We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel Bagherpour. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel below.
Hi Daniel, thanks for joining us today. We love asking folks what they would do differently if they were starting today – how they would speed up the process, etc. We’d love to hear how you would set everything up if you were to start from step 1 today.
If I could go back in time and tell my younger self a few things, there are three things I would advise him to do differently as an entrepreneur. The first is to protect and cherish time with family, the second to stay connected to your support network, and the third to discover and invest in yourself. Had I known the value of these things at a younger age, I could have gotten a lot farther a lot faster.
They say the fastest route between two points is not always a straight line. The meaning of this phrase is that there are innumerable elements that must come together for success to occur, many of which are beyond one’s control. In a world full of forces acting both against you and upon you, there is one thing that if possessed makes all the difference in a person’s career journey. That is family.
My advice to any young person starting out in a creative business would be to protect and cherish time with family, listen to what they have to say even when it is not what you want to hear. These are the people who know you best, they should have your best interest at heart, and should have loved you before you even had the capacity to love them back. They will be there to encourage you with a hot bowl of soup after long hours of work, and they will be there to humble you when success blinds you with pride. Of course this is assuming you were fortunate enough to be born into a moral and good family. If you were not, you are faced with the difficult task of making your own. For example, I’ve seen varying degrees of support given and received between members of clubs, churches, and neighborly gatherings. “It takes a village”- is another common saying that communicates this idea that before you succeed, you need a small community of trusted people around you. In my life I did not always receive the support offered by my family. My pride told me to push away and attempt to make something of myself. Had I been wiser I would have leaned in, perhaps reaching financial stability much earlier. The times I have made time for my family, and listened to what they have to say have yielded more dividends than all tutorials, trainings, and articles I have turned to. Family is a source of wisdom, refreshment, and peace that will get you through the difficult times.
There is a phrase one of my college mentors told me: “Malama kou piko”, literally translated as “Protect your navel”. It is a Hawaiian proverb that means one ought not to forsake the place and people through which you were made. As the umbilical cord channels life to a child in the womb, a person’s family and community are critical to their development. This applies to physical growth yes, but applies just as much to growth as a person and a professional. I think American society has lost touch with the reality that without a strong foundation to stand on, parents, grandparents, cousins, aunties and uncles, a person has little chance at success. I would be nowhere, were it not for the support I’ve received from my family, and friends. Your support network will produce business leads and clients, they will hone you with sharp but needed constructive criticism, and they will drive you to excel in hopes of being able to give back to them.
Lastly I would tell my younger self that he does not need to move to LA, find an agent or producer and get discovered. I would tell him that he doesn’t even need to go to film school or acting classes. Discover yourself. Invest in yourself. If I had spent the $5,000 I blew in Los Angeles over a summer on a basic editing computer, I could have made the content with my cheap DSLR to launch my business right from my own home. I remember getting messages from people in the Midwest looking to launch their careers in the big city, and giving them my recommendation to make stuff happen where they were. It may sound cliché, but the fact is in this day and age you have everything you need to make your business right where you are, you just need the creativity and determination to do it.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I spent the first 9 years of my childhood in southern California. From a young age I remember being fascinated with science fiction films. I also enjoyed watching animations and adventure movies. At age 9, my parents moved us to Ankara, Turkey. My mother made sure we did not forget our American identity thanks to large cases of books and VHS tapes she packed and brought with us. I loved getting lost in the comfort of English language media, but living in a large foreign city so different from the small retirement town where I was raised taught me to appreciate cultural differences and diverse perspectives as well.
My brothers and I grew up around multiple languages and met people from all around the world. This helped me discover the nuances of communication. For example, on any given day, one of us might have spoken Turkish and English, another friend of ours, Turkish and Farsi, and a third child only Farsi. In order to accomplish anything we had to translate back and forth using gestures and sound effects to fill the gaps. It probably resembled a Marx brothers episode to anyone interested enough to watch us. The idea that complex messages could be boiled down to a simple movement of the hand, or raising of the eyebrows taught me much about humanity. As I grew older I began to appreciate storytelling in all its forms, both oral, written and visual.
When it came time for me to attend college back in the USA, I told my parents I wanted to become an actor, which they politely dismissed, explaining that acting was a good hobby and that I should study something more substantive like engineering, law, or medicine (dignified fields that most Iranian-American boys are expected to pursue). Having no desire to study these subjects, I opted for Political Science instead, specializing in International Relations. I figured it was the one field that suited people like me, and hoped it would satisfy my parents’ desire for their son to have a four year degree. During my years at Northern Arizona University and University of Hawaii at Hilo, I took the opportunity to enroll in as many “fun” classes as possible to supplement the drudgery of politics: Electronic Media and Film, Theater, Fiction Writing, Hawaiian Ethnozoology, Forestry, and Arts of Oceania to name a few. Upon graduating I was disappointed to realize that getting a degree was not all as satisfying as my community had made it out to be; I realized that at heart I was still far to creative to follow a traditional career path. I bounced around between a few things before finally making my way to Los Angeles to pursue what I had always imagined would be the answer: learning how to make films.
It was there that I discovered the varying levels of talent and lack thereof one could find strewn about the city. I met people who were excellent at their craft, and people who thought they were excellent at their craft. Though my attempts to enter the film industry were initially aimed at acting, I soon realized that there was alot more control behind the camera than in front of it, and I began helping out on film sets, learning all I could wherever I was needed. The path to developing my skill sets was not easy, nor was it linear. Many times I thought my career was headed nowhere, and that I would have to give up and turn to a traditional job to just make a living.
A few years later my dad ran into a man in Germany who needed help filming green screen shows out of a studio in Irvine California. He encouraged me to apply and I eventually found myself working as a producer for three live shows filmed on full fledged sets. It was the most fun and the most pay I had ever had in a job, and I was finally able to focus on doing the things I had wanted to do all along. In this job I got to study the fundamentals of lighting, live editing, directing, and asset management. I became a sponge, studying everything there was to know about a topic, and then moving on to the next area of expertise. I was surrounded by professionals who took me under their wing. I owe much of who I am today to those people who saw potential in me.
Over the years I decided to branch out and develop my own business, realizing that the skills I had acquired and used to serve my employer could just as easily be used to serve my own company. It was so freeing to finally have full creative freedom, to be able to choose who to work with, and how much to charge, and to be able to focus on areas I had never had the time to before. Seeing satisfied customers walk away from a shoot gave me a sense of tremendous satisfaction; furthermore it led to more work as word spread of what I could offer my community.
Today my business, Windword Writing LLC, provides multimedia in three forms: graphic, visual, and auditory. Whether it is a logo, commercial, podcast, or reel, we work with clients to determine the message they want to convey. We provide them with materials that show who they are and how they benefit their customers. Being a small business sets us apart as we are more nimble than larger marketing agencies. We are free to innovate, and excited to do things that haven’t been done before. Last year we had the pleasure of working with fashion designers, equipment suppliers, nationally recognized nonprofits, and builders of million dollar homes, and I can’t wait to see what new opportunities await us this year!
For you, what’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative?
I love getting to see the look on a client’s face when the product we have been working on is finished. It usually takes hours, if not days, for the final draft to be deliverable, and it has usually been reviewed by multiple sets of eyes focused on eliminating anything excess, leaving only the best parts to serve up to the audience. Teamwork, debate, and careful consideration have all taken place, but now is the big reveal. Seeing the smiles, hearing the laughter, or feeling the sense of pride that a client walks away with is priceless. Bringing people’s visions to life is what it’s all about.
Any resources you can share with us that might be helpful to other creatives?
One thing I wish I had known about a long time ago is SCORE mentoring. SCORE is an organization that connects up and coming business owners with free mentors who are specialists in their field. My mentor has done a phenomenal job of empowering me to do the parts of my job that I hate doing, namely accounting. If there was one thing I’d recommend to someone starting a business in the US, it’s to connect with a SCORE mentor and start getting answers to questions you had no idea how to solve.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://windwordwriting.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/windwordwriting/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100064021722576
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniel-bagherpour-04a24639/
- Twitter: https://x.com/WindwordWriting
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCAwIBNnWjarOvvHbk1zc3BA
- Yelp: https://biz.yelp.com/biz_info/Zmav8rI2Ww59pw1n7WdDmg
- Other: [email protected]
