We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Casey Reynolds . We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Casey below.

Casey, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?

Reaching adulthood was a very interesting time in my life… I’ll make an extremely long story short.. When i was young, I wanted to fit in, I always wanted to be liked… I think I wanted to be liked so bad that it did quite the opposite and it quickly made me an outcast. So from as far back as I can remember, I was always that “annoying” class clown kid that was seeking attention from anyone that would give it to me. This will all make sense in a second….

To make an extremely long story short,

I used to find myself mesmerized by my grandpa playing the guitar when i was young (think like 6-7), he always had friends coming around and I would want to be like them, I used to pick up the extra guitars and “try” to play, I remember they thought it was cute the first couple of times, then I quickly tried to be center of attention. This quickly transitioned into me wanting to learn how to play the guitar and I really fell in love with “making” music.

I’d spend all this time learning how to play the guitar and I eventually got pretty decent at it within my teenage years. At some point I got into middle school and highschool and like most teenagers, I thought it was a cool little hobby, and I never put much more thought into it. I had my small little circle of friends, but i was struggling in the love life department, I had come to accept the fact that I was far from cool. Fellow classmates thought I was annoying, I couldn’t get girls and that was just what it was at that time. I would just go to school, say stupid stuff in class (out of habit) and then go home and repeat, everyday. It was quite depressing to say the least.

In 10th grade, there was this rapper named Mac Miller coming up. He was this 17 year old kid coming up out of PA and just taking over the hip hop industry by a storm. He showed it was possible, he seemed cool, he had the friends, the popularity, the girls, the money. The music bug came back, I was like “Why can’t that be me???” and so it began….

I was already the “uncool” “annoying class clown” at school so what did I have to lose? I became obsessed with “rapping” I remember i put out my first song when i was around 16 and that was my first taste of people being like, “dude, this actually sounds decent..” Ding, ding ding… Case got his first taste of validity in his life… I felt like I had some sort of purpose for once.

Guys, bare with me, this is all about to correlate hahahha

Eating, sleeping, drinking music became the new normal for me. I was making song after song after song, talking about whatever came to mind. Convinced my dad to get me a Mac with Logic pro studio and i turned my closet into a recording studio with a microphone that I used to play the videogame Rockband with.

At that time, obsessing over all these rappers, emulating what they were doing, I noticed they all had a thing called “music videos” in common. Well who does music videos in Carson City Nevada?? No one does… So I saved up money from my first job (Mcdonalds) and bought my first camera. I asked my best friends to film me and I would edit them. I had no idea how to do any of this by the way, I would just figure it out as I went.

Throughout Highschool, I was performing a lot, which really helped shape me into who I am today, that taught me how to be confident even when I didn’t want to be. I was shooting videos for all of my music and that’s when people started to know me, not as that “uncool – class clown” but now it was even worse, “Corny rapper”, but that did come with people who supported as well, not many but a few, better than nothing. When I graduated, things took a huge turn for the better. I started getting more recognition, I started getting views on my videos and started building a little bit of a fan base. It helped prove to me, I wasn’t actually crazy and had somewhat of talent to back up how I felt.

Ill skip a lot of this timeframe for now cause this was a whole experience in itself,
but I had my first viral video on youtube for a remix I did of a Sam Hunt song “Break up in a small town” I wish i would’ve followed the country rap more in hindsight, now that, that’s a thing, but anyway as I digress, that led me to doing my first tour as an opener for another popular rapper at the time and I got my first couple songs on the radio, I was getting lots of recognition on Facebook videos and people started knowing who I was locally (and it was finally in a positive light), oh yeah the girl situation ended up working itself out too.

Well as I was getting recognition locally, so were our music videos. My best friends and I wanted to have a brand separate from Casey Reynolds for clothing, business endevors etc, we would shoot music videos under the name Mogelminded, this would be my first introduction to becoming a “business owner”. We didn’t know the first thing about any of this, but for some reason, local artists just kept asking us to shoot their music videos, we didn’t even know you could make money from this. I remember we would charge like $50 a video and we would spend it that night on gas and food, I would edit them and we would feel so excited that all of these people loved it.

This went on from the time I was around 18 or so till I was around 20.

Now, at this time, I did have a part time job working for my family business, pursuing this music career and doing this music video thing. I was making money from my Youtube channel at the time for music and I’ve wanted to live in La since i was a child, we were starting to get so much work in the hometown

(we finally upped the price to like $200 a video)

and my friends and I were like, let’s just take this to LA, if we could do it here, we could do it there. I was on this high horse of being this “local” celeb and truthfully, I thought I was the s***. It definitely got to my head a little bit lmao

One of the catalysts to get us to La, I saw a local musician in my hometown get this music video done for himself and I found out this “director” lived in La. It was so good, I was like, how do I get to work with this guy and what would it take to make happen,

I remember, I was trying to start conversations for months with this director guy just trying to stay on his radar, I wanted to work with him so we could have a foot in the industry if we ever moved there. I talked him into letting me help him out for free one day and I just went out to LA by myself to see what would happen. I had such a fun time helping and learning and was so “star struck” by the opportunity I got in helping this popular boy band do a music video…

While I was out there, this guy who would message me about wanting to collab on music in the future, he happened to live in LA, so while i was already out there helping this director, I reached out to the music friend and we ended up meeting up after the shoot. It felt like all the stars aligned and I was meant to be there. I had such a fun couple of days, I knew what I was going to do next.

When I turned 21 in April of 2017. My main business partner (roommate) and I decided to take the leap to LA in July. We had no real connections other than the director and music friend I made, no work, no other friends… Everyone tried to tell us not to do it. We didn’t care, we took what little money we had, I had about $4k to my name and he had a little less.

We secured a s** apartment in Sherman Oaks, Ca. Packed our stuff and hit the road.

Purely living off savings, we knew we were in for a journey. I quickly was humbled as a small fish in a vast ocean of insanely talented people and it really put a lot of things in perspective about where I was. I didn’t let it stop me though as we would stay up all day and night researching every single person we wanted to work with in the industry… We were wanting to work with anyone in the Youtube or music space and anyone we could think of, we would figure out who their friends were and would try to reverse engineer a way to get a hold of them. We stalked all of these instagram profiles for weeks. My partner would go on to land us some clients in the music industry, and I would go on to land us some stuff on the Youtube side of things. We would just want to get our foot in the door, so we would offer free work at the time, but it got us a lot of work and referrals really quickly and we built up a paying clientele within about a month and a half or so.

Surprisingly, we ended up only having to dip into our savings account once after moving into La and that was that first month, after that we were insanely fortunate that we built up a clientele of referrals and we just stayed working, that journey led us to working with A list celebrities over the next coming years and meeting people I only dreamt to work with back when I was younger.

There was a bunch of ups and downs and a rollercoaster of emotions to go through for those next few years, but thats a story for another time.

It’s now 2024 and I still live in La currently, my life is a little different now, as I grew into becoming a full time videographer and a digital marketing entrepreneur, but I look back on this journey and just think how I’m so glad I went through this, this whole entire thing I went through as a kid that led me here is insane to think about. I think I really found myself in the identity of “Just go for it”. It makes me sad to see people who didn’t take a chance on themselves regret it in the end. The opportunities i’ve got just from taking a bet on myself and not listening to others have given me a life that i’ve always wanted… I’m not exactly where I want to be yet, but i’m definitely not far off. My point of this story is this, it’s okay to be different, it’s okay to do things outside of the norm. Believe in yourself and just go for it.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I am a 28 year old digital entrepreneur/ content creator living in Los Angeles Ca. Self taught with everything I do, I thrive on the idea of monetizing your “hobby” into a full time career. I come from a background of DIY (Do It Yourself), which has shaped my approach to entrepreneurship and creativity and over the past year, I deep dove into the realm of social media marketing, learning strategies to organically grow a following on platforms like Instagram and now YouTube. My mission isn’t just about getting followers, but rather creating a community of like-minded individuals aspiring to carve their niche in the digital landscape.

Through my own experiences, I’ve learned an insane amount of insights and lessons, which I’m passionate about sharing with emerging content creators. My aim is to serve as both a mentor and a source of inspiration, offering practical guidance and motivation to those embarking on similar journeys.

I talk about mindset hacks, productivity hacks I use and creative and editing tips that have made my content creation that much better. I believe in authenticity and transparency, openly discussing the highs and lows of entrepreneurship. My story is a testament to the idea that extraordinary success is attainable for those willing to invest the effort and dedication. My goal is to help up and comers with the tools and mindset needed to thrive in the digital age.

Any insights you can share with us about how you built up your social media presence?

I was in debt -$25k and was just freshly married last year in 2023. I kept trying at all of these different business models after really starting to learn about being a “digital” entrepreneur. I’ve always been a really good videographer/ editor but truthfully, I was burnt out. So i was looking for other endeavors to generate income.

One night while doom scrolling through IG I kept seeing all of these creators who were going viral in a matter of days and weeks. I started trying to figure out what their secret was, I would analyze all of these guys and see everything they had in common, when it was staring at me in the face all along. They all did the same thing, provide value. They served as an answer for their “avatar” pain points. I started asking myself: “Well, what am I good at?” “What skills do I have?” I don’t really know anything other than how to shoot and edit really well, other than that, I didn’t think I had many other skills.

I decided to attempt at making a 60 day content plan to see if I could build my following so I could use that as leverage to help other business owners grow their social media accounts and be the one who shoots all of their content.

I knew it sounded crazy, because truthfully, I don’t have any real success stories of anyone around me who’s done that… I told my wife, “Look, this is the last time i’m going to try anything kind of off the wall like this, give me till December (It was June at this time), If I can’t land any work from this, let’s move back home and i’ll get a regular job and give us a normal life of stability.” That was not the life I want, or dreamt about but she had faith in me and agreed to let me play part in the craziness.

My plan was simple, create a 60 day plan of tips and tricks for “up and coming’ content creators learning how to edit and shoot video. I decided to give everything I knew about videography and editing away for absolutely free.

From another business I was trying to run on Youtube called “Youtube automation” I had learned how to create a team and manage them, but what I did was take my editor for those Youtube videos and I paid him to help me create these instagram videos, (mind you, i was still -$25k in debt).

Long story short, it took a few weeks, but my content started to resonate with people and just like I thought, I grew my following from 300 to about 14k followers in about 60 days. I actually landed the biggest contract of my life shortly after and that put us on track to getting a sense of normalcy.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

Transparency, respect and being fair. I have a team full of freelancers; however, I treat them as if they were my family. I try to create a bond with each one of them and I always make sure to show gratitude and appreciation.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: www.instagram.com/casevisuals
• Youtube: www.youtube.com/@casevisuals