The Uber for Creatives: Why Beige is a Game Changer | Kawser Khan DSH #788
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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, Kouser Khan here today. What's up, my man? What's going on, bro? Thanks for having me. Yeah. So Kouser does all the videos for my networking events. And you crush it, man. Thank you. And that's your company, Beige. Yeah. Repping it as always. I 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're

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 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 for your events. Yeah.

And so, yeah. Yeah. And that's how we met too at an event backstage. Yeah. Yeah. You were doing videographer for Natasha. Yeah. For Natasha. How did you find her? So she actually found us. So she found us. Yeah. Just like us through Google and reached out and then we ended up doing like, 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 a top five show, dude. Yeah. Yeah. She's been killing it. Yeah. She's in my category. We're always battling for that top three spot. Nice. Yeah. Shout out to Natasha, man. Yeah. 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 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 any... People film funerals? Yeah, since the pandemic. I've never heard that. Yeah, since...

2020, we've done a few hundred funerals. What? It's crazy, yeah. I didn't know that was a thing because I've been to a few, and I don't remember seeing video cameras there. Yeah, yeah. People like to livestream it. We do these highlight videos with video clips. You do a highlight video at the funeral? Yeah, the people 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 over the past couple years. Yeah, this year we're about to break 3 million in sales and shoots. Incredible.

And this is, mind you, with just being on a landing page, right? No app. App is not out yet. No ads, too. Yeah, very little ads. So, yeah, man, been scaling it. That's cool because 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, videographer, 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. Literally. They're dominating. That's probably the one vertical you're going to focus on too, right? Yeah. It's going to be one of the biggest ones. Yeah, because they film consistently. You could be there for them whether it's weekly or daily. 100%. Exactly, bro. So I'm excited, man. I'm excited to just keep growing it. It's been an amazing journey so far. 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

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will connect you with a videographer or photographer locally. Wow, that's huge. Yeah, 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 vetting 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 first.

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 base? Yeah. And you've done a ton of weddings too, right? Yeah, yeah. We've done over a thousand weddings. Holy crap.

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. 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 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. Wow. But she happened to be in Houston during that time. And then we just started dating. And then 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 shipped it. And he didn't know we were going to end up being married, but...

uh, we did, man. 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. He 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, Hey, uh,

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. That's pretty cool. And then I 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 out. Oh, 100%. I had like $300 when I started and spent it on another existing marketplace that's now one of our competitors called Thumbtack.

And that's when we got our first customers. And then we just never looked back. Oh, so there's an existing marketplace. 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. 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 yeah very direct people very direct right so but yeah chicago and new york man they did really well for bass 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 uh overseeing a music video we had and then i was like all right i'm gonna get an apartment wow sign your wife's like what the hell so this was right before we met yeah this is right before we met and so um you know she ended up having fun in brooklyn nice yeah

I like having two spots on different coasts, actually. Yeah, yeah. Do you currently have multiple spots? Well, my mom lives in PA, but we just got a house here, and my goal eventually is to have a second house on the East Coast because I like being able to just travel back and forth, 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 a 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 being transacted every day. Yeah, it's 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 Vegas. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love it. Especially Cali. Cali is slow. Bro, it's so slow. Yeah. Other than like LA and maybe a couple other cities, but.

Even L.A. has slow people there, too. Yeah, it's more chill. Yeah, that's where you're at, right? Yeah. So I'm in between L.A. and Houston, so I have two spots. Recently copped a house in Houston. Nice. Also have a house in L.A., 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 been there. 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. It'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

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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, yeah. Who's out there? Bro, we got a bunch of heavy hitters out there. I got—so I could probably get J Prince. I've heard of him. Yeah, so he basically helped Drake start OVO. Holy crap. Yeah. Why is he in Houston? Seems random. Yeah, Drake has a lot of—he has a lot of roots down in Houston. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. So I'll make some intros. Got him.

I got my friend V. He's like friends with like LeBron. He used to be like he has like a lot of contacts in the NBA. Nice. A lot of different people. Rockets players. The Fertittas might be out there too. Yeah, Fertitta. Yeah, Tillman Fertitta is 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 after Austin, then. Yeah, yeah, it's literally like a triangle, and then Dallas is like three, four hours. Yeah, that's what I'm doing with Nashville. We're going to hit Atlanta after, I think. Yeah, might as well, right? It's right there. That's the cool part about our drives, 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. Maybe even Australia. Europe would be solid, too. Yeah. Yeah. Certain countries in Europe would be...

crush i think yeah for sure yeah and maybe mexico man i'm practicing spanish okay that's dope yeah yeah so my childhood best friend uh shah 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 uh duolingo in the beginning but then there's this other app called tandem that he used and uh he's like literally a celebrity on tandem it's kind of like clubhouse but you get to

like engage in voice chats with people and see that's more useful because i was on duolingo had like a 200 something streak and i felt like it was too slow for me yeah 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. Doing podcasts in Spanish. Yeah, no, that's like the vision for sure. Latin America is crazy big. That's a huge market. 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 of Luma, 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 your time on other than this? Man, other than this, I mean, I realize I'm a big family guy, so I spend a lot of time with family. I'm somewhat into crypto. Mm-hmm.

And then starting to get more into real estate too. Trying to diversify a little bit. Yeah. What do you got in crypto? Mainly Bitcoin and Ethereum. Play it safe. Yeah. None of the altcoins. I'm kind of risk averse. I was like one of those guys that threw like 30 Gs at Doge back then. Lost it all. Yeah.

Yeah, I ended up pulling out like 6-7. I was like, yeah, it's dumb. So you got it at the top probably like 50 cents. Yeah, I got in pretty high. Yeah, those meme coins are... You either make a lot or lose a lot. There's literally no in between. Right, right, exactly. So I stay out of them too. Yeah.

uh dude any events coming up or yeah man so we've done several networking events right um we did the one with dame and john at ahern yeah um a check spot in uh in here in vegas limitless uh 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 a PBD's event. Oh, 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. Wow. Are you going to 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, man. I mean, he's crushing it. And now he's diving into politics and just getting 10x the views. Yeah, it's nice. It's brilliant, man. He's nine-figure company already, I think. Yeah, he's been crushing it, man. And I feel like

I mean, you're 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. I really liked the mountains surrounding us. Yeah, it was beautiful. Muscles, 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. 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 is the app out yet or is it coming out? 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 gotta just get the app out uh 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 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. It was good, man. I scaled it up, ended up selling it for six figures during the pandemic. Wow, sold a 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. I love Indian food. Oh, do you? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, I'm thinking about doing another one in Houston. 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. But I'm picky with naan because sometimes it's too thick. Gotcha. I like mine crispy. Yeah. The crispy is really good. Yeah. You don't want to leave it in there for too long. Yeah. Otherwise, yeah. Um,

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. It was like kind of like Tinder, but for fitness in a way. 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 pull it 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? Cause I would use that. Yeah. So we just ran out of money, man. And, and, uh, 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're founders or other unicorns. How they exit, yeah. Yeah, or quite frankly, you're white. Really? Yeah, yeah. I mean, having other co-founders that are of color made it really difficult to raise funds. That's surprising. Yeah.

But I could see it. I mean, did you see James O'Keefe expose Disney recently? Yeah, I heard of it. Yeah, so 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 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...

Yeah, 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 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. And, you know, we're starting to raise that like a $10 million valuation now. But that didn't happen overnight. We had to have failure after failure in order to do so. And then my other business was a clothing brand. It was called Noya Jibon. It's essentially like a ethically manufacturing-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

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 were made in China, which some of our prototypes were because we were trying to diversify and we didn't have the resources when you start out. But end 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. Wow. That's when it took off. I'm big on ethically sourced clothes, though, for real. Yeah. Because I believe there's an energetic component.

When it's made in a sweatshop, 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. 100%. Yeah, I'll pay double the price. I wear linen now. I wear like good quality material. Wow. What differences do you notice with that? So the human vibrates out 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 is 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 take you up on that. 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, 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.

So that makes a lot of sense because I've been to Mecca cause I'm Muslim. So I've been to Mecca several times. And when you go, you're supposed to wear this, this cloth and it has to be like either cotton or linen. Yeah. Right. It can't, it's not really synthetic. Like, and then in Islam, men are not allowed to wear silk for whatever reason. Yeah. That's interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't know that. I wonder what the reason is for that. For sure. Wow. Well,

Well, dude, it's been fun. Anything else you want to close off with or promote? Yeah, for sure, man. I would say 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 Bayesian. 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. Talk about the results. Thanks for coming on, man. Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for watching, guys. As always, we'll link Kawsar's socials below if you want to check them out. Otherwise, see you tomorrow.