Gabe Nazario, founder of Offbeat Creative in Jersey City, joins Dario and Kyrill for a candid, tactical conversation about the business of video in the New York metro. He built Offbeat on the side of producer and editor roles at Fox, Disney, and JP Morgan, then went full time once the profit matched his salary. In this episode: growing slowly and hiring deliberately, why a lean 1099 crew sometimes scares clients, treating AI consulting as an SEO play, the tools that speed up the work, chasing simple-deliverable retainers, and why in a market where everyone makes good videos, you win on trust and follow-up.
Guest: Gabe Nazario, Offbeat Creative (https://www.offbeatcreative.co/)
Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:19 Meet Gabe Nazario and Offbeat Creative
2:07 From Fox, Disney, and JP Morgan to going solo
5:09 Making the leap from a corporate job
8:51 A lean core team plus 1099 crew
10:26 Why a small team spooks some clients
12:29 AI consulting as an SEO play
16:39 The AI tools Offbeat actually uses
28:32 Social media: phone-tier content and volume
33:08 Corporate and commercial: the bread and butter
35:00 Chasing retainers for a monthly pillow
42:30 Google reviews, SEO, and the 70/30 split
45:31 Take the one-off
46:59 Jersey City vs New York
49:41 Competition and winning on trust
53:14 The sale is closed on the hello again
1:01:42 The story behind the name Offbeat
Creatives Grab Coffee is a podcast on the business of video production, hosted by Dario Nouri and Kyrill Lazarov and produced by Lapse Productions (https://www.lapseproductions.com/).
