#121 Salaries, Slicing Pie, and Quarterly Profit Sharing (ft. Minivan Productions)

Kyler Beal of Minivan Productions on moving a production company from Virginia to San Diego with a city scoring system, a partner who fired himself from the day-to-day, slicing pie equity, quarterly profit sharing in four buckets, moving owners onto salary, why Minivan avoids retainers, and the grant funding behind its documentary work. Chapters: 0:00 Intro 0:31 Meet Kyler Beal and Minivan Productions 1:47 Why Minivan moved from Virginia to San Diego 3:20 From a bedroom office to a team of three 5:35 A scoring system for picking a city 6:38 Travel days and documentary work 7:42 Team size and the San Diego studio 8:52 The partner who fired himself 11:48 Replacing a partner's many roles 17:02 From creative to company leader 19:17 Slicing pie equity after a partner steps back 24:16 How Minivan sets its profit sharing 24:56 Four buckets of quarterly profit sharing 27:10 Why quarterly beats annual 30:08 Moving the owners onto salary 33:05 The fear of guaranteed payroll 34:27 Salary and a lower tax bill 37:28 Why Minivan avoids retainers 41:01 The first retainer, by exception 43:54 Retainers at agencies vs production companies 46:50 What is next for Lapse 48:37 Seventy percent commercial, thirty percent docs 50:33 A grant-funded documentary series 52:05 More funding than people think 54:00 Business brain or creative brain? 56:55 Do grant funders check the final film? 59:07 Is most work out there mediocre? 1:01:59 Gambling ads and AI content 1:04:33 Filtering for client fit 1:07:24 Lessons from non-creative industries 1:11:30 The story behind the Minivan name 1:15:20 Where to find Kyler and Minivan Creatives Grab Coffee is produced by Lapse Productions, a Toronto video production company.