Undefined Creative specializes in motion‑graphics and end‑to‑end creative production. The firm handles everything from initial scripting and branding to sound mixing, shoot organization, and final delivery.
Over time, the agency has secured high‑profile clients like A&E Networks, NHL, NBC Universal, and the United Nations, expanding from traditional TV show graphics to a broad mix of digital and event work.
Maria’s “secret sauce” is rooted in a lifestyle‑first philosophy: she built the company to support a relaxed, healthy work life, emphasizing low overhead, remote work, and self‑driven employees who can thrive without constant supervision.
Website: www.undefinedcreative.com
Previous Episode: iam374-founder-leads-media-production-agency-with-a-focus-on-motion-graphics
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Maria Rapetskaya Teaser 00:00
I came from post-production, which in my case meant working on TV shows. So I was doing branding for television shows, graphical support for television shows. And so at the start, our bread and butter was still working with networks on TV shows. So one of my first clients was actually the Maury Povich show.
They're still a phenomenal client of mine. We do a lot of work with NBC Universal. We've done a bunch of projects with them since on pilots.
Intro 00:29
Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, entrepreneurs, and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview?
If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO Podcast.
Gresham Harkless 00:57
Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast. And I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Maria Repitskaya of Undefined Creative.
Maria, it's awesome to have you on the show.
Maria Rapetskaya 01:08
Great. Thank you so much, Gresh. Happy to be here.
Gresham Harkless 01:11
No problem, super excited to have you on. And what I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Maria so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing.
Maria is the founder of Undefined Creative, a media production agency with a focus on motion graphics. She has built the company's reputation with clients like A&E Networks, NHL, NBC Universal, and United Nations on good old-fashioned customer service and consistent execution on brand, on time and on budget.
Despite her creative director title, she stubbornly remains a hands-on creative in both design and production, doing what she truly loves on a daily basis.
As a serious pay it forward, give backer, Maria is dedicated to volunteering and pro bono work as a mentor. She helps other creatives, especially young women, develop careers that accurately express their personalities and goals.
A near native New Yorker, Maria lives in Brooklyn with her husband and a few plants but escapes often with 60 plus countries under her belt in County Maria, are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?
Maria Rapetskaya 02:13
Absolutely. Let's do it.
Gresham Harkless 02:15
So to kick everything off I want to hear a little bit more about what I call your CEO story and we'll let you to start your business.
Maria Rapetskaya 02:20
So I started my business by default. I had no desire to be an entrepreneur. I do come from a very entrepreneurial family, but entrepreneurial in the sense of just people who wanted to be on their own schedules, doing their own thing with no bosses.
And that usually meant some kind of sales gigs, or in the case of my mom, she just worked with private clients her whole life.
So I started in post-production in New York City, and I spent the first probably six or seven years of my career working with one design studio for about a year, and then five and a half years as an art director in post-production.
And it had a lot of pluses, but it had one major minus, and that was two weeks of vacation a year. and counting my sick days. And those were two things that I did not want to spend the rest of my life doing.
So I went freelance, quickly realized that that too was not the answer because at least in my industry, freelancers were required to put in some crazy hours on day rates.
And so whether you stayed for eight hours or 14 on your day rate, didn't really matter, you got paid the same. And really it was in some ways the worst of all worlds because I had no say in the way things were run.
I had no real pull in how a project was gonna be directed as a freelancer, but I was also the person who would get stuck doing the thing until it was done.
And so there was really nothing else left but to start my own thing, which I did. I had my first company with a partner that we had for about five years together.
And then I rebooted with a company I currently have, which is about nine and a half years old now. So I spent the first six months by myself trying to run everything from operations to creative to production, quickly realized that that was practically impossible.
Also because I just somehow by some magic coincidence, the moment that I rebooted, I got some much more serious, much more steady clients. And so about six months out, I brought on a full-time executive producer.
She and I ran things together with some freelance help, , some freelance help for probably about five or six years. And then finally we realized that freelance help was also unreliable.
So we started hiring full-timers. So now we have two full-time staff besides the two of us. So we're four in total.
Gresham Harkless 05:23
Nice. Well, definitely a great day to kind of hear like the, , the progression from, you know, you and your family. to what you're building and growing now. So I wanted to hear a little bit more on like, what do you guys do at Undefined Creative?
Could you take us through, I guess, also how you kind of serve the clients you work with?
Maria Rapetskaya 05:42
Yeah. So as I mentioned, I came from post-production, which in my case meant working on TV shows. So I was doing branding for television shows, graphical support for television shows. My executive producer also came from a similar background.
We actually had worked together in the past for a nber of years. And so at the start, our bread and butter was still working with networks on TV shows. So one of my first clients was actually the Maury Povich show. They're still a phenomenal client of mine.
We do a lot of work with NBC Universal. We've done a bunch of projects with them since on pilots, when the pilots get picked up. we get to do the actual graphics package. Harry Connick Jr.
was probably one of the most high profile examples of that. So Harry, which was a show that he had for a couple of years, that was our work. And then lots has changed over the past nine, 10 years. And so now a very good chunk of the work that we do also includes network promos, includes all sorts of digital marketing content.
So whether it's explainer videos or digital promotion or, , offsite, big screen kind of stuff. Um, and then we also do events. Uh, so for the last three years, we've been doing all of the screen graphics for the NHL awards. For example, we've done, , multiple events for the United nations, such as the equator prize initiative awards.
So that we've been doing since 2010 as well. So it's a really mixed bag. But primarily what we do is anything from the very beginnings of a project, which would be scripting as necessary, the branding, the design work, all the way through the end, getting people to do the sound mix, we'll organize shoots if necessary, we'll produce the shoots if necessary. So really just spans the whole gamut of creative production.
Gresham Harkless 07:50
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that. And I was actually going to, you know, ask that and mention that because it seems like, you know, obviously when you're watching like the NHL awards or whatever, or the Maury Povich show, whatever it might be, like you just kind of think that all those things just happen, but I'm sure there's a process behind that.
I know you touched on what that process looks like, but
I'm sure it's a lot more than it just being a snap of your fingers appearing.
Maria Rapetskaya 08:12
Yeah, well, I get a lot of blank eyes. A little bit less now, because I think digital media is just so ubiquitous. But for many, many, many years of my career, when I said that what I do primarily is broadcast design, people would look at me blankly. And when I explained, it would occur to them that they know exactly what I'm talking about.
They've never before thought about the fact that someone actually did that stuff. It just kind of appears.
Gresham Harkless 08:44
Right. It was all a part of the show, so it's great to hear.
It's like a fairy tale. But no, there's actually a lot that it sounds like there's involved in that. So thank you for breaking down all those different pieces and aspects.
And, I wanted to ask you for what I call your secret sauce and this can be for you personally, or it could be for your organization, but what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?
Maria Rapetskaya 09:09
It's a really interesting question. I think with respect to the company, I think there's, there's really two answers because with respect to the company, I think what really makes this company unique is I started this place from the perspective of lifestyle first.
What I was aiming was not a particular client list. It wasn't a particular nber of yearly sales.
It was, I'd like to live in a relaxed, comfortable way that actually permits me to be sick and to go on vacation.
And so with that philosophy in mind, that's just kind of how the whole place was established. everything about the company has to do with finding people to work with who share this goal for themselves effectively, which you could say, of course, well, everyone shares this goal.
However, in order to accomplish this, we have to keep our overhead really low as a small company that's just kind of focused on, you know, our mental and physical well-being, frankly, so to speak.
So we're all remote. So every single person who is working with me has to be incredibly self-driven, has to be incredibly responsible, has to be able to get the job done without someone standing over their heads.
And so, you know, there's this idea of like working in your pajamas, which is amazing. And I think many people want to do that, but not everyone can.
And we've had plenty of times where, you know, we would, especially with freelancers, where we would very quickly realize that we're working with someone who can't function without someone standing over their shoulder.
And that's just not the way that we work. And so I think the secret sauce for the company became really finding the people who get what we're after, who want this kind of a lifestyle, but who also understand the level of responsibility and hard work that goes into making this a reality. So I think that's just kind of the secret sauce for the company.
The secret sauce for myself is, I fortunately, I think for my own sanity, have never thought to derive my sort of personal meaning from what I do for a living.
I've kept those things very, very separately in my life so that, you know, my company is amazing and I love it, I love what I do, but it doesn't define me and that takes a lot of the pressure off. and it keeps what I do lighthearted and fun, and I know that nothing is eternal. At some point, I'm not building IBM.
This isn't gonna be a company that lives on beyond me in any way. And I do what I do for as long as the clients are here and for as long as people wanna work with us, and that's great.
But there's really no huge pressure beyond that. Yeah, so that's what I got for you.
Gresham Harkless 12:38
Nice. Well, I definitely appreciate that because kind of both of them go back, goes back to kind of being able to kind of like an artist with a paintbrush to be able to figure out exactly what you want because you've been able to build the business according to how exactly you want it.
But also, by building, it sounds like, correct me if I'm wrong, by building the business exactly how you want it, it also has allowed you to attract the right people.
That are able to also have those same values, one, and two, probably even more, so probably able to execute on those values as well.
Now I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. And this might be an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but it's something that makes you more effective and efficient.
Maria Rapetskaya 13:22
I think originally that answer would have been, I figured out what my natural schedule actually is, when I like to start working and when I need my breaks, and I stopped fighting it, which was definitely something that became possible.
Gresham Harkless 13:40
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And I love both of those hacks. Meditating, obviously, I think it helps me at least make sure I get kind of ahead of the day before the day gets a hold of me, which often happens.
But I think, too, just being able to kind of stay in tune to those things as you kind of touched on before is just kind of important overall.
So I think those are great CEO hacks. Now I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO nugget, and this is a word of wisdom or a piece of advice, or if you can hop into a time machine, what would you tell your younger business self?
Maria Rapetskaya 14:17
The first thing I would tell my younger business self is don't wait to network. Don't wait to build contacts. Don't wait to do business development until you're actually finding yourself in need of clients.
Gresham Harkless 14:32
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And so now I wanted to ask you 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 the show. So Maria, what does being a CEO mean to you?
Maria Rapetskaya 14:45
It means setting the tone for this ship and keeping myself responsible to the ideas that I've sort of infused this company with.
Gresham Harkless 14:57
I wanted to thank you again for the time and pass you the mic, so to speak, and see if there's anything additional you want to let our readers and listeners know. And then of course, how best they can get ahold of you and find out about all the awesome things you're working on.
Maria Rapetskaya 15:08
So I guess the one thing I would say is, you know, get creative with how you run things. We've definitely had some bps along the way. We, you know, there was one year when two of our major clients, one we lost and the second one was the NHL.
They went on a major lockout. And so we lost a good chunk of our income for that year and basically the course of two weeks. And we had to get very creative as to how we were gonna survive.
Gresham Harkless 15:38
And now people that wanna follow up with you, Maria, what's the best way for them to reach out to you?
Maria Rapetskaya 15:44
Email Maria at undefinedcreative.com. Check out the website and yeah, that's the best possible way.
Gresham Harkless 15:51
Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Maria. We'll have those links in the show notes as well. I appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.
Maria Rapetskaya 15:59
You too, have a good one.
Outro 16:00
Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co.
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This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.
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