We recently connected with Betina & Melisa Badea and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Betina & Melisa thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. So, naming is such a challenge. How did you come up with the name of your brand?

When we were kids, over twenty years ago, my sister and I opened up a lemonade stand back in Europe, Romania. We really enjoyed running it —preparing lemonades, experimenting with different flavours, marketing the drinks to our friends and family members, and so forth. But, what we enjoyed most about the experience —and this will sound cheesy— was that the two of us got to work together! In fact, our lemonade stand experience laid seed to the dream of one day running a “real” business together. LemonSeed Media is the fruition of our childhood dream.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

We both did our undergrad degrees at the Mel Hoppenheim School of Cinema (MHSC) in Montréal. The program allowed us to gain video editing and cinematography experience, while also simultaneously exposing us to the fine arts, graphic design, and various animation techniques (both 2D and 3D).

After we completed our bachelor degrees, we both went on to work in Montréal’s booming VFX industry. Betina went on to work for MPC on blockbuster hit movies such as Sonic 2, Doctor Dolittle, and the Call of the Wild, while I Melisa worked at Framestore on the Mulan remake film, Suicide Squad 2021 and a Netflix special, Jingle Jangle.

We really enjoyed working in the field of animation. But, after a few years in the industry, we realized that the overall corporate structure of the VFX industry wouldn’t really work all that well for us in the long run. We didn’t feel like the corporate world would be able to provide us with the necessary environment to take advantage of our divers range of creative inclinations and entrepreneurial drive. We also realized that if we would ever want to become mothers, the corporate world —with its rigid schedule, inflexible work hours, and overtime bustle— would not be ideal for raising a family.

So, one sunny summer afternoon, we visited our parents in the West Island and started discussing all of the above. We were basically hanging out by the pool, while brainstorming about the possibility of leaving the corporate world and finally follow our childhood dream to start a business together! This is how LemonSeed Media was born.

We realized early on that a business isn’t a pile of bricks. A business is the ideals, goals, dreams, talents and abilities of the people who run it. Moreover, a business needs to solve, or at least work towards solving, a real problem in the world. This is why we decided that our goal at LemonSeed Media would be to provide the tools and services that small to medium sized business would need to succeed in today’s competitive visual marketplace at an affordable price.

Learning about colour theory, the basics of what makes an image attention grabbing, how to take good pictures and/or shoot video with proper lighting and complementary props, and how to use Photoshop or After Effects, takes a lot of time, energy and effort. A small to medium sized business that’s just starting out doesn’t have the time or resources to figure all of this out on their own —at least not at first.

So, this is where we come in! With over 20 years of combined experience in the field of visual arts, graphic design, and animation, we know how to make products and services stand out on a visual level.

We closely work with our clients, through multiple forms of communication (texting, video calls, Instagram, Facebook messages Dubsado, voice messages, etc., —whatever works best for our clients) to ensure that their marketing vision and ideas can reach their full creative potential.

At LemonSeed Media, we strive to create a vibrant, easygoing, fun, and approachable, environment. This has helped us develop long lasting relationships with our clients —in fact, 90% of our business comes from returning clients!

Another thing we do that’s different from our competitors, is that we usually take 10x more pictures than our clients ask us to. This allows us to provide our clients with a gallery of pictures they can choose from, as opposed to a limited set of images, which we then proceed to edit for them. This gives our clients a bit more freedom of choice over the images they ultimately end up with.

What else should we know about how you took your side hustle and scaled it up into what it is today?

We started LemonSeed Media during the Covid-19 pandemic. As I said earlier, the idea took root in our parents’ backyard (don’t worry, we were fully social distancing and wearing masks even though we were outside! Haha).

At that point we still had our day jobs. But, the lockdowns allowed us to work from home. So, we had a bit more free time on our hands than we normally did to start thinking and working on all of this (I.e., since we didn’t have to commute back and forth to work each day).

Honestly, the hardest part of our journey was coming up with a name and logo for our company. We literally came up with hundreds of possible names for our business (Onera, Sleepy Fox Studios, Visual Media Studios, etc)! But, none of these names seemed right to us. Ultimately, our conversation kept coming back to the lemonade stand we had as children. The lemonade stand was the “seed” of our decision to go into business together. So, by working through the words “lemonade”, “seed”, and “media”, we eventually came up with the name “LemonSeed Media”. It has a nice ring to it.

Once we had a name, we started contacting prospective clients via Instagram and e-mail. We would scout for small to medium sized businesses in Montreal, and then DM them about our services. Slowly, but surely, people started responding. One by one, clients started coming in. We got BUSY really fast. Not only this, but our clients kept recommending us to people and businesses they knew. This is when it became clear that we would have to give up our day jobs in order to keep up with all of the orders that were coming in!

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

We really go out of our way to ensure that our clients are happy with the images they receive from us. We offer unlimited edits and make sure that they are constantly kept up to date about the progress we make on their projects. This allows them to step in at any time, and tell us if they want us to have something done differently.

We take our time with each client. We build trust by talking to our clients as often as they want about their project and by maintaining an open line of communication with them. We also always give our clients more than they expected. This makes them happy, and more willing to recommend LemonSeed Media to other business owners. This is how we were able to attract all of the amazing opportunities and clients we have today!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://lemonseedmedia.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lemonseedmedia/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/LemonSeed-Media/100064853346017/
• Linkedin: https://ca.linkedin.com/company/lemonseed-media?original_referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdAjMees7kFL0ezt4lPTjKw
• Other: [email protected]