Guest Post by Marta Borowska & Francis Coral-Mellon

Imagine a bee on a blossoming lavender plant; a plant that relies on pollinators to spread its seeds and multiply beyond the safety of its petals. It requires bees and other insects to prosper and recreate beyond the boundaries of their roots to spread their beauty across fields of land. The bee also needs the lavender plant to make honey. Honey and the pollen that is spread are the results of this connection and are the rewards for both parties involved. Thus, a sustainable and mutually beneficial relationship is created.

YouMedia Hub is like this bee – it is a team of social connectors & innovators at the forefront of new online video interactions. We connect filmmakers, marketers, companies, and viral entities to reach target audiences. We are pollinating the connection between a company and an artist to create an exposure and a connection that is directly established through the connector. We also want to create a non-profit portion of the company that focuses on generating media for charities by partnering with companies, filmmakers, and artists to create campaigns and short documentaries to raise awareness around particular issues.

With regards to initiating a two-fold startup of this nature, our early phases have thus far proven very interesting. There is generally a lot of excitement around starting something new and helping it grow from inception, but on the flipside, there are also a lot of stress factors that come along with starting from scratch with only the pre-existing skill sets and few other resources at your reach.

As a leader in the company, you expect a certain level of achievement from yourself and your collaborators to create something innovative and financially sustainable. Between the three of us – Francis, Kyle, and Marta and our various other collaborators – we all bring a wide array of professional and educational experiences that shape our skill sets and are proving to be foundational in shaping the future of YouMedia Hub. Though we all generally come from the film & media environment, we have all taken slightly different journeys to get there.

Francis started off his career as a filmmaker and cinematographer. He shot footage for a large variety of companies and for various documentary and film projects. Along the way he realized that his passion was in the online viral video space so he decided to put his work and networking efforts into exploring viral collaboration through starting a new venture.

Kyle continues to be a freelance media jack of all trades with a specialty in editing and shooting technical broadcast production. He has a creative edge through his personal ventures with a current interest in film lighting, gaffing, cinematography, and documentary work.

Marta is a multi-digital specialist with a Master’s of Digital Experience Innovation. She brings with her a wealth of digital startup knowledge as one of the original REAPsters, as well as experience in producing and directing short videos for a number of different sources. She employs organizational strategies in the startup which helps to effectively guide the chaos of a new business to stay grounded.

Engaging a startup is a challenge to say the least, and I can’t tell you yet if we will be one of the startups that make it, but what I can tell you is that we are very happy to have a team that is well balanced in their media backgrounds. We are also very glad to be starting off in the REAP space in Kitchener, the centre of technological and innovative advancement. We feel fortunate to be located beside the Communitech Hub and working alongside the media students at Conestoga to further our network and collaboration opportunities. If all goes well, hopefully we can continuing buzzing along, instead of buzzing off.