We were lucky to catch up with Rahiem Thompson recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Rahiem thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you walk us through some of the key steps that allowed you move beyond an idea and actually launch?

My business started long before getting my first customer. I started building my personal brand in college by documenting my daily life as a computer science student. During those few years of daily video editing I gained a ton of skill with graphics, photo and video editing. My dad gave me one of his old Nikon cameras and I used it to take high quality portraits and landscapes around campus. That brought me a lot of attention and eventually turned my peers into customers. I started consistently getting hired for graduation photos, birthday photos, event recap videos, and weddings. Over the years the projects have gotten bigger and so has our team. We constantly reinvest into the business to upgrade our quality and storytelling abilities.

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.

My name is Rahiem I am a Jamaican American and I have a passion for technology and cinematography. I first got into tech and video creation when I was young by creating videos on the internet hacking and modifying smartphones. I also had a passion for gaming and loved editing montages. Eventually I took the skills that I picked up being a young content creator and turned them into professional services. I started my company Roletape in college and we have been seeing a lot of success. Roletape is based in Charlotte North Carolina and we provide commercial video production and photography services in the united states and over seas. The biggest problem we solve for our customers is making it easy to have a professional photographer / videographer at all your major life events birthdays, graduations, weddings, and gender reveals. We are most proud of our ability to deliver a unique and exceptional experience to all of our customers.

Can you talk to us about how your funded your business?

The process for getting funding for my business was extremely slow but I learned a lot valuable lessons on the way. I started doing graduation shoots with a camera I was able to get as a gift from my dad. I took the savings form that to purchase and Ipad where I started doing graphic designs. I took the savings from graphics to purchase an upgraded camera and a new macbook. I then started editing videos for clients and used those savings to hire team members and new software to automate our business processes. It has been a constant cycle of reinvesting but it has paid dividends over the years.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

At one point in my journey I lost my full time job and my business was my main source of income. I was able to pay bills and keep the business going with the purchases and bookings from our great clients.

Contact Info:

• Website: Roletape.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rahiem/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/rahiemthompson

Image Credits
Godaddy