suits a lot of people well. For myself, I don’t know that path would have been the best way for me and I can say that I look fondly on all of my life experiences, good and bad. It certainly has been a wild ride.

Future Outlook for Buddisystems:

Looking ahead, where do you envision Buddisystems heading in the next few years? Are there any exciting developments or projects on the horizon that you can share with us?

We have some really exciting features that we are working on and are planning to roll out over the next 12 months. As we grow, we are bringing in more and more unbelievably talented people into the mix so we are eager to get all of these things in place so we can share them all with the world but as for now, we are keeping our heads down and focused. One element we CAN share and are beyond excited to roll out is our tax prep and W9 uploading feature. We have a team of CPAs helping guide us in automating the tax preparation process and as we are doing so, we are offering professional tax services as a part of our offering. Come and visit www.buddisystems.com today to learn more about it!