Being in the film production industry for over 10 years, Caleb was able to see the major problems in the Film Industry associated with processes behind the camera being 50+ years old and still working off pen and paper. He reached out to a friend, now Co-Founder Stanley Yang, who has a background in software development, and they created their company Topsheet, making production admin up to 25x faster, being more than a payroll service but instead a platform for end-to-end production admin.

• CEO Hack: Being the one to pick up the customers' phone
• CEO Nugget: (1) Understand the process a little better (2) Optimize things for the people around you
• CEO Defined: Being a parent to a vision

Website: https://topsheet.io/

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6BE4YlryCrkCAy03b2BpjF
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Topsheet.io/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/topsheet/

FULL INTERVIEW

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00:00 – 00:21
Caleb Pearson: Look at the areas of how to optimize things for the people around you too, not just for your customer. So your employees, your team and things like that. I know if we would have done that as a company, if we would have made that a priority from day 1, we would be where we are at, you know, a year ahead of time or more.

Transcription

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00:02 – Intro

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.

00:30 – Gresham Harkless:

Hello. Hello. Hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast and I had a very special guest on the show today. I have Caleb Pearson of Top Sheet. Caleb, it's awesome to have you on the show.

01:00 – Caleb Pearson:

Hey, it's great to be here. Thank you for having me, by the way.

01:02 – Gresham Harkless:

No problem. Super excited to have you on. And before we jump in, I want to read a little bit more about Caleb so you can hear about all the awesome things he's doing. Being in the film production industry for over 10 years, Caleb was able to see the major problem in the film industry associated with the processes behind the camera being 50-plus years old, still working off pen and paper. He reached out to a friend, now co-founder Stanley Yang, who has a background in software development and they created the company top sheet. Making production admin up to 25 times faster, being more than a payroll service, but instead a platform for end-to-end production admin. Caleb, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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01:42 – Caleb Pearson:

Yes, I am.

01:43 – Gresham Harkless:

Awesome, well, let's do it then. So to kind of kick everything off, I wanted to hear a little bit more about how you got started. Could you take us through what I call your CEO story? We'll let you get started with your business.

01:53 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah, no, that's a great question. So, like I said, I started off in production. I was trained by a man named Brian Frankish who did Feel the Dreams, Righteous Kills, Stuart Little, and Life of the House. And I started producing films because of him, line producing and so on and so forth. And I just kind of saw the nightmare literally like just everything in front of the camera is moving at light speed. We have, you know, CG and all these other things. And behind the camera, the crews are kind of forgotten. It's still pen and paper. It's still archaic. And, you know, just getting getting a crew paid is a nightmare. So, you know, I don't know why we're paying people a quarter of a million dollars to do a job and 80% of their job is paperwork.

So my whole heart was like, Hey, how can we make these communities which you know, each film set is this community that is, you know, comes together for, you know, 6 to 6 month a 2 year period. How do we make this better for them? And how do we, how do we, how do we make life better hard to make the work hours better Because right now it's like 14 to 16 hours is the average. How do we solve these issues? And happily, Stanley, I was kind of venting about this to him after a production I'd gotten off of. And we just kind of started imagining a solution for this. And kind of the story goes from there.

We started working together. We built a small team together. And our first year was definitely, I don't know if you know the phrase MVP, which is like the minimal viable product. We definitely first released our MP, which is just a minimal product. And then we developed it to be a minimally viable product. And like where we're at now is that we have a product that's great for our users, but it comes from taking a lot of criticism and suggestions and really listening to our customers. But yeah, kind of the journey has just been, is just having pain, going to solve it, and then helping other people's pains in the process, I guess.

03:47 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, it's funny that I always say that's how I define, you know, entrepreneurship at the heart is, it's definitely problem-solving, a little bit of firefighting and stuff, and in the middle of that too. Little bit. But yeah, one of my absolute favorites And actually the book that I got when I first started the blog was, the lane startup with, Eric Rise. And it was a phenomenal read because so many times we see these businesses like drop boxes, as an example, we don't realize where they started and they often start out with the MVP or MP and literally grow and expand from there. So I'd love to kind of hear about your journey and the way that you all have been able to build and grow that.

04:24 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah, thank you. It's been quite a journey. It's been, going off kind of what you're saying there too, is like one of the books that really inspired me during this process was, is, it's called Delivering Happiness. I cannot remember Tony's last name, Tony H.

04:40 -Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, I don't wanna say it.

04:41 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah. I think that's more of what it is. I don't remember how to say it. So I don't wanna put you in it. But Delivering Happiness is honestly one of my favorite books as a CEO because it's focused on the thing that matters most, your customers. Even though I would say not every business believes that, I would say, is that's really where it needs to start. It's like you should be solving problems for your customers. And if you can do that, you can build a company such as Zappos, what he did. So yeah, but yes.

05:10 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I love that. And a lot of times you have that North Star, you remember why you're doing what you're doing. And I think so many times we can lose sight of that. So speaking of delivering happiness, I know you have created a better mousetrap, so to speak, for your clients. Could you take us through a little bit more about Top Sheet? Tell us what it is and how exactly it solves these problems for your clients.

05:30 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah, that's a great question. So in the industry, there's in the film industry specifically, companies have these payroll systems. Now, payroll is much more complex than other industries because you're erecting a company that's going to spend $10 million to $150 million within a few months. So you have these crews that you're hiring and firing within that period. And in that you have unions, you have, well, around 30 of them, if you consider all the locals involved. And so there's a lot of complexity to that. So what had been happening in the industry for the last 50-plus years had been a pen-and-paper process of payroll companies coming on as the employer of record, which is a legal term we don't need to go into as much, but taking on that burden and going back and forth through faxes and emails and processing payroll.

But the grand scheme of everything is there's tons of these processes going on from call sheets, which is basically just letting your crew know where to go at what time, you know, just start forms, crew management, you know, so on and so forth, that really all could tie in together. And so what we do is we kind of solve all these problems, you know, call sheet, just getting that out can take an hour and a half for a first AD every day they work. And so we brought that down to about 10 minutes just using smart data. And that's kind of what we decided to do is like, hey, yes, we make our money through payroll by simplifying that, but really all these other tools should be a production solution because at the end of the day, we're serving our customers.

So we take the information from the call sheet since we know which time you're supposed to show up and we put that into the time card. Like why do you have to do that twice? We create profiles for every person on a crew set to where their W4, their I9, information is stored, which with other services, they have to go every time they work. And these guys work on a new project daily, weekly, or monthly, right? And they're having to refill that out every time a new start packet.

With us, They do it once and they're done. So what we kind of tackle is what's a production solution from everybody from the producer down to the lowest, you know, production assistant. And we simplify that through a desktop app and a mobile app at the same time, you know, to where they can fill out their time cards instead of having paper and all these other problems. And with COVID, we didn't expect that we would have to create a touchless solution, but that's just where we were headed anyway.

07:57 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, I absolutely love that. And I love thinking obviously of the core or maybe a foundational service that you provided, but seeing that there are other ways you can improve that mousetrap, so to speak, you can provide a better experience because it's just a natural progression from where you were and what you were building, and you have the data and the tools and toolset to do that. And I think any big company, as we kind of talked about with the MVP, is able to iterate, able to grow, able to expand pay attention to its clients and its customers, and provide that value in those solutions.

08:28 – Caleb Pearson:

Exactly. Yeah, It's just listening to your customers. I mean, I think a lot of times we, when we're creating a company, get super caught up on what we have in our mind, what the product we think it should be. And we did that too, let's be real.

08:43 – Gresham Harkless:

I'm gonna be honest. We ought to.

08:45 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah, And then you stop and when you start listening, you start realizing is, oh, you know, if I just do that, you know, and it's not always listening to what they're asking for. It's it's listening to what their pain is, you know, and then solving it the best way. And that's something we had to like, be really aware of. Because if we just listen to the customer, you know, a lot of these guys have been in the industry for 20 years, they don't want change. But if we listen to what the customer's pains are, we can be almost like a parent. It's like, I know this isn't necessarily what you're asking for, but I know this is what you need. And that's kind of where we need to step in and do what they need. And it's funny, you start seeing adoption, we're like, oh yeah, this is what I need, thank you. But it's that first push, you know?

09:22 – Gresham Harkless:

Yeah, I absolutely love that. There's a Henry Ford quote that says, if everybody would ask me what they would have wanted, they would ask for a faster horse, not a car. So, you know, really what you talked about is really understanding the paying point and not being caught in the pillar or the kind of focus on what already exists, but creating something sometimes that's new and even more innovative. So, would you consider that to be what I call your secret sauce or your secret sauce for your business or yourself personally? Is it that ability to kind of listen to your clients and customers, but still be able to kind of build something and see kind of the vision of what they might be looking for that would solve those problems?

10:01 – Caleb Pearson:

I would say yes, but I would couple that with like 2 other things. It's kind of a mix of multiple things. It's definitely being able to listen to customers, but you know, coming from production, I mean, I started off when I was a teenager as a teen actor, I did voiceover and weird things. I have the voice of a child, so you know, I did books over and things like that. So, and, you know, and then I moved into production and I did everything from PA and first ADing directing. And it was, it was part of it was, it's just my knowledge of the industry and understanding what I hated, you know, And then bringing that when I hear a crew member, I'm thinking from the crew member's perspective and their boss's perspective at the same time and trying to put that together.

But then on top of that, this weird kind of a blessing in all of this, the weird part of the secret sauce that comes into all of this is my team, basically, none of them come from a production background and my engine is as weird as this sounds is me being able to vocalize and describe something they're not locked into a mindset of it needs to look like you know a time card needs to look like that grid on a piece of paper. They're coming in from a data mindset. They're hearing what it is and they're trying to interpret the best way to get that out there versus relying on old systems. So it's this really cool, our secret sauce is this really cool balance of A, focusing on production as a whole, understanding the customer, but not being locked into archaic ways more or less, you know, things that are traditional.

11:24 – Gresham Harkless:

I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

11:34 – Caleb Pearson:

Be the one to pick up the phone for your customer support. That's been one of the most valuable things is, you know, the problem is if you do that too often, you'll go down a rabbit trail. But if you're the one Hey, take a day a week for a couple, like a couple of hours, and pick up the support calls.

11:53 – Gresham Harkless:

And so, I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be a word of wisdom or a piece of advice. It might be something you would tell a client, or if you have to do a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

12:04 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah, cause like for me, like, man, just if I understood the process, you know what I mean? A little better. I think the one thing is all of it, nobody is, I'm gonna be real with you, unless you've run a multi-billion dollar company, even still, you're probably not qualified, nobody's qualified to be a CEO for a startup, nobody's qualified, It's a learning process, right? And if you understand that, what you can do is you can come in and you can be humble. You can come in and you can serve. You can come in and you can lead in the appropriate ways and just be honest and say, hey, I don't know this, but I'm going to find out.

I think what I would give to myself is to look at the areas of how to optimize things for the people around you too, not just for your customers, your employees, your team, and things like that. I know if we had done that as a company if we had made that a priority from day one, we would be where we are a year ahead of time or more, just because as a team, we're in a more comfortable space. So for myself or for any of you guys thinking about starting up a company, anything like that, think about the people around you and the people who are the employees around you and optimize for them as well.

It'll take time, it'll take money and you will be stagnant during that time, but it's gonna accelerate you so much further when you get steps down the line and just being humble and saying, hey, I don't know everything in this. I'm willing to learn that optimizing for the people around you will help you learn quickly. Weirdly enough, because you'll be tackling problems as you go.

13:51 – Gresham Harkless:

I wanted to ask you now my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different quote-unquote CEOs on this show. So Caleb, what does being a CEO mean to you?

14:00 -Caleb Pearson:

It's being a parent to a vision. You have this vision that you're setting out to do and it's your job to parent the family that's inside of that and lead them to a successful place, right?

14:11 – Gresham Harkless:

Caleb, I truly appreciate that definition and I appreciate your time even more. What I wanted to do is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you can let our readers and listeners know. And of course, how best they can get overviewed and find everything out about you and what your team is working on.

15:00 – Caleb Pearson:

Yeah, you can find out more about our company at topsheet.io. Honestly, I have nothing to sell nothing to give. We're here to help. And if you know anybody in the film industry, send them our way, even if they don't need payroll or anything like that, we're always looking to learn and we're always looking to help people in any way we can. One of our mission statements is fostering communities, which doesn't make sense to most people, but our whole vision is each set is its own community. What can we do to make that better? And so, you know, any way we can help anything that we can learn. We're always glad to do it. So yeah, you can reach out to me via topsheet.io.

15:09 – Gresham Harkless:

Awesome. Awesome. Awesome. And we will have the link and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you. But I Truly appreciate you, Caleb, for all the insight, and the help that you gave to us as well too, and for fostering our community as well. Because I think when you're able to give and you're able to see the fruits of those given and the giving back, that truly goes to an entirely different level. I think everything that we're kind of putting our time and energy towards. So truly appreciate that again, and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

16:22 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts, SUBSCRIBE, and leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.

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