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Brian L. Tan “BLT” has worked at Dreamworks, Paramount, and Digital Domain, working on films such as Tron: Legacy and X-Men: First Class. He has also worked as a Director for several shorts and commercials before co-founding Wrapal, a startup which connects filmmakers and photographers to locations. In other news, BLT is addicted to traveling, cars, diving, caffeine, long walks by the beach, and talking about himself in third person in bios he totally didn’t write himself…
Hobbies: Travel (more of an addiction than a hobby at this point though), scuba diving, photography, racing, fencing, foodie-ing (is that a thing?), and crossing off bucket lists.
Favorite quote: Better to try and fail than fail to try.
Twitter: www.twitter.com/blttavo ; Don’t judge me too much, but all I use Twitter for is to rant at the official American Airlines account when my flights are delayed/cancelled, which happens more than you’d think. At least it’s no United though….
Why did you decide to become an entrepreneur?
It’s funny how what society now calls entrepreneurs would have been called wackjobs or heretics just a few decades ago. I never really set out to be an entrepreneur or craved the label; I just wanted to solve a problem the best way I knew how – By being a part of the solution. To me, entrepreneurship is a means to an end.
Who were your biggest influences? Was there a defining moment in your life?
I’ve always had the idea of starting an AirBnB for film locations, but never pulled the trigger until my Mum passed away a few years ago. She was relatively young when it happened and it was a wake up call to me that anything can happen to anyone at any time. Mortality was my motivation: I had to pursue my passions before it was too late. Though I had enjoyed my work at in the studio system on productions like Tron, X-Men, and Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, I quit and embarked on this crazy adventure.
Now
What are you working on? How did you come up with this idea?
We launched WRAPAL, a startup that connects creatives like photographers and filmmakers to properties, in 2016. I’m a filmmaker, and finding a location was easily one of the most challenging, time-consuming and arduous parts of the filmmaking process; there was no way of location scouting sets virtually. So we figured we’d start one. I’m an avid traveler who has used AirBnB extensively throughout the 70+ countries (here’s a shameless plug to my Instagram travel photos: www.instagram.com/blttavo) I’ve been to and I thought: Why not take that concept to the film world?
How is your product/service different and unique?
Unlike traditional agencies or other sites, WRAPAL is the only platform that puts you in direct contact with the property owner or manager. As a marketplace, we function more like matchmakers than middlemen and also offer affordable $99 flat rate insurance through Lloyd’s of London for all bookings through our site, something no one else does.
We’re creatives ourselves and know that every production calls for new, different locations. In order to give projects as much breadth in choice as possible, we’re the only site with more than 1,200+ locations currently in Los Angeles and 200+ in the New York Metro area spanning the spectrum of residential, commercial, and industrial. From houses to hospitals, we’ve got any project covered!
Instagram @stevenlamphoto
What has been your favorite moment with it?
My favorite moment was getting to launch it last year. About 500-600 people came to our launch and it was so heartening to hear how excited everyone was for our startup; we even got featured on CBS News the next day, which was amazing. Not saying that external validation is everything, but it was heartening to witness all our hard work pay off.
We’re also a family at Wrapal and one of my other favorite moments was taking our Wrapresentatives (did I mention we love puns?) to a mountain ‘Wretreat’ for the weekend followed by a ridiculous dining experience at Medieval Times when we got back.
What’s the dream?
Everyone’s a photographer or filmmaker these days, and the dream is to bring WRAPAL to every city America, and then the world so we can help creatives find their dream location – Be it for their feature film, wedding portrait, music video, commercial, short film, indie documentary, YouTube video, Snapchat Story, and more. Our dream is helping others fulfill theirs.
If you do Facebook ads, what types of creatives/campaigns do you use (we like specifics)? If you don’t, what untapped marketing channels do you take advantage of?
Fortunately or unfortunately we’re a completely bootstrapped startup, meaning we’ve never taken any external investment. We’re the David in a sea of Goliaths out there so finances are tight and we don’t have the resources to buy ads, hire a publicist, make social media purchases, etc.
Our publicity is all based on leveraging our backgrounds and what modest funds we do have and have had a few modest successes . We shot a few commercials around our snarky director mascot named Jo Wrapal for virtually nothing, and also managed to get a ton of press by leveraging connections we had or sending out cold emails like when we got featured on No Film School. However, making in-roads in the film industry is all about relationships, and nothing beats good old word of mouth to get us out there.
Did you experience failure along the way? What did you learn from it?
Lots of them, though I’d categorized them more as lessons than failures. We’ve definitely been dealt some setbacks which have been incredibly frustrating but that just helps us hone and refine our brand further. For instance, we tried a bunch of really creative brand ambassador giveaways and gimmicks to get properties to sign up, but found out that calling them manually to tell them about ourselves had the highest success rate. Sometimes there’s no school like the old school.
Value-add questions
Give the readers the best entrepreneurship advice you have.
Being stubborn aka: perseverance. We live in the instant gratification generation and entrepreneurs think that success is always immediate. Sure, that’s true for that lucky one in a million, but always plan on it being a long, slow slog to the finish line. Entrepreneurs have to realize that it’s not just about talent and hard work. It’s talent, hard work, connections and luck and they need to stick it out long enough doing the first two in order for the latter two to catch up. That being said, I’m no Richard Branson or Elon Musk (yet), so take it with as many grains of salt as a margarita.
Teach us something about {internet marketing, social media ads, fundraising, sales funnels or another topic} Can you recommend any favorite websites to learn that topic?
I’ve found the most useful learning tools to be audio books, specifically the autobiographies of successful leaders in different fields. Learning from them is like a free lesson in being a good trailblazer. I’m stuck in LA traffic 50% of my day, and I use that time to glean information listening to their books or podcasts, such as ‘How I Built This’ by NPR, that are a brilliant source of not only knowledge, but inspiration too.
While working on your project, have you come across any interesting bit of knowledge that you’d like to share? (i.e. any new research finding, any new platforms, some novel management technique, etc)
Society is facing increasing inequality. Regardless of your politics, the statistics speak for themselves – the United States, and by extension much of the world, has not faced this level of inequality since the 1920s. My hypothesis is that films are facing the same squeeze. You have about a dozen $100 million+ Star Wars, Marvel, Fast & Furious, superhero, DC Comic, etc. franchise films every year; and everything else is low budget web content. It’s very much 1% vs. 99% and the middle is getting squeezed out.
Potential investors and Venture Capitalists (VCs) always ask me to target big budget studios, which looks and sounds glamorous, but they’re honestly not our market. They have enough money to hire established location scouts and managers from the Location Managers Guild of America (LMGA). Our target demographic is budget conscious independent and student filmmakers and photographers who need to cut costs. Every dollar counts in those situations and WRAPAL can help make their projects possible.
What daily habits do you have that allow you to perform at your peak?
Does lots of caffeine count? I’d say keeping in constant communication with my team to know what their needs are, and blasting some epic music. Music = Motivation.
What should an entrepreneur focus on?
Focusing on your product/service is important, but every entrepreneur should take time to focus on themselves too. I’ve seen many friends crash and burn throughout the years, and many fail to realize that if they burn the candle at both ends so much, their products, services, and team will take a hit. We need to have balance, to travel, to get inspired.
We have a culture that glorifies overworking (Silicon Valley is a great HBO show, but it’s still a show), and we often forget that we need to focus on ourselves too in order to then focus on our ideas. Believe me, it isn’t easy – I have a hard time following my own advice.
Walk us step-by-step through the process that you had to go through to get from the early stages to where you are today.
Believe it or not, I’ve actually had this idea since 2012 and mocked it up with our co-founder Melissa on a napkin back then. My co-founders and I took 3 years and 4 different developers (and lots of wasted time, money, and effort) to finally connect with Aaron, our awesome developer and Chief Technology Officer. From there, it took us another year to build our current site from scratch and launch it at a slick red carpet premiere at the Crest Theater in Westwood last year.
What are some of your favorite books?
The $100 Startup, the Great Gatsby, 1984, Brave New World, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, Timothy Zahn Star Wars books, and any autobiography I can get my hands on. However – I should say my latest popculture guilty pleasure has been Modern Romance by Aziz Ansari. He is freaking (I don’t think I can cuss on here can I?) funny. I don’t think a book has ever got me laughing more than that. I really want to meet Aziz one day. #dreams
Where do you see yourself and your product in a couple years?
For WRAPAL: A thriving production and property Wrapal community (aka WRAPSTARS!) in every city, and a happy, balanced workplace at our main office in Culver City where people enjoy coming to work because we’re a close-knit family.
For myself: Hopefully still alive, and getting a few steps closer to happiness, which to me is defined as having a tangible, positive impact on the people, places, and projects I care about.
If you have any questions about my experiences or just want to share a joke (I love puns, so PUNT away), hit me up anytime at blt@wrapal.com
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