The Uber for Creatives: Why Beige is a Game Changer | Kawser Khan DSH #788

Beige is gearing up to be the world's biggest videography and photography marketplace.

You can kind of think of us as like Uber, but for videographers and photographers, we enable users to book videography and photography shoots all throughout the country.

And you basically provide people with videographers, yeah, 2,000 videographers and photographers that are vetted and certified through us, all independent contractors.

And then we just connect them with anybody that needs content.

All right, guys, got a friend of mine, Cowser Kong, here today.

What's up, my man?

What's going on, bro?

Thanks for having me.

Yeah, so Cowser does all the videos for my networking events.

And you crush it, man.

Thank you, man.

And that's your company, Beige.

Yeah.

Repping it as always.

You already know.

Yeah, so tell everyone what Beige is about.

Yeah, absolutely, man.

So Beige is gearing up to be the world's biggest videography and photography marketplace.

So you can kind of think of us as like Uber, but for videographers and photographers, we enable users to book videography and photography shoots all throughout the country.

Right now, we're in all 50 states getting ready to launch our mobile app marketplace.

Nice.

And you basically provide people with videographers.

Yeah.

Exactly.

That's the whole premise of the app.

The whole premise, right?

So we got about 2,000 videographers and photographers that are vetted and certified through us, all independent contractors.

And then we just connect them with anybody that needs content.

It's a smart idea because right now hiring a videographer seems old school.

Yeah.

You got to find their site, call them.

You know a guy.

You know what I mean?

It's not really like centralized.

Right.

So found a gap and been crushing it with that.

Yeah.

It'd be cool to just go on an app, see their reviews, and then they're local.

So you could just pay in two clicks and hire them.

Exactly.

So our goal is to make it as easy as possible to book a videographer.

Right.

And just like we do, you know, for your events.

And so, yeah.

Yeah, and that's how we met too at an event backstage.

Yeah, yeah.

I'd love to.

We were doing videographer for Natasha.

For Natasha, yeah, for Natasha.

How did you find her?

So she actually found us.

So she found us, yeah, just, I guess, through Google and reached out.

And then we ended up doing like

30, 40 episodes for her.

Holy crap.

Her law of attraction.

And then she travels a lot, too.

So we were just filming all her stuff.

Oh, you filmed her pod?

Yeah.

That's the top five show, dude.

Yeah, yeah.

She's been killing it.

Yeah, she's in my category.

We're always battling for that type of spot.

Nice.

Yeah, shout out to Natasha, man.

Yeah, shout out to her.

She's pregnant right now.

Yeah, yeah, she is.

Congrats.

Congrats to her.

What other events do you film?

Man, we do just about any any use case you can imagine, right?

I mean, we've done like big corporate events for like Chase, Amazon, DHL, birthday parties, networking events, podcasts, music videos, weddings, funerals.

I mean, just about

funerals?

Yeah, since the pandemic.

Bro, never heard that.

Yeah, since 2020, we've done like a few hundred funerals.

What?

It's crazy.

Yeah.

I didn't know that was a thing.

Yeah.

Because I've been to a few and I don't remember seeing like video cameras there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

People like to live stream it.

We do these these highlight videos with like video clips of

the funeral that people, you know, while they were alive.

No way.

Yeah.

That's crazy to me, dude.

Yeah.

Weddings, I understand, because you want to relive that moment.

But funeral, I feel like one and done for me.

Yeah, 100%.

But if you're making money off it.

Yeah, yeah.

Right.

And so, I mean, really, I wanted to push the volume game.

And we did just that.

I mean, we've done.

a little over 2,000 shoots now in the past couple years.

Yeah.

This year, we're about to break 3 million in sales.

Incredible in shoots.

And this is, mind you, with just being on a landing page, right?

No app.

App is not out yet.

No ads.

No, yeah, very little ads.

So, yeah, man, been scaling it.

That's cool.

Cause you're just making the pain points so easy.

Yeah.

Yeah.

100%.

Right.

It's like you're in Miami.

You want to shoot a podcast.

You're not going to go on Instagram, DM a bunch of people, right?

Or text 20 people.

You want.

to be reliably to have somebody.

No, and that's so relatable because I film in other cities and it's always a process finding a studio, videographers making sure everything's my way It takes hours every time.

Yeah, 100% bro And so that's what beige's goal is right to just really help people book content anywhere anytime and content's so important these days dude because ads are so expensive organic content's like huge like you almost need that in your repertoire these days bro organic is where it's at yeah look at podcasts yeah literally dominating that's probably the one vertical you're gonna focus on too right yeah it's gonna be one of the biggest ones so yeah because they film like consistently you could be there for them, like whether it's weekly or daily.

100%.

Exactly, bro.

So I'm excited, man.

I'm excited.

I just keep growing it.

It's been an amazing journey.

Oh, yeah.

And you're using AI with the company, too?

Yeah, yeah.

So we're starting to invest in some generative AI tools.

So the way the app works is it's a simple layout, just like Uber or DoorDash.

You can.

choose whether you want video or photo.

And then pretty much our matchmaking algorithm will connect you with a videographer or photographer locally.

Yeah.

That's instantly.

Give you an instant price based on our pricing algorithm from the several thousand shoots we've done.

And then you'll just pretty much be able to book your videographer then and there.

That's huge.

Yeah, because we're getting married next year.

And I know we'll talk about your wedding too.

But yeah, when we were betting the photographers, videographers, a lot of their styles are so different.

It's kind of like while you're on the phone with them, you have to see their style.

And it's kind of inefficient, you know?

Yeah, exactly.

It's very archaic right now, this media industry.

Because then if you don't like it, you're on an hour call with them stuck.

Yeah, 100%.

So it's like, how do we aggregate all of that data and the most seamless user experience through Beige?

Yeah.

And you've done a ton of weddings too, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

We've done over a thousand weddings.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

That's insane.

I mean, there's always a wedding every day, right?

Yeah.

People are getting married, you know, hopefully once, you know.

And you got married young.

Man, I did.

I got married at 23.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

Was that by plan?

Yeah.

So I met my wife.

I was on this whole 20 cities, 20 weeks campaign, expanding beige.

Pulled up to Houston.

I didn't know anyone else besides her her brother.

And then I was like, hey man, I'm in your city looking to expand.

We really hit it off.

And then he introduced me to her.

Coincidentally, she was going to Princeton while I had my apartment in Brooklyn.

But she happened to be in Houston during that time.

And then we just started dating then and there.

A week later, I flew back into Houston to make things official.

And then a year later, we got married.

Holy crap.

Within a year?

Yeah.

That's quick, man.

How'd the brother feel about it?

He was really happy.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

He's the one that really shifted.

And, you know, he didn't know we were going to end up being married, but we did, man.

Nice.

Yeah.

It's, we've been married almost two years now.

Holy crap.

20 cities in 20 days?

20 cities in 20 weeks.

Oh, 20 weeks.

Yeah, yeah.

You spent a week in each city?

Yeah.

About a week in each city.

Yeah.

And literally all I did was I rented out studios like this.

I brought like snacks, coffee, whatever.

And then I just brought all the videographers and photographers that I knew and told them my vision for Beige.

Like, wow, hey,

we're not that big yet, but here's a vision.

We want to build an Uber for video and for photo.

And they were like, all right, I'm in, sign me up.

Pretty cool.

Started landing jobs and then connecting them.

That's a really cool marketing, guerrilla marketing strategy.

I always like hearing how people start because money is usually tough when you're starting off.

Oh, 100%.

You know, I had like 300 bucks when I started and

spent it on

another existing marketplace.

That's now one of our competitors called Thumbtok.

And uh that's when we got our first customers and then we just never look back oh so there's an existing marketplace uh so thumbtack yeah thumbtack focuses on general services though so they focus on like you can hire a plumber you can hire a cleaner you can hire a wedding videographer but it's so fragmented that there's no specialization that makes sense yeah which cities out of those 20 really took off man it was chicago for us

yeah chicago and then new york too okay but new york was harder to break into it actually made me move to brooklyn to expand because New Yorkers are very face-to-face.

And like for them to get behind something, they're pretty gritty.

Very direct.

Very direct, right?

So yeah, Chicago and New York, man, they did really well for babies.

So you're willing to just drop everything and move.

Yeah, literally.

That's what I did, man.

I signed my lease like on a spontaneous trip.

I was out there overseeing a music video we had.

And then I was like, all right, I'm going to get an apartment.

Wow.

Signed.

What was your wife like?

What the hell?

So this was right before we met.

Yeah, okay.

Right before we met.

And and so um you know she ended up having fun in brooklyn

yeah i like having two spots on on different coasts actually yeah yeah do you currently have uh well my mom lives in pa so

but we just got a house here and my goal eventually is to have a second house on the east coast okay because i like being able to just travel back and forth yeah experience both cultures because new york is fast-paced and i need to be around that at least once or twice a year Bro, it's so good for you, the environment.

You were just there, right?

Yeah.

And it's easy to get kind of comfortable on the West coast it's much slower lifestyle but when i go to new york dude the energy is contagious i'm like damn i need to grind i mean you're literally around billions of dollars right being transacted every day so it's like inspired and everyone's just on a mission like you just people watch there i love people watching and it just seems more energized than videos yeah yeah i love it especially cali cali's slow bro it's so slow yeah other than like la and maybe a couple other cities but Even LA has slow people there too.

Yeah, it's more chill.

Yeah, that's where you're at, right?

Yeah.

So I'm in between LA and Houston.

So I have two spots.

Recently copped a house in Houston.

Nice.

Also have a house in LA.

So I go back and forth a lot now.

But same thing, dude.

I would love to have a bi-coastal presence.

How's Houston?

I've never seen it.

Yeah, you got to definitely visit.

I was telling Spencer, I want to line up some interviews for you there.

But Houston's cool, man.

There's a lot of old money there, a lot of opportunities, but a lot of people from Cali moving there too.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

I got like...

No state tax?

Yeah, no state taxes, saving a lot on state taxes.

You can buy a house for like half a million and then just save a lot.

That's cheap.

Yeah.

We're doing a Texas tour.

We got Austin planned and I want to do Dallas and maybe Houston if there's guests there.

You should.

I'll line it up.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Who's out there?

Bro, we got a bunch of heavy hitters out there.

I got,

so

I could probably get Jay Prince.

I've heard of him.

Yeah, so he basically helped Drake start OVO.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

I see in Houston.

Seems random.

Yeah, Drake has a lot of, he has a lot of roots down in Houston.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, yeah.

So I'll make some intros.

Got him.

I got my friend V.

He's like friends with LeBron.

He used to be like, he has a lot of contacts in the NBA.

Nice.

A lot of different people.

Rockets players.

The Fertidas might be out there too.

Yeah, Fritita.

Yeah, Tillman Fertida's out there too.

Yeah.

They own a lot of casinos out here, I believe.

Oh, wow.

So those are dream guests for sure.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah, I'll look into Houston then, man.

How far is it from Dallas and Austin?

From Austin, it's like about a two-hour drive.

Oh.

So I might as well just stop out after Austin, man.

Yeah, it's literally like a triangle, and then Dallas is like three, three, four hours.

Yeah, that's what I'm doing with Nashville.

We're going to hit Atlanta after, I think.

Yeah, you might as well write right there.

That's the cool part about our jobs, man.

We get to travel, experience cultures, and I can't wait to take this internationally one day, too.

That's sort of the next step.

100%, bro.

You got to take this to Dubai.

Dubai, for sure.

There's so many good guests out there.

Oh, yeah.

And UK, London would be a good one.

And maybe even Australia.

Europe would be solid, too.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Certain countries in Europe would be, would crush, I think.

Yeah, for sure.

Yeah.

And maybe Mexico, man.

I'm practicing Spanish.

Okay, that's dope.

Yeah.

So my childhood best friend, Shaw, he's been religiously practicing Spanish for the past year.

And dude, he's pretty good now.

Yeah.

What app did he use?

So he used Duolingo in the beginning, but then there's this other app called Tandem that he used.

And he's like literally a celebrity on Tandem.

It's kind of like Clubhouse, but you get to engage in voice chats with people.

See, that's more useful because I was on Duolingo.

I had like a two-on- or something streak.

And I felt like it was too slow for me.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's too one-dimensional, right?

Yeah, but you don't get to talk.

No, so what it's called tandem?

It's called tandem, yeah.

You should check it out.

I'm gonna get that tonight, dude, because I've been slacking on it.

Yeah, Spanish is important, yeah, for sure.

And I want to be the first bilingual uh podcaster, so that would be huge.

Like doing podcasts in Spanish, yeah, no, that's like the vision for sure.

Latin America, it's crazy, bitch.

That's a huge market, dude.

Yeah, and they're passionate fans.

Like, look at all those music artists.

Holy shit, you get one of them on 10 million views.

Like, whenever they come to Vegas, sold out in the football arena bad bunny i don't even know the name aluma all those guys yeah yeah i don't listen to music but i know they're big yeah yeah for sure for sure what do you spend uh your time on other than this man other than this um you know i like i mean i realize i'm a big family guy so spend a lot of time with family um you know i'm somewhat into crypto

um and then starting to get more into real estate too okay trying to you know diversify a little bit yeah what do you got in crypto mainly bitcoin and ethereum yeah play it safe yeah yeah None of the altcoins.

I'm kind of risk averse.

Yeah.

I was like one of those guys that threw like 30 Gs at Doge back then and lost it all.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I ended up pulling out like 6'7.

I was like, yeah, it's dumb.

So you got at the top, probably like 50 cents.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I got in pretty, pretty high.

Yeah.

Damn.

Yeah.

Those meme coins are, you either make a lot or lose a lot.

There's really no in between.

Right, right.

Exactly.

So I stay out of them too.

Dude, any events coming up?

Yeah, man.

So we've done several networking events, right?

We did the one with Damon John at Ahern,

a check spot in here in Vegas, Limitless event, Utah, and then the LA one with Dan.

I feel like those events were just so transformational, right?

The people that we brought together and whatnot.

But yeah, man, I mean, right now, probably looking to go to PBD's event.

Oh, the Vault.

The Vault.

Yeah.

So that's probably going to be on the list.

But other than that, just keep grinding away, building the business.

PBD's been crushing, dude.

He's been crushing.

That event's been on my calendar the past two years.

years wow have you are you gonna go i think so yeah because i wanted to go to the first one and then i wanted to go to the last one but i was just filming those days yeah let's pull up together yeah this year i'm free though so shout out to pbd man that's one of the shows i studied when i started wow you modeled it perfectly then i mean he's crushing it and now he's diving into politics and just getting 10x the views yeah it's brilliant man yeah he's nine-figure company already i think yeah he's been crushing it man and i feel like

i mean you're well on your way man congrats on what you've done yeah and then we got event September during UFC at the Sphere.

Yeah.

That's going to be big.

Our last one was fun, dude.

Yeah.

I mean, it wasn't like huge quantity-wise, but the people there were incredible.

Dude, it was a dope-ass venue.

Yeah, I really liked the mountains surrounding us.

Yeah, it was beautiful.

Mussels helicopter.

Pulled up in the chopper, dude.

That was dope.

Justin Waller was there.

BJ Baldwin.

There were some really heavy hitters there, man.

Yeah.

It was dope, man.

Yeah, it's important for people watching this to go to networking events, conferences.

That's how we met.

That's how you meet a lot of people.

100%.

Your network is your net worth, right?

As cliche as it sounds.

And I feel like there's just so many people that undervalue that, you know, but I think it's important to put yourself out there.

Absolutely.

So was the app out?

Yeah, there was a conversation.

So the app is coming out next year.

We're in the final stages of beta testing.

I really see it as like

perfection, but there's no such thing as perfection.

So I'm like, I got to just get the app out, get it in the hands of users.

But yeah, right now people can book a shoot in all 50 states through our landing page, beigevideo.com.

Nice.

And is this your first business or did you have success before so man i had a few other businesses in the past i opened a small indian restaurant in la yeah scaled it up my parents helped me um it was good man i scaled it up ended up selling it for six figures uh during the pandemic restaurant yeah i didn't know you could do that yeah yeah so you know ended up selling it to a family friend um that was pretty cool i got to try your indian food man yeah i love indian food oh do you yeah yeah yeah um i'm thinking about doing another one in houston so what's your signature dish dude i would say butter chicken.

Hands down.

Can't go wrong with that.

Yeah.

Garlic Naan with butter chicken.

Oh, I love naan, dude.

Thicky with naan because sometimes it's too thick.

Gotcha.

I like my crispy.

Yeah, the crispy is really good.

Yeah.

You don't want to leave it in there for too long.

Yeah.

Otherwise, yeah.

But yeah, man, I had a social fitness app, too.

That ended up failing.

But it taught me a lot just about the fitness industry.

We did some stuff with like the Lakers and like

hosted different fitness events throughout LA.

I was like, kind of like Tinder, but for fitness.

Yeah.

So you would match with a trainer?

So you'd match with other people playing a sport.

Oh, got it.

Right.

So, for example, let's say you're, you're in a pickup basketball, you pulled up to Miami, you're looking to play a pickup basketball game, you could go on that app and then be matched.

Wow.

Why did that fail?

Because I would use that.

Yeah.

So we just ran out of money, man.

And, you know, if you look at the demographic that's raising funding in this current environment, it's, it's really, you're either Ivy League educated or, you know, your founders are other unicorns.

Right.

Exit, yeah.

Yeah.

Or, you know, you're, you're quite frankly you're white so really yeah yeah i mean you know having other co-founders that are of color made it really difficult to raise funds yeah that's surprising yeah but i can see it i mean did you see james o'keith expose disney recently yeah i heard of it yeah so that that stuff's definitely around i mean race is definitely around it's just not talked about i feel like yeah i mean and so much racism is like institutional nowadays right it's like it's generational too yeah it's generational and it's like a lot of it is just projection of one's own insecurities.

But I think we got to look beyond that and just

do the best that we can.

That's a shame, but I can relate because I've raised money too.

And after my first exit, it was so easy to raise money.

You know what I mean?

But that first time, it was really hard.

Like super hard.

100%.

And I didn't know if that was just experience, race, or whatever, but it could have been both.

Yeah.

Absolutely, man.

Yeah.

So that ended up failing.

We were out like a quarter million bucks, but that failure taught us a lot.

Right.

And I think to me it was like that's where i got the golden nuggets for beige right to be able to scale this um and you know we're starting to raise at like a 10 million dollar valuation now but that didn't happen overnight we had to have failure after failure um in order to do so and then my other business was a clothing brand it was called uh noia jipon it's essentially like a ethically manufacturing uh oriented clothing brand.

So Bangladesh is the second largest clothing producer in the world.

So what I was able to do is find factories that would produce the clothes in a more ethical standard.

And then I was essentially helping source like different basic garments.

Nice.

Yeah.

But then a lot of like my own people, a lot of Bangladeshis started hating on me for trying to change the game and do something different.

Really?

Yeah.

They were saying like, oh, but you're not making the clothes yourself or, you know, some of the clothes are made in China, which some of our prototypes were because we were trying to diversify and we didn't have the resources when you're starting out.

But I ended up raising money in a Kickstarter campaign that was successful and then I was like you know what I'm just going to pivot to beige and do it full-time that's when it took off I'm big on ethically source clothes though for real yeah because I believe there's an energetic component when it's made in a sweatshop yeah it brings down your energy 100 and you look at the fast fashion industry nowadays right and it's like it's really about volume and I feel like you should aim for quality

than just quantity yeah I'll pay double the price I wear linen now I wear like good quality material wow what no what differences you notice with that so the human vibrates had an energy of 100.

When you wear linen, it's 5,000.

Wow.

When you wear cotton, it's, I think organic cotton is like 70 or something.

And then regular cotton's 15.

And then polyester is one.

So anything below 100 is going to bring down your energy.

So you want to wear clothing that's above 100.

That is fascinating.

Yeah.

When I wear linen, dude, I feel amazing.

Try it out.

Yeah, I definitely will.

I bought some off Amazon and Game Changer, dude.

Get rid of your polyester for sure because that's a vibration level of one.

Wow.

A lot of men's boxers and like yoga pants for women are polyester.

Wow.

That's crazy.

Yeah.

And not only that, though, when you sweat in it, there's microplastics in it that get in your bloodstream, too.

So it's bad on two fronts, spiritually and physically.

I think spiritual awareness is the greatest form of awareness.

Yeah.

Whenever I have on spiritual guests, they're all in linen.

That makes a lot of sense because I've been to Mecca because I'm Muslim.

So I've been to Mecca several times.

And when you go, you're supposed to wear this cloth.

And it has to be like either cotton or linen.

Yeah.

It's not really synthetic.

And then in Islam, men are not allowed to wear silk for whatever reason.

That's interesting.

Yeah, yeah.

I didn't know that.

I wonder what the reason is for that.

For sure.

Wow.

Well, dude, it's been fun.

Anything else you want to close off with our promote?

Yeah, for sure, man.

I would say like the biggest thing is

the AI component, right?

I feel like AI can never truly replace us, but we got to learn how to coexist with AI when it comes to content.

And so, yeah, we're investing heavily in generative AI at Beige and really excited for the launch, man.

Yeah, I can't wait to see it, man.

We'll eventually link it below when the app's out, too.

Maybe we'll do a part two.

Yeah, definitely got to do a part two to talk about the results.

Thanks for coming on, man.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thanks for watching, guys.

As always, we'll link Collins or socials below if you want to check them out.

Otherwise, see you tomorrow.