Kia Abrera
Lyle Tanciano, a 26-year-old graphic designer primarily based in Cebu, give up his company job two years in the past to start out his personal firm, Nostalgik Media. He additionally picked up a facet gig as a Tiktok content material creator, sharing the ins and outs of graphic designing. Instead of simply getting a month-to-month paycheck, he now enjoys a number of revenue streams.
Tanciano is considered one of many creatives who’ve flourished below the tutelage of Brave Creators Lab, which mentors upstart inventive entrepreneurs. Since coming into the mentorship program in June, he has grown his Tiktok follower base from nearly 1,000 to greater than 16,000.
Following within the footsteps of his mentor, Brave Creators Lab founder Kia Abrera, he additionally started his personal podcast, workshop and arrange a group for freelancers and inventive entrepreneurs. He offers his group free entry to a studying hub known as School of Pinoy Graphic designers.
“I didn’t know the place to bridge the hole between ‘the place I’m now’ and ‘the place I need to be.’ That’s the place she helped me,” Tanciano says of his mentor. At Brave Creators Lab, he realized find out how to model and market himself within the digital house.
“I skilled first hand how sensible it was. It was not simply consuming supplies, but additionally making use of it immediately,” he provides.
He describes the 33-year-old Abrera—a strategist, video advertising and marketing producer and TikTook “educreator” with virtually 140,000 followers—as a “very heat and supportive” mentor
In 2020, Yahoo Finance UK acknowledged Abrera as one of many Top 10 instructors who’re serving to entrepreneurs set up and develop on-line companies. Local entrepreneurship teams like Go Negosyo have featured her as a enterprise mentor.
Abrera began Brave Creators Lab with simply six college students in 2020, focusing on those that want to “be taught, unlearn and relearn” the ropes of inventive entrepreneurship. To date, this system has helped greater than 600 entrepreneurs, influencers and creators construct their following and inventive pursuits on-line.
From inventive skilled to entrepreneur
“Some college students have a good time getting 100,000 followers in 4 months (from zero) and securing superb model offers, or [bouncing from] being gravely affected by the pandemic to promoting out their pivoted service and getting acknowledged on nationwide TV. And some have a good time the arrogance to lastly present up on video or altering the best way they do their discovery calls, from being determined to shut to having bias, [to] simply serving their purchasers,” says Abrea.
She graduated from the University of the Philippines with a movie diploma and sealed her love for inventive pursuits when she interned for nationwide artist Kidlat Tahimik, dubbed the Father of Philippine Independent Cinema.
“I’ve all the time had a inventive itch ever since I used to be younger—it was only a matter of realizing which particular path I wished to go to,” Abrera says.
She spent eight years within the advertising and marketing and promoting trade, serving purchasers equivalent to USAID, Coca-Cola, Huffpost and The Futur. While she began out as a inventive skilled, she noticed that Filipino creatives have a lot untapped potential to turn into entrepreneurs.
“We realized that we had been caught in our consolation zones,” she remembers.
Thus, she transitioned from the company world to arrange her personal company, Braveworks Inc.. Together along with her husband, Mel, they grew Braveworks into an eight-figure group inside six years.
“We needed to take numerous small steps. We began rising our portfolio by taking in 10 purchasers for free. And then, we began speaking to extra purchasers, making an attempt to get to our first paid sure,” she says.
Now, her firm handles a number of accounts and helpful purchasers from all around the world, whereas serving to different Filipino creatives develop.
With her want to assist her friends, she cofounded the Likha Summit, a networking occasion for Filipino creatives. They have additionally created and fostered a gaggle known as The Brave Creatives, the place creatives can assist and assist one another.
“After being within the inventive enterprise for almost 10 years, I made a decision to dive into being an educreator—so I can impression extra people who find themselves in the identical journey,” she shares.
One of her advocacies is to assist Filipinos make their mark within the international inventive economic system. According to a examine completed by the United Nations, inventive industries generate annual revenues of greater than $2 trillion and account for almost 50 million jobs worldwide.
“In this pursuit, there’ll all the time be those that query the trail I took—largely from those that’ve all the time had the unfairness {that a} inventive pursuit is just not as sensible,” Abrera says.
Shrugging off naysayers, she has labored laborious and constructed her enterprise from the bottom up, collectively along with her husband.
From opponents to collaborators
Theirs is an trade marked by intense competitors. It is fast paced, particularly within the digital enviornment. Instead of simply specializing in algorithms or traits, Abrera’s staff chooses to check the viewers and their evolving challenges.
Later on, they stopped viewing different creators as opponents and began them as potential collaborators and folks they’ll truly assist.
“I feel it’s higher for the inventive economic system after we begin educating inventive entrepreneurs on how they’ll thrive in an rising, profitable trade.”
From there, Abrera conceptualized Brave Creators Lab for model strategists, visible designers, social media managers, digital assistants, video editors, videographers, photographers, net designers, graphic designers or anybody who works with purchasers in want of inventive and strategic companies.
The lab is an academic ecosystem with three predominant tiers: “DIY” (inventive entrepreneurship fundamentals), a brief program for beginning creatives; “DWY,” a six-month program for those that need to scale their inventive enterprise; and “1:1 Consultation,” which is for service-based inventive companies who need to deal with a selected problem.
“I think about the entrepreneurial mindset important in any area. You will all the time have a bonus in case you are an entrepreneur. If you will have this sort of mindset, this implies you worth your expertise so you find yourself treating your employer as your consumer,” Abrea factors out.
Creatives should know find out how to spot alternatives amid challenges, find out how to construct significant relationships, find out how to maximize and leverage any state of affairs and construct one thing out of obtainable sources, she stresses.
“It all begins with self-efficacy—the idea which you can succeed. When you recognize this, then it’s important to begin what you will have and the way your present can serve folks.”
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