We were lucky to catch up with John Herrera recently and have shared our conversation below.

John, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Has Covid resulted in any major changes to your business model?

So from the start, I pursued mainly streetwear fashion portraiture photoshoots. From there I switched over to events like birthdays, weddings and company events. Then the pandemic hit and I was left with 0 clients. Since then I can across the opportunity to partner up with Self Made Training Facility in Long Beach to pursue shooting videos and photos for the facility which then led to me building back my business but now into the niche of fitness. I now mainly work with athletes, fighters, trainers/coaches and gym facilities. I now enjoy what I do more than I ever have in my entire career.

John, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

So I started shooting photos and videos my sophomore year of high school as a hobby. I was hugely inspired by YouTube vloggers that I was watching at the time. So I was filming a lot of logs, taking photos of the scenery of places me and my friends would visit as well as taking portrait photos of my friends. Soon enough in senior year of high school, I started taking portrait photos of my friends, doing streetwear types of photo shoots, which later on, I found a lot of joy doing. It grew at a minimal rate, but still at a rate that was overwhelming for me who used to be an introvert back in the day. It went from shooting photos of friends to shooting photos of mutual friends to then shooting photos for random clients, who would contact me via social media. After that, I was blessed enough to meet with an old business partner who later on who is willing to build a media agency with me where we were given the opportunity to shoot content for local businesses in orange county, as well as shooting videos and photos for events, such as birthdays, weddings and company events. Then that’s when the pandemic hit. And me and my business partner lost all of our clients, we even lost a lot of our leads. During the pandemic, I did mainly social media management for a company called compassion geek Media. From there, I gradually began to drift away from social media management, and was given the opportunity to shoot a Self Made Training Facility, an Long, Beach, and to be able to build my business back up again. I then was blessed with very great genuine mentors, as well as a great group of people who now I consider as family. Now I’m able to shoot constant for a lot of people in the fitness industry inside and outside of Self Made and I also do shoots for clients outside of fitness as well. Not only do I just shoot content for my clients social media content, but I also run a brand called HUSL brand which was a brand that I started during the pandemic in hopes to build something that would keep the momentum going of my progression in my career, and in my life in general, the brand not only gave me a sense of motivation to keep pushing through my struggles, but it also gave me a sense of self accountability to live up to the brand and not just create a brand and not live up to its authenticity. The brand keeps me going and it keeps me pushing through my limits. I’m blessed enough to say that the brand is what’s leading me towards the best version of myself, which is the mission of that brand to be pushed out to millions of people around the world. For those who are not familiar with what I do for a living as I explained earlier, I do videography photography, social media management, and I also created and run a clothing brand. What makes me different from all the other content creators? Is that not only do I just connect with my clients through the content that we create, but I also connect with my clients on a personal level. I don’t see this as a job I see this more as a lifestyle, and more of a way to be of service to my brothers and sisters out there in the world to help provide content in hopes to build other peoples dreams and goals, to assist these people in building a legacy for themselves as much as me personally would want to build a great legacy for myself. I’m very blessed with what God has gifted me with. It’s all glory to Him.

How’d you meet your business partner?

So for those who don’t know my Media agency that I currently run, 7th studios, is a media agency that I started with my business partner and friend, Paul Rodriguez. How we met was in high school, we went to a high school out here in Long Beach, and he was on a street called seventh Street. So then we decided to name the Media agency 7thstudios.

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

I think would help me build my reputation in this market was the assistance and care from my mentors, Adam and Bren, as well as some of the other mentors at Self Made training facility in Long Beach who taught me not only what it is like to be an entrepreneur and business owner but also as a human being. The opportunity that I was gifted with to be able to shoot high quality content for my clients at the gym, was the foundation of my business, which then led to me building a solid reputation in the fitness industry.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: jvhnherrera
• Other: Other instagram @7thstudios

Image Credits
@jvhnherrera @adotperformance @7thstudios @husl_brand