We recently connected with Colton Trcic and have shared our conversation below.

Colton, appreciate you joining us today. Being a business owner can be really hard sometimes. It’s rewarding, but most business owners we’ve spoken sometimes think about what it would have been like to have had a regular job instead. Have you ever wondered that yourself? Maybe you can talk to us about a time when you felt this way?

Being a business owner is one of the most exciting, fulfilling, and stressful decisions I have ever made. I certainly don’t regret it but during hard days or months, I do find myself thinking about how much easier it would be to just pass go and collect some money, and keep moving around the board. That said, part of the reason I pushed to start my own business was because I didn’t want to become invested in another company and then find myself disagreeing with the way things were being run and how decisions were being made, I wanted to be the leader I had always wanted to work with and I spend every day working my best to be the kind of leader I want to see in the world. So even on those bad days, or during those slow months, knowing that the buck stops with me, that I’m the only one responsible for the decisions being made, the timelines they are being made in, and who they affect is one of the most invigorating feelings. There is true power and peace in being able to own your entire story from start to finish every day. Being a business owner is like most things worth pursuing in life, the highs are very high, the lows can be very low, but at the end of the day, I still think it’s the best decision I’ve made in my professional career so far and I don’t think I’d do anything differently.

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 was born and raised in Sedona. My mom has almost always worked in art galleries and my dad, Michael Trcic, was an artist and previously worked in makeup effects in Hollywood. My bragging rights to this day are that he was the key artist on the Jurassic Park T-Rex, which is the coolest thing a kid could grow up knowing about their dad. So it was kind of inevitable that I would fall into a creative career. I fell in love with filmmaking in high school and went to ASU to get my undergrad in Film and Media Production and during my junior year, I decided to pursue a business minor and eventually a Masters in Management, also from ASU. Shortly after graduating, I started working for a company here in the valley called Design Pickle, it was a small startup at the time I started and I wore a ton of different hats. My five years with that company were like working in a creative playground. You could experiment, try, and fail at different ideas and projects and I learned a huge amount about marketing and the creative process inside of businesses as the company grew rapidly year-over-year. Unfortunately, I was laid off along with about 30% of the company in March of 2023 and thankfully had enough of a runway that I could sit back for about a month and figure out my next move. I had been freelancing since college with a lot of experience on productions of various sizes and had thankfully built up a network of wonderful business leaders so I decided to strike out on my own. I’d been sitting on the domains for Hard Copy Media since 2018 but had never pulled the trigger on building it up. I truly believe in the power of video to build genuine connections and generate impactful results for businesses. I knew I could help people share their stories and build their audience as well as nurture trust in their clients through quality video production. Now my team and I create videos and films for businesses of all shapes and sizes, in Arizona and around the country. We take a very business-focused approach, all of our discovery calls start by digging into the current targets and goals as well as the biggest challenges the business is currently experiencing, and then, based on those answers we custom-tailor our recommendations for video production to best create impact concerning those targets and challenges. A lot of video production companies get caught up in the practical parts of production, the cameras, the crews, the gear, etc., and don’t get me wrong we love the technical artistry that goes into creating quality video, but we pride ourselves on taking a strategic and focused approach to video. Just because we can create something, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing for your business, and at the end of the day, we want to create assets that deliver results. As for the brand of Hard Copy Media, the name was born from my love for physical media. I’m a ’90s kid who was raised on the ’80s and I still collect laser discs to this day, most of my early movie memories were from watching movies on laser discs with my dad. Beyond the fun, ’80s-themed branding though we’re a value-driven company with a mission to create a more connected world through storytelling.

Are there any books, videos or other content that you feel have meaningfully impacted your thinking?

I love a good business book. My wife makes fun of me sometimes because I rarely read fiction and she doesn’t think I have fun reading but when a good business book has its hooks in you, I swear it’s just as good as dragons and far away kingdoms. Three books come to mind immediately when I think about the largest impact they’ve had on my management and leadership style. No Rules Rules by Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer, Creativity Inc. by Ed Catmul and Amy Wallace, and Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin. No Rules Rules I think is a fantastic account of how giving your people freedom and trusting in their judgment can create massive results, while also fostering loyalty through that freedom and trust. Truth and integrity are two of our core values and in those revolutionary years of Netflix’s most exponential growth, they were able to harness the power of both of those values to create a massive impact on their business. Creativity Inc. is my bible for working with creatives and fostering an environment of healthy creativity. The core leadership themes of how playing it too safe can kill creativity and how it’s the leadership’s responsibility to create an environment where it’s safe to take risks are all things I’ve adopted in my leadership style. I believe in allowing people to make mistakes and learn from them, the key is not to make the same mistake twice. I’ve seen firsthand how a great team and make something amazing out of a mediocre idea but a mediocre team cannot take even a great idea and execute it at a high level but that all starts by creating a culture that is not fear-averse and can enthusiastically pursue their creative ambitions. The last book, Extreme Ownership, is a case study of responsibility and owning your actions and decisions. A theme in all of these books is owning your actions and the results they produce and creating an environment where your team is empowered to make decisions and manage their actions as they work towards a goal, that only works if there is a clear understanding that they are responsible for the final result, good or bad, and then can learn from it and repeat the process to get better and better.

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

I’m still actively building my reputation every day I’d say. My number one source of new business is referrals and word of mouth, so I’d like to think I leave a good impression on the people we work with. I have a really simple and clear philosophy on how I approach that and it’s been working great for me so far. It boils down to three things that anyone can do: show up on time, do good work, be kind. I think it was Tom Hanks who had a viral quote about showing up on time and how it’s one of the greatest gifts you can give yourself on a movie set but it also gives the best first impression I think you can give. If you’re on time, you’re prepared, you took time to be organized in your efforts leading up to your arrival, and you’re never the source of a delay. These are invaluable things on a film set but also in business where the time of the executives you are working with can be insanely valuable, it shows immediately that you have respect for them as people and the project as a whole. Doing good work can be a bit subjective but I think it boils down to handling adversity with grace. Situations and conditions won’t always be perfect, but you can always do the best work you possibly can given any set of circumstances. I’ve shot in pouring rain, I’ve pivoted locations, talent, and even scripted moments to accommodate things going sideways, and being able to MacGyver a creative solution and always deliver good work regardless of conditions is the best way to make sure your client calls you back or speaks well of you in their circles, it doesn’t always need to be perfect, but you should always be striving to do your best work, you didn’t wake up today to be mediocre. Lastly, be kind. I think the phrase “nice guys finish last” is so ridiculous. Kindness will always get you further than being rude or mean-spirited. This is especially true when you’re collaborating with creatives who are all trying to elevate the final product, no matter how strongly you feel about something, you can approach confrontation calmly and kindly and with an air of empathy and understanding to create common ground and ultimately a better final product. Being kind goes further than almost anything else once you’re on set with people. I think these are the largest factors in building both my personal and my business reputation over the last several years. While creativity can be an intimidating concept to some people, I think these three things are universal and can be applied to building anyone’s reputation.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.hardcopymedia.com, https://www.coltontrcic.com
• Instagram: @hardcopy_media, @coltontrcic
• Facebook: N/A
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/coltontrcic/, https://www.linkedin.com/company/hardcopymedia/
• Twitter: N/A
• Youtube: N/A
• Yelp: N/A
• Soundcloud: N/A

Image Credits

Photo Credits: Kyle Ledeboer, Nic Pachunka
Happy to clarify which are who.