Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to John Rains. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

John , looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Getting that first client is always an exciting milestone. Can you talk to us about how you got your first customer who wasn’t a friend, family, or acquaintance?

In 2nd grade I was flipping toy cars for lunch money and in 4th grade I was polishing rocks to sell them as crystals to my neighbors. So I have had “clients” for a long time, but my first legit client was in 9th grade. I had just DJ’d the 8th grade dance with my friends and decided I wanted to be an entrepreneur taking the DJ career further than a one time thing. I put up a Craigslist ad for DJing services and the first person to take the bait was a couple getting married. I told them to meet me in the mall food court so we could discuss their event and I would wear my pink shirt so they could find me (mind you this is before I ever had a cell phone). Little did they know the pink shirt was going to be worn by a 13 year old, but they came in, treated me with respect, and went through with the plans. I guess $100 for a wedding DJ was too good of a deal to pass up no matter what red flags came with it

I learned a lot at that wedding and can’t say it was the smoothest experience in the world, but to this day I keep up with those clients on social media and know that without them my journey today would not look the same

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’m John! Entrepreneur living in Austin, TX. Like I mentioned before, I was a DJ through college which led to me getting on music video sets fairly often. I took a liking to the video process and started to make music videos myself eventually leaving DJing behind all together. When I graduated college the prospect of music videos as my focus seemed like fun, but outside of LA (and even in LA) the industry is so cut throat with difficult budgets it’s a tough path to walk. It took me a few years of doing random video work with fitness brands and really anyone I could get to hire me to land in the ad agency world and focus specifically on broadcast commercials

I moved to Austin in 2018 with a small team focused on just commercials and launched Backstory. We came in looking to build a traditional production company and sell creatives to ad agencies. We started to find our footing and then COVID hit in 2020 and everything got flipped on it’s head. All the relationships I had been building no longer had needs, lost their jobs, etc and we all began to scramble. Phone calls started to come in from out of town production companies looking for freelance production help for shoots they couldn’t travel in for but needed to shoot in Texas. I quickly said yes and six months later realized I was almost exclusively working freelance or in a production service capacity and a pivot was in order.

I wound up dropping the creative side of Backstory and our focus solely became production service help for anyone shooting in Austin or Texas at large. Our focus was supporting creatives, agencies and production companies on the projects they were already bid for rather than trying to sell ourselves to get that work in the first place. I kept growing our production staff and simultaneously launched a rental house, CONVOY, to further support local projects in Austin and build a production HQ for me and my team.

How did you put together the initial capital you needed to start your business?

I get this question often and the assumption is usually that I took on outside capital, loans, family help, etc.

I started my entrepreneurial path when I was 13, so I’ve always had a side hustle and been saving money to invest in my businesses. I would babysit on the side, mow lawns, really anything for a few extra bucks. I started investing that capital into DJ equipment that I could use to rent on my jobs and bring in even more money to grow the business. Eventually I sold all of the DJ gear to help fund my initial camera equipment and the cycle repeated itself. A third time when I sold all of the camera equipment into the current inventory of Convoy.

Things have massively scaled since the beginning of my DJ days, but the bootstrapping model of building a business is one I believe heavily in. I was never interested in debt or diluting my ownership for capital and growing beyond what I was ready for. Having a warehouse full of equipment and no customers to rent it to would have been useless and more of a liability than an asset. Sure, there are times I wish I had something for a job that I did not own yet, but more often than not the timing naturally paced itself out to grow sustainably and within the means of what I should be doing at that time. I’ve never been afraid to re-invest cash as the business grows and that mindset has led to where things got today.

Any advice for managing a team?

I am a big believer in hands-off management and relying on the work ethic of the employees I hire to succeed. I can’t teach work ethic. You either have it or you don’t and when I hire people who don’t have it I have learned to just move on from those people as quickly as I can. Sometimes it takes longer to realize than it should, but not having work ethic is the number one thing I can’t stand and I think kills team morale. Dead weight that pulls down the greater effort.

I think micro managing fosters more resentment and frustration than quality work. I can teach anyone what I need them to do and how I expect them to do it, but once I have taught you my expectation is that it is on you for upholding that. There is really no reason they shouldn’t be self sufficient and just need an occasional touch base or work review to make sure everything is going according to standard. If that isn’t possible, I usually have an issue with work ethic or job commitment that needs to be addressed.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.backstory.us
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/john_rains/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-rains-9000b988
• Other: www.convoyatx.com https://www.instagram.com/convoy_atx/

Image Credits
Joe Reynolds