Seth [00:00:15]:
You’re listening to Entrepreneur’s Enigma, a podcast about the ups and downs of the entrepreneurial journey. Every week, your host, Seth Goldstein, interviews entrepreneurs from all walks of life about their entrepreneurial journeys. From store owners to fortune 500 CEOs, we all have stories to tell. So sit back and join us for the next 20 or so minutes while we explore the entrepreneurial world.

Benjamin [00:00:49]:
Hey, everybody. Welcome to another edition of the entrepreneur’s enigma podcast. I’m as always your host, Seth. They have Benjamin let’s restart the I can get the word Benjamin out there. Alright. 321. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another edition of the Entrepreneur’s Enigma podcast.

Benjamin [00:01:08]:
I’m, as always, your host, Seth. Today, I have Benjamin Barnett. He is of the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival. He is a realtor. He is a creative director. He’s a CMO. He’s a kind of a jack of all trades entrepreneur. I know him from Barghamp, Philly.

Benjamin [00:01:27]:
I think that’s where we first met.

Benjamin [00:01:29]:
Yeah. I think so.

Benjamin [00:01:30]:
But but Philly is Philly is a weird city with the creatives. Everyone kinda knows each other. So it it just made sense to get Benjamin on here. Literally, jack of all trades. I mean, he’s like, ah, let me be a realtor too on top of everything else he does.

Benjamin [00:01:44]:
You know?

Benjamin [00:01:44]:
It’s like, come on. It’s like, hold my beer, buddy. Hold my beer. I’ll let me show you what else I can do. So you’ve been an entrepreneur for a while now. I mean, you’ve run the Philadelphia Independent Film Festival for how long now?

Benjamin [00:01:56]:
We just passed our 17th year 2 weeks ago. Got a Philly tech week.

Benjamin [00:02:02]:
Wow. That’s awesome. Yep.

Benjamin [00:02:04]:
Looking forward to number 18.

Benjamin [00:02:07]:
That’s incredible. And you you it’s how’s the other Ritz. Right?

Benjamin [00:02:11]:
We have screened at the Ritz. We screen everywhere. We actually screen at the Ethical Society. We’re screening with Lightbox Theater, which of course we all heard what just happened here. And also we, work with somebody who built a smaller 75 to 85 seat theater down in Northern Liberties.

Benjamin [00:02:32]:
Oh, that’s fun. So it’s kind of, like, you know, wherever you can get a spot.

Benjamin [00:02:37]:
You Yeah. We screened at PAFA, Constitution Center, Franklin Institute.

Benjamin [00:02:40]:
Oh, even better. Yeah. There’s a lot of good spots in Philly.

Benjamin [00:02:42]:
Great spots. We usually match the film and the theme and the genre with the type of venue is is one of the

Benjamin [00:02:48]:
Aren’t you fancy? Fancy schmancy. I love it. And so you’ve been an entrepreneur your whole life. Right? You’ve always been doing something with entrepreneurship and

Benjamin [00:02:57]:
I have. Kind of fun. Yeah. Moving back to Philly, traveled around the world, graduate school in San Francisco, and worked, you know, there to help put myself through. And, you know, definitely had always had an entrepreneurial spirit, You know, a desire to build and create and engage people and communities and things. So I was fortunate to be in San Francisco, honestly, when the whole tech boom.comboom happened in the early nineties. Are you there for the bust? Ever since.

Benjamin [00:03:27]:
We’re gonna take a quick break, hear from our sponsors, and get right back to the show. Were you there for the bust?

Benjamin [00:03:33]:
I wasn’t, actually. I was a really Oh,

Benjamin [00:03:36]:
smart man.

Benjamin [00:03:36]:
Yep. Yep. Well, I was I was here for the bust.

Benjamin [00:03:40]:
So I

Benjamin [00:03:40]:
don’t know if you’re smart or not. But I had gone over the bus. I was in Israel after grad school, and so, yeah, I’ve always worked in technology and creative spaces.

Benjamin [00:03:50]:
That’s fun. So you have worked for the man, the person, the woman, the conglomerate

Benjamin [00:03:56]:
Yes. Oh, yeah. What do you like what do

Benjamin [00:03:59]:
you like most about being an entrepreneur though? I mean

Benjamin [00:04:01]:
Well, working as an entrepreneur, if the most thing, you know, is is maybe a loaded question. I mean, ultimately, you know, being successful in whatever that, you know, definition is, you know, would be the goal of the entrepreneur. But you know, when you look at it, you know, holistically if I may in a larger ecosystem, you know, there’s a lot of things that get affected by an entrepreneur or a cat.

Benjamin [00:04:31]:
Yeah.

Benjamin [00:04:31]:
So, you know, that’s that’s also satisfying. It’s helping and engaging and working with people and doing good things. So

Benjamin [00:04:40]:
And having the right to work 80 hours a week.

Benjamin [00:04:42]:
Yeah. That’s part of it.

Benjamin [00:04:44]:
I mean, you definitely for yourself. Yeah.

Benjamin [00:04:47]:
You you need to believe, you know. So it’s definitely nobody else will, you know, I was always told. So, you know, you have to believe and you have to be honest with yourself. So, you know, that that should be your, you know, motivating factor.

Benjamin [00:05:02]:
I I know. It’s it’s amazing. So how did you find your so where did you go to school originally? How did you find your way into, like, film and the creative

Benjamin [00:05:09]:
Well, I have an undergrad degree in English Lit from American University. So

Benjamin [00:05:14]:
And those general degrees you can’t use for anything.

Benjamin [00:05:16]:
Well I was reading a lot of American literature, contemporary literature. You know John Cheever, Raymond Carver, Kermit Moyer, you know. So there’s like a lot of different stuff that really, you know, was out there and you know, it gave me a sense of the arts and, you know, appreciated that. So I actually and this was in DC, obviously. So I worked in some local clubs every now and then, would see shows, go to see readings, plays.

Benjamin [00:05:42]:
I bet.

Benjamin [00:05:43]:
So in DC, it was just an English in the late eighties. So it was 85 to 89 when I was there, and it was an incredibly rich artistic city that really, in my opinion, was a little bit the same and a little bit different than Philadelphia. And this was the yard.

Benjamin [00:06:00]:
Quirky. DC DC is very quirky too.

Benjamin [00:06:02]:
Very quirky. It’s international. There’s people from everywhere all over. So, you know, it’s it was it was great to be in that international space like that, you know, checking out the art. So

Benjamin [00:06:14]:
That’s wild. So he went American, and you got an MFA too.

Benjamin [00:06:18]:
Yep. We have an MFA in ad design from the Academy of Art over in San Francisco. Another great experience being in San Francisco, you know, studying advertising design was, arguably the best city in the world to do it. The academy gave me that ability by bringing in a lot of local talent and things like this. People actually working in the field and really gave me a sense of what that world was like, marketing, producing, things like this. And that’s where I gravitated more to the film piece, the commercial piece of it.

Benjamin [00:06:50]:
Yeah.

Benjamin [00:06:51]:
And started, you know, engaging film and editing and things like that at that point wholeheartedly. And, we were lucky

Benjamin [00:06:59]:
head head on. Yeah. Yeah.

Benjamin [00:07:00]:
We were lucky. Right? San Francisco. So, you know, there’s incredible hardware available, working with Silicon Graphics machines and, you know, just the best Macs in the moment. And so, you know, it was it was great.

Benjamin [00:07:12]:
The power PC the power PC movement. Right. Back when they’re back when they’re on power PC.

Benjamin [00:07:17]:
Well, you know, yeah, we can go into that, of course. But

Benjamin [00:07:20]:
Yeah. We can go into that. For better or for worse. Exactly.

Benjamin [00:07:23]:
The Clone Wars. You know? It’s

Benjamin [00:07:25]:
Oh, yeah. I forgot they used to clone the Macs. They tried to they tried to do what what PC does, and they don’t.

Benjamin [00:07:31]:
Nope. No. Not

Benjamin [00:07:32]:
that. It didn’t work that well.

Benjamin [00:07:33]:
Yep.

Benjamin [00:07:34]:
Now you can still kind of, you know, hack it, but, you know.

Benjamin [00:07:37]:
Yeah. You know, they were fun in the moment, but too expensive and obviously clunky and just, you know, all the above. So

Benjamin [00:07:44]:
And all computers back then were really expensive. Now they kinda come up commoditized, come down. I mean, look. I mean, you’re on your phone. I mean, who the fuck that, like, back like, who would have thought that I’ve been do doing a podcast number 1? Then who would have thought that I’d be on a computer, my guest would be on an iPhone, and we would be recording really good video. Like, it’s it’s insane. The way the way technology is going. It’s insane that, like, we have computers.

Benjamin [00:08:13]:
Your computer, your phone is faster than the computers you used to do ad design on back in the day. Yeah.

Benjamin [00:08:20]:
I mean, look. Yeah. This is one thing where it is crazy, but, you know, look, science fiction fiction’s been talking about this stuff forever. I mean, you know, you had Dick Crazy talking to a wristwatch in the forties and the fifties.

Benjamin [00:08:32]:
So Dick Tracy.

Benjamin [00:08:33]:
Yeah. You know, just like there’s all types of social cultural cues out there that showed that this was really the pet. And and if you think about the technology where we were a 100 years from that, you know, a 100 years ago to now Yeah.

Benjamin [00:08:45]:
It’s only it’s only been a 100 like, a 100 years.

Benjamin [00:08:48]:
It’s down

Benjamin [00:08:48]:
So in 2024 now, it was 1924. And how backwards not backwards. How, like, archaic are are we were

Benjamin [00:08:57]:
Oh, yeah.

Benjamin [00:08:58]:
In a 100 years. Now that that that’s a lifetime for a person. Generally, I mean, if you’re lucky, you get a 100 years out out of your life. I mean, if you’re lucky

Benjamin [00:09:05]:
Mhmm.

Benjamin [00:09:06]:
But it we’re it’s happening more now. But if you think about it, you we’ve done so much in that 100 years, in one lifetime. People have seen everything from the Depression through AI.

Benjamin [00:09:20]:
Yep. That’s incredible.

Benjamin [00:09:22]:
It’s amazing to think. I mean, even even like, I’m 43, and I remember the start of the Internet. You know, I’m I’m a digital transplant, and I’m a digital native. My kid’s a digital native. My kid doesn’t know before the Internet. He doesn’t know dial up. I I showed him the sound for AOL’s. Beep boop boop.

Benjamin [00:09:40]:
And he’s like, what the hell is that?

Benjamin [00:09:43]:
They’ll put it in a song one day, maybe. Oh, they have them songs.

Benjamin [00:09:47]:
Yeah. Does it the and yeah. Because it’s classic. It brings back such memories. It’s like trigger stuff. Mhmm. Good stuff. It triggers, you know, memories.

Benjamin [00:09:55]:
So alright. So you’ve been at you so you did the corporate grind. You’ve got the experience. You’ve, taught in universities. You may you may you are just rest in peace for better or worse because, you know, we’re recording this, and UR just went strangely

Benjamin [00:10:11]:
really fast. For the community.

Benjamin [00:10:14]:
Yeah. But, I mean, Rosemont do you see Rosemont’s picking up all the kids?

Benjamin [00:10:18]:
I grew up. It’s a kid’s wanna go

Benjamin [00:10:19]:
to y’all.

Benjamin [00:10:20]:
Kids wanna go to you art and be part of that MBEC program. You know, that music and, you know, it’s a great program. You know, the film department was really cranking, like, animation. I mean, there was really incredible work.

Benjamin [00:10:32]:
Something happened there, and I think there’s gonna be an investigation, and people are gonna figure out what the heck happened there. Right? No. Usually, it’s like they give a year’s notice, not 5 days. You heard me right. 5 days notice. Yep. No. Something something’s fishy is going on.

Benjamin [00:10:45]:
But, anyhow, we’re dating a podcast. This podcast isn’t gonna come out too soon after. I’m maybe I’ll put in the show notes to update to that because I know you taught at UR’s for a while. And, so you’ve done the academics, You’ve done the the corporate. You’ve done the the entrepreneur. What do you prefer? Or does does each have all their kind of pluses and minuses? I guess

Benjamin [00:11:05]:
They do. And for me at least, and this probably or maybe not true for others, but for me, they all cross somewhere. So there’s nothing that’s running sort of, you know, dual, you know, or parallel or something. Everything’s part of like cog in the wheel. So, you know, the like for example, real estate clicked in for many years, you know, scouting properties in Philadelphia for 30 years, basically. Just helping people make local films. You know, so it’s natural

Benjamin [00:11:34]:
for me to

Benjamin [00:11:35]:
be watching and looking at properties and watching neighborhoods grow and not miss that and the other and just, you know, really working in town like that. So on foot, you know, most of the time and, you know, just getting a sense for what’s going on. So, you know, that’s natural.

Benjamin [00:11:49]:
What’s your sweet spot now? Are you doing films more than real estate, or is real estate real real estate?

Benjamin [00:11:54]:
Well, I I I I’m with a a realtor in Philadelphia Compass, if you don’t mind me saying out loud, and they are I’m on my wife’s team, Wendy Schwartz. And Oh,

Benjamin [00:12:05]:
you’re brave. You’re brave.

Benjamin [00:12:07]:
Yeah. Or

Benjamin [00:12:08]:
she’s or she’s brave.

Benjamin [00:12:10]:
She’s brave. You much. I’ll tell you.

Benjamin [00:12:11]:
She’s brave. And you’re just like, yeah. The husband joined.

Benjamin [00:12:15]:
Yeah. So connected that. But, you know, like like you mentioned too about the film fest, the film festival connected because we’d started something in the late nineties called the underground film forum, and we were screening digital films off, you know, in our warehouse. So, you know, it really kinda clicked in. You know, ten ish years later, we we kicked off an independent film festival. So, you know, we had known people all over

Benjamin [00:12:38]:
the world. Their phone now.

Benjamin [00:12:40]:
Yeah.

Benjamin [00:12:40]:
As example being here, but you can do, I mean, people do their full their full videos on their whole film on the iPhone.

Benjamin [00:12:47]:
Right. And we’re

Benjamin [00:12:47]:
we’re the founders iPhone.

Benjamin [00:12:49]:
Of mediaburodot com. So I don’t know if you remember the media bureau in Philly. But they they’re definitely one of the first digital networks in Philly producing original content,

Benjamin [00:13:08]:
Oh my god. Webcast. Right?

Benjamin [00:13:10]:
So And

Benjamin [00:13:10]:
then they were called Netcast, and then they were finally called podcast.

Benjamin [00:13:13]:
Right. So Well, exactly. So we did, you know, many shows, hundreds of shows for, you know, about 10 years. So, you know, we we we definitely have a lot of skill in that sort of creative technology space. So it was a natural to bring the film festival to fruition, frankly. So

Benjamin [00:13:29]:
Yeah.

Benjamin [00:13:29]:
You’re talking about the film festival. Rides, you know, on its on its own, on its merit in the sense that every year we curate film festival from a global and local selection. So it’s it’s that’s been good. So that’s part of it. But really the real estate and the film piece have really are going like this.

Benjamin [00:13:47]:
I guess they kinda go hand in hand because you when you’re selling a property, you want film. You want film.

Benjamin [00:13:51]:
You do. We certainly work with a lot of videographers and photographers. So, you know, speaking of you or arts, spend our contact with local realtor and, you know, do some, you know, do work like that. It’s available. It’s definitely available.

Benjamin [00:14:04]:
It’s so weird how it’s very disparate very disparate, like, categories, but they all intersect.

Benjamin [00:14:10]:
Well and that’s the key. And, you know, when we talk about entrepreneurship, at least in my mind, you know, we’re thinking, like, teams and products and, you know, raising capital and and building all this in. My part of that. We’ve definitely done that, you know, years ago at this stage, but we’re definitely at a point now where the film festival is is more of a community based conglomerate, so to speak. So, you know, it really runs on its own. People are really interested in screening in the city and, you know, we’re good at it and we’ve done it for a long time. So we we do that. But, you know, for example, we 2 years ago, we partnered with Agor VR in the city and technically I

Benjamin [00:14:51]:
always get Agor VR. Yeah. Yeah. Young Wippers and Napa are doing.

Benjamin [00:14:54]:
Right. And we built the first metaverse project for the city of Philadelphia, which was very successful in the time.

Benjamin [00:14:59]:
Yeah.

Benjamin [00:15:00]:
And, it was 2 years ago. So which is actually still up. And, Wow. You know, so we’re always engaged in that sort of content Philadelphia global connection marketplace. And that’s streaming, you know, tools, applications. We’re there to Love it. We’re there to take part.

Benjamin [00:15:17]:
So what is the bet what is what keeps you up at night with, entrepreneurship? Like, what what keeps you up at night?

Benjamin [00:15:23]:
So Do

Benjamin [00:15:24]:
you sleep like or do you sleep like or do you sleep like a baby?

Benjamin [00:15:27]:
No. There’s no baby sleeping like a baby, unfortunately. But in in one way, it’s there’s rest. I think too and look to be fair, you know, I’m definitely not in my twenties here. So you know having done this for a little while now, there’s definitely a different phase that I would say I’m at. So and just by the natural laws of of nature. So, you know, what keeps me up is really the what I learned when I was really working day to day in media bureau and keeping up with the technology was in fact really being able to participate within the community environment models wherever you are, in this case Philly, while at the same time innovate. Constantly, like, there every second of the day, every millisecond of the day, just like knowing 10 10 steps ahead of what was going on in our world, in streaming world, in the world.

Benjamin [00:16:22]:
Yeah. So and that meant technology, content, how all these things were being produced, and what what people wanted or didn’t want in the moment.

Benjamin [00:16:31]:
Keep you up at night.

Benjamin [00:16:32]:
So that trend analysis, that data analysis work is, you know, astounding in terms of the amount of time and thought and everything.

Benjamin [00:16:41]:
And never stops. I’m sure you’re right. You you keep a pen and pen and paper by your bedside.

Benjamin [00:16:45]:
Well, in a lot of yeah. Exactly. A lot of waking up and writing dreams down and things.

Benjamin [00:16:51]:
Well, you’re creative. That’s what happens. Yeah. Exactly.

Benjamin [00:16:53]:
So yeah. But that’s, you know, it’s a good thing. If you like data, and I do. And that’s that’s the other point to this is I actually like to do this. So it’s not it’s not painful work.

Benjamin [00:17:03]:
You do is kinda key. Yeah.

Benjamin [00:17:05]:
It’s a lot.

Benjamin [00:17:05]:
Don’t mind spending the 80 hours a week doing stuff because you enjoy it. So that’s what matters. Yeah. Yeah. So what is the most important thing to carry with you all the time? This can be as a phone camera. This can be woo woo as you wanna get. So

Benjamin [00:17:18]:
Well, the irony is is that it’s it’s this phone. It’s the phone and the ability to be able to shoot point and shoot whenever I want. So I get to shoot in HD in the palm of my hand, you know, where, you know, I’ve watched the evolution of, you know, $10,000 SD cameras. Or now, you know, $800 iPhones or $1,000 iPhone.

Benjamin [00:17:42]:
It’s it’s insane.

Benjamin [00:17:43]:
It is.

Benjamin [00:17:44]:
Like, the quality of the phone I mean, I got the pro, not the max. We got the pro, and it’s like

Benjamin [00:17:50]:
Well, it’s it’s incorrect.

Benjamin [00:17:52]:
Quality is like it’s like you look at this camera.

Benjamin [00:17:53]:
Oh, the camera.

Benjamin [00:17:54]:
Camera big. Yeah.

Benjamin [00:17:55]:
It’s a great product. I mean, the bottom line is it’s also the way you can connect internationally, locally, across different platforms. It’s it’s ubiquitous, you know, and this of this actual tool that is suddenly just it’s it’s an extension of us. I mean, everybody would ultimately want one if they could have one.

Benjamin [00:18:16]:
So The the best camera is the one you have with you.

Benjamin [00:18:19]:
Yeah. And that’s that’s that’s great.

Benjamin [00:18:21]:
I have an s o I have a DSLR over there. I haven’t used in, like, 3 years because it’s I have to think to bring it with me. Whereas my phone’s always with me. Exactly. And, like, you know, it’s just Yeah. It’s an extension. Exactly.

Benjamin [00:18:33]:
Yeah.

Benjamin [00:18:34]:
And and So, Benjamin yeah. So where can people find you online? Where is the best place to connect with Benjamin?

Benjamin [00:18:39]:
Well, you can connect with us at PIFF Films, p I f f, films dot tv, or media bureau dot com, which has been up for about to celebrate our 25th year. So, yeah, definitely, we’re out there all over Twitter. We’ve posted tens of thousands of times over at Phil Indy Politicians TV and Beta Lab. Beta Lab being our tech handle for about 15 years. And yeah. We’re, you know, Facebook. We’re we’re on Instagram.

Benjamin [00:19:09]:
You’re you’re on you’re on LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Yeah.

Benjamin [00:19:11]:
We’re on LinkedIn. We’re on Quorum. We’re we still post to Tumblr. You know, we’re we’re out there for a long time.

Benjamin [00:19:19]:
You need to be you need to be in your crib. You need to be everywhere everywhere and anywhere.

Benjamin [00:19:23]:
Everywhere and anywhere. So we have a little island. We actually just dumped our TikTok account. So we might pop that back. Yeah. But it’s funny.

Benjamin [00:19:31]:
Pretty smart because who knows where’s where where that who knows where that’s going.

Benjamin [00:19:34]:
I think it’s the first time since like Friendster or something that we dumped an account. I can’t remember though but You would

Benjamin [00:19:40]:
be so many places though. So you know it’s that kind

Benjamin [00:19:42]:
of thing. Actually if you search MySpace you’re probably still up there.

Benjamin [00:19:46]:
Oh yeah. MySpace is still is MySpace still exists Yep. For better for worse.

Benjamin [00:19:50]:
Yep.

Benjamin [00:19:51]:
It’s not the bad.

Benjamin [00:19:52]:
It’s like spam ad world. It’s it’s pretty crazy, actually.

Benjamin [00:19:55]:
Yeah. I haven’t been back there in years. So, Benjamin, this has been so much fun. Thank you so much for being on. Definitely. And we will see everyone next week.

Seth [00:20:06]:
That was a great show. If you’re enjoying Entrepreneur’s Enigma, please consider giving us a review in the podcast directory of your choice. Every review helps us reach new listeners. If you like Entrepreneur’s Enigma, consider the other shows on the marketing podcast network at marketing podcast dot net.

Benjamin [00:20:41]:
Gold theme gi. I hope you have enjoyed this episode.