Speaker 1 0:00

So right after winning that AI award, I went and met with some contractors. They were like, we want 35%, or we're going to walk. And then just started kind of attacking me. And I came home and like cried pretty intensely because you're coming from this intense high of winning an award. And then you have these people that you think you've built a bit of trust with who are like, yeah, we're going to squeeze you and like take you down.

Speaker 0:29

Today on the Building Manitoba podcast, I'm talking with Adam Fainman, founder of Moonlite Labs, a Winnipeg-built AI video creation platform now used in 98 countries. Adam's not your typical tech founder. He's a beatboxer, musician, and touring artist who brought a creative mindset to building a tech company. In this episode, we get into what that journey has actually looked like: the highs, the brutal lows, and what it really takes to build something from scratch as a solo founder. We also talk about why he chose grants over venture capital funding, how his team has grown from zero to eleven, and how he's navigating the tension between AI and the artists whose work helps train it. If you're a founder or creative trying to turn an idea into something real, you'll get a lot out of this one. Let's get into it. Adam, welcome to the Building Manitoba podcast. It's great to have you here. Thanks so much for having me. So for people just hearing about you for the first time, can you talk about what are you building with Moonlite Labs right now?

unknown 1:32

Yeah.

Speaker 1 1:32

So Moonlite Labs is a basically a content creator's dream tool. I'm a content creator, I was and I was trying to figure out how to use generative technology for making content. So whether it's images, videos, animations, audio, and edit it and then also be able to like post and schedule it on social media. That's why we made Moonlite Labs. So you can create, you can edit, and you can distribute content.

Speaker 1:58

Very cool. The origin story that I had heard was that kind of during COVID, you were starting to experiment with videos and posting them on YouTube and TikTok. And you know, was this really something that you know you saw as a creative need and that's why you built it? Or was it you know more of a business opportunity that you saw at first?

Speaker 1 2:16

No, it's it's all creativity first. Like yeah, I kind of consider myself a creative technologist. And yeah, I was I was during kind of coming out of COVID, it was probably 2022, and I was doing a lot of TikTok videos. I'm a beatboxer, musical artist, and always making music videos and content. And yeah, I was trying to figure out I'd heard rumblings of this Gen AI stuff, like a stable diffusion, just some basic images and stuff. And I was trying to figure out how to use this tech to help with storytelling, with visual storytelling and making fun videos uh for my music and just general. And yeah, I I was like, hey, I'm gonna spend like two weeks and just like learn this and did a bunch of digging, figured out how to do this sort of music reactive animation style thing, and released it on like TikTok and YouTube. And the first one was for my song, and uh a lot of my circle was like, Whoa, this is really interesting, there's a lot of engagement, and then I did another video and it kind of popped off on YouTube and uh TikTok, and people were asking, like, how are you doing this? How, like, what's the what's the app? And and then we did another video that was more less music and more just general, like I turned films into Lego videos, similar technology, and then that like really blew up and got like half a million views in like a couple days. And same questions, everyone was like, How are you doing this? And so I realized just like with me, I was trying to understand how to accomplish it. A lot of people were trying to figure out how to access this, and so instead of doing like custom productions, I was like, What if I could just make this tool for everyone make a platform so that they could generate the content themselves? This was you know before Sora, before there was really platforms. This is like, I guess now, maybe early 2023. And so I pitched the idea to to the government. A friend of mine was in the tech space and was like, hey, there's grants and opportunities if you didn't know that. Like he he also saw my videos on TikTok. A lot of like the Winnipeg community was like, like developers came to me and were like, yo, like how how are you doing this? What app are you using? So, and then the business tech people were like, Hey, you should pitch this to like IRAP and like different things. And and anyway, I did and was like, hey, this is really blowing up, and I think we have an opportunity here to like enable people to get access. And so uh we got we got some funding, and I was able to hire developers and build this tool. And yeah, and then we launched it last year.

Speaker 4:54

Very cool. So you're not a typical tech founder though, like you come through that, you know, music, beatboxing, you're touring, you're doing, you know, documentaries and you know, masters in music technology, and like so how does that creative path shape how you think about building a product now?

Speaker 1 5:13

Yeah, I mean, I think creatives, there should be way more creative founders because we just we like we break shit. Like, yeah, that's what we do. Like we get softwares and we get tools and we go, cool, like you're supposed to do it like this. Okay, let's do it not like that, and just see how it sounds or how it looks and how it feels. And like we're we're willing to just be sort of at the vanguard or like we're just willing to just be bold and reckless. And I think that can inform product, that can inform technology and shape it really well. And so yeah, I think that's allowed me to be uh, you know, I think a decent technical founder, like or like creative founder. I uh, you know, I hired a great technical developer and I've hired a lot of developers to to kind of execute the vision, but like, yeah, I think being creative allows me and the team to kind of push boundaries, break out of boxes, and like yeah, not just fit molds and and see like how is this really useful? Not just I don't approach it from a business and a necessarily uh technical like restrictions or or standpoint. It's it's how can this actually make a difference in my creative work and other people's creative work? Uh I will say one small thing is I did have a background in computer science. Like I'm not a great programmer, but I at least studied it just to have that thinking. I did like a degree in uh video and animation at Red River, and then I did my master's in music and technology. So I do have that technical mind. And it was always like, okay, how do we come up with a solution for a creative problem? And so this has been like the perfect uh stimulating, challenging thing for me. It like satisfies me so much being able to do like the technical solution and then the creative problem solving.

Speaker 6:58

You mentioned that you started building this before, like Sora and some of the uh other models and developments that have taken place. Like, how has the product shifted over time or things are moving at a fast pace? Like, how have you kept up with that? And how do you kind of make sure you don't get made obsolete, you know, with some of the developments and stay relevant and ahead of that?

Speaker 1 7:22

Yeah. You know, it's when we first were actually trying to launch, it was we were actually music-reactive animations. It was a very specific niche, and we had a technical difficulty like with scaling it. So we actually had to pivot and went more generalist, which I think was in the end better at first because then we could hit a wider audience. Uh, we aggregated all the top models, and that inherently just lets us always stay ahead because we're not leaning and dependent on one model, like Sora eventually just collapsed. If we had just depended on Sora, then we would have collapsed too. Instead, we can use Cling, we can use See dance, we can use Vio, etc. And so the way that we sort of differentiate is a few ways. It's it's yeah, it's using the top models. I think we have a fantastic UI and user experience. I think that's to me the most important thing is it's easy to use, and yet it's deep enough where you can go under the hood if you understand what you're doing and you can make absolutely incredible stuff. And then we are going to be finally releasing the music reactive kind of proprietary thing as well. And that's that's hoping to we're hoping to launch that this summer. We'll see uh how it all ends up unfolding. But that is like another sort of unique value add that we're we were building, had to pause, and now I'm excited to say that we're going to be launching that and integrating that into the existing uh platform.

Speaker 8:43

Very cool. So it's like an add-on feature to to what you already have.

Speaker 1 8:48

Yeah, like because it's so specific, like you generally would create it with a music in mind. Like you would upload your song and then you describe the verse, the chorus, the intro, like it detects the BPM. It really was made to make like music visualizers. You don't need music, you could just have no music or voiceover or something, but it's I think it shines the brightest when there's like a beat and there's pulse and there's movement and flow and feeling uh like that. We're going to be like integrating that into the platform as basically like just another section. We have like you can come in and prompt and create, and then we have a non-linear editor where it's like cap cut style where or premiere, like you can edit, and then you have like your marketing hub where you schedule and distribute all the content to every platform. It would be just in between that. It would be you create, and before you edit, it would be in that layer where oh, you do you have a song in mind? Do you want this kind of it's a different visual too? It looks like a flip book. Like if like if you can think of like a series of images, it's it's got a whole different like feel to it. So it's just an almost like a different model, I guess, but it's more advanced than that. But yeah, it'd be another product offering.

Speaker 9:59

Yeah, no, I love it. So can you talk about how you're actually building the company day-to-day now? Like, is it very founder-led still? You have you mentioned you've got a bit of a team around you now as well, too, and doing some of the development. Like, how does it work on the day-to-day?

Speaker 1 10:13

Day-to-day is crazy. It's like so many hats. Uh yeah, any founder would know. Like, yeah, we're wearing, you know, we're wearing so many hats. And thank goodness for you know, AI like Jab GPT and Claude now, and just to like allow me to wear so many hats at the very beginning, because you know, I'm CEO, CFO, CTO, CMO. You know, it's like you wear it all at the beginning. And now we've grown to we actually just hired number 11. So we're now a team of 11 across Canada, uh like primarily in Manitoba. But across Canada, we've got team members. There's yeah, development is sort of the main core. Now we have head of communications, operations lead, sales, in-house content creator, like because we're getting a lot of like film companies and television companies, and they're wanting to learn how to prompt, they're wanting to learn how to make long form, short form, cinematic, animated, like really incredible stuff. And so part of what our value add has been is and what's helped is we can provide that hands-on support. And uh, we have a team that's you know, we can say, hey, this is techniques on prompting, this is how to use these models. Uh you're trying to achieve this. Well, we can help you get there with some like kind of hands-on support and you know, masterclasses or workshops and things like that. But yeah, we're at 11, and that's a lot to manage for me now, but uh we'll see. It could, I'm hoping it keeps growing and only if it needs to.

Speaker 11:41

Yeah, absolutely. And and you've had a lot of momentum lately too, right? Like you've got the, I mean, I guess it started, was it 2025, the Manitoba AI showcase that you had won? And uh I was there I'd seen you win that, and that was pretty cool to kind of see the product uh showing there and and then TechCrunch and VivaTech and the Dare Awards, so lots of momentum, I guess, more recently. And so what's driving that momentum from your perspective? Is it mostly around the product? Is it, you know, this is kind of just the right timing, your positioning, or what's fueling your momentum right now?

Speaker 1 12:16

I think it's a combination of things. I think part of it is storytelling and yeah, right time, right place. And I just think it's like it's an authentic thing. Like we're building something that, you know, I think it's like a real, real application. I think the timing is good with AI. Like, I didn't know this, but clearly I was ahead of the sort of norm, like uh ahead of the masses. So like I already got my foot in the door with AI stuff before it became a normal thing. So now when people think about AI and they think of Canadian AI, they'll well now see Moonlite Labs or in Moonlite. So I think that's good timing. And when I say the storytelling, like it's important for whether you're a founder just in the company. I think it's important to be able to articulate and explain what you're making. It's getting easier and easier to make things, but if you can't explain the value and like why and what, it can go really fall flat. Like, you know, you here see a lot of like really technical founders that are like, oh, this like really amazing algorithm. And you're like, Yeah, but what's the point? And like help me understand. Like, you have to be able to like break it down to really simple things. So I think that's where my skill set is, you know, when I presented it at the Manitoba AI Awards, I was able to really explain, like, hey, we are making content more accessible using Gen AI, like it's a pretty easy thing to understand. And then I think just the passion of just being a creative, yeah, this is incredibly fulfilling. It's a great challenge. I have an amazing team. We've got an awesome culture. Everyone is just so, so into it. And you know, I so I'm a musical artist. My like uh I go by B Talks, and so I think developers really appreciated the immediate feedback. So, like, we're not waiting to hear back from all the clients about how the product is. It's like, oh, it's Adam. What does Adam think? And like, oh, he made a music video for it immediately, so we got that immediate response. So I think our production is incredibly fast, feedback loop is incredibly fast, the whole team is excited, and I think everyone's just catching on. And like, yeah, that the AI award actually was huge because that was our very first reveal ever. Like, we had worked on it for a year, didn't show anyone. We got the award, and it's like, guys, like we're everyone, you know, this is a big deal. And that excitement, I think, just uh excited me, excited everyone else on the team, and then you know, it's been losses, obviously, but like it's been a lot of win, one win after another. And like, yeah, you take the there's been lots of crazy challenges. I mean, I'm happy to share, like, there's been some insane lows too, but the highs are exciting. Like a musical artist, shows and concerts and tutoring, that's like my checkpoint or thing to look towards. And so I think the whole team's gotten behind that.

Speaker 15:00

Well, let's talk about that a little bit. Like, what are some of the hardest things, you know, about building this company that maybe people wouldn't see from the outside?

Speaker 1 15:08

Two things come to mind. First is just the amount of hats you have to wear. So, you know, people think, oh, CEO or or whatever, founder, whatever the words you want to use. It's seems like awesome, but day to day, I'm dealing with you know, admin, accounting, legal, running payroll. I didn't even know what that was. Like I did remittance, you know, like I'm not, I didn't take, I didn't know I don't have a business degree. Yeah, HR, you know, your marketing, product, you backend, UX, funding, funding reports, funding applications, uh, sales calls. Like it's there were so many hats you have to wear. And it can be really difficult to contact switch. And yeah, I think I think that can really like drain a person and kind of drive them crazy. And some days I do go crazy or like, you know, I would sort of lose myself a bit, especially the creative side. Like being a creative, I'm like, I'm spending all this time trying to build this ship, this like business, a business, and I'm sort of losing myself in it. And that can be really hard. And I'm sure other founders may feel the same way. Yeah, so that's sort of like the general day-to-day toughness that like doesn't get talked about a lot. It's like, and you're also very alone. Like, well, now I have a team, but even still, it's like they're my team. I can't like maybe talk about every nuance or like frustrations. So being a solo founder is very isolating. And like thankfully, they have an amazing uh like now fiance, because she's you know, she's seen the hardest parts and she's been an absolute rock. And she's a psychologist, and so she's helped me like learn healthy behaviors and like I'd meditate and do a lot of like healthy, mindful things to and wellness things to like battle it, but even like how to navigate people is like a lot, and she's been great for that. And then I would say the other challenge, if you want, we can I can talk about like certain things, but like I've had developers, you know, essentially trying to like squeeze me for equity and like hold code almost almost like hold code sort of for ransom or uh you know attack my character and and be really nasty. So right after winning that AI award, I went and met with some contractors, and they were like, we want 35%, or we're gonna walk. And and then just started kind of attacking me when I uh I guess they could see my face, I wasn't into it, and they just started attacking my character and uh attacking the company. And yeah, they had just done a bunch of coding work that we didn't even reveal. It was just like future planning, but uh yeah, so that one I came home and like cried pretty intensely because you're just like you're coming from this intense high of winning an award, and then you have these people that you think you've built a bit of trust with who are like, yeah, we're gonna squeeze you and like take you down.

Speaker 18:01

Yeah, and that feeling I imagine of the vulnerability, right? Like taking advantage of like just as soon as you kind of get the first moment of traction, that's that's gotta hurt a lot.

Speaker 1 18:11

Yeah, I haven't really I haven't talked about it publicly, but yeah, that was like probably the lowest point of the whole experience was was that night. They kind of just like brought me into their snake pit, and I was like, oh. But I had a suspicion, like luckily, I chatted with with Parisa and I was like, something's up. Like I could just tell something was in the air. And uh so I kind of prepared on how to like not react and just take the abuse or like take the like whatever you want to call it. Yeah, it was it was intense, but you know, on the flip side, told the team like these guys weren't in Winnipeg, these were like contractors in Montreal, and I think that was kind of a funny, like it brought the Manitoban team together, and they were like, hey, let's stick together, like made in Manitoba, friendly Manitoba, like screw those guys, like because we had contractors from all over the world to try and help us on these things, and some have been amazing, and then some hadn't. It really brought the team together, and they were like, We're gonna do it without them, we don't need them, you know, screw those guys, kind of the mentality, and like yeah, it really brought it, it really helped us bond and brought the core core team really tightly together. And I think since then we've been we've been really killing it.

Speaker 19:27

Did that surprise you as an outcome when the team kind of pulled together? Because I mean that's gonna make you feel like pretty alone then, too, when it's like you're being held hostage, so to speak, and uh you know, and then you gotta try to explain that to the team after, right?

Speaker 1 19:41

Yeah, like I've learned in this so far in this whole experience is like you need to be vulnerable and it's not easy. And being vulnerable, just like you can see how they based on how they respond, like what kind of character they're gonna be. So they either got your back or they're gonna try and uh squeeze you, right? And yeah, I was like, okay, I gotta tell the team what happened because like all of a sudden these contractors aren't gonna be in our Slack channel. You can't like do that discreetly. And so I told them, and then you know, I was like, yeah, how are they gonna respond? Are they gonna say actually, yeah, we we want that as well. It's like, oh great, like now everyone's just gonna try to destroy this whole ship. But no, they responded, they were like, Yeah, screw those guys, we got this, and yeah, they responded really well. They made the experience feel less, less isolating. And I have some great advisors too at Northforge. Nice, and uh yeah, it was interesting. Okay, where they were not surprised, but they were like, oh damn. Like when I came on the call, I was like pretty upset, and they were like, ah shit, what do those guys do? And but they bonded together and uh the advisors helped me out and we've came up with a plan on how to like how to handle it. And then yeah, we were good for a year, and I can talk about more positive things, but just while we're on the topic of the hard challenges, I just had a another con I thought I'd be done with it, but just a like a month ago, had a contractor. Same thing, really short, short contract. I was like, Yeah, this isn't working. Uh this time I was like, this isn't working, and he sort of threatened to sue us. Wow. And it's like that's really jarring and like not, and you can clearly tell it's like chat GPT written, nasty stuff, but I'm not a lawyer, I'm an artist. It's like yeah, even if I am a business person, I'm still not a lawyer. So I just see this and it's like, yeah, it's really a lot. Yeah, there's a few bad apples, but generally we have a lot of amazing apples, and I'm just like super grateful for that. And I've gotten better and better at reading the bad apples.

Speaker 21:45

Yeah. No, that's great. The challenges are, yeah, I'm sure never ending. But you know, we I think you you touched on like the loneliness aspect too. Like the what do you find? Is there an antidote to it, or is it just does it just come with the territory?

Speaker 1 22:00

So I think it comes with the territory and ways that I've been able to combat it, if I can hang out with friends, which can be hard when I'm traveling or moving, you know, moving cities or like living different places and stuff. I'm I'm a pretty nomadic guy, especially like from the music perspective. So if I can hang out with friends and talk about this type of stuff, great. If I can't, I've started running. So I love running. Yeah, I hated running. I play sports. So like I like running after a ball or running or skating after a pot. But I think I now understand the the healing. I I'm like one of the I I run to heal. Like I run to like meditate and think about stuff and like yeah, I just try to flush out ideas and like like I don't box people, but I box like a um I took like a boxing class and nice punching a bag, and like that kind of release was really intense because uh I think there's a lot of stress that builds up when you're trying to do a company like this or a project like this, and that helps. So that's more just like both well mental health like well-being, and then like doing extreme sport and then sitting and meditating and like being present allows like I cry, like crying is like my way of releasing too. So like that would like help initiate a cry if I'm really stressed, let's say after that, like whole thing, or like the other stuff, and then a game, like sometimes playing video games, not as often, but like gaming helps uh like stay in touch remotely. You said you run, so you get you kind of get it.

Speaker 23:33

Yeah, I've tried meditation, maybe not as deeply as I should, but I find that running is kind of my substitute where it's just your mind can kind of be taken off of things, you can just decompress, you really I don't know, you connect your body with the chaos in your mind, and you know it it yeah, it just works for me. It's it's important for my mental health too.

Speaker 1 23:57

It's hard. I see I see these like communities. I don't know if it's because I'm a guy, but like you know, men, men in friendships and adult friendships is hard, and like I've I get sort of shown these ads of like joining male groups, especially like founder men. It's it comes it can be a little bit like business tech bro y vibe, so I don't know, but I I think there is something to be said about like it would be nice to have more community where you can kind of talk about this type of stuff, and it's like yeah, running a team is hard, or yeah, like being a leader is isolating. Like it would be nice to have more of that, and yeah, I'm still looking for it, and I try to build it, I guess, through sports and and gaming. That was my two like social outlets and way to like cope with this stuff, and then just like regular friend hangs and stuff, but not everyone gets it, like yeah, not everyone gets it, like it's like a weird, I'm in a weird domain.

Speaker 24:54

Yeah, and just what you're doing is so different from you know someone else's nine to five that it's a different mindset, and being able to connect with someone on what those challenges are is just not everyone can get it with their current experience.

Speaker 1 25:09

Yeah, like I'm always on. Like you kind of I mean, I'm learning to set boundaries, but like for the first two years of this thing, it was like evenings, weekends, like every day is just moonlight, and and that's what it takes. And uh I'm learning, yeah, like I said, I'm learning to set boundaries and stuff, but not everyone just gets that. And then it's tough because on the creative side, especially in AI, I'm like learning to have this dance of like, how do I talk to my musician friends, my artist friends, and talk about like building a technology, you know, building like essentially a software. And that can be a little unrelatable, even though it's a tool for making music videos and making like amazing content. It's still just like we have different, uh different problems that we're solving. And although that being said, just to uh not like sound like what was me, but uh there's a lot of really cool similarities of being a musical artist and band leader and being a like sort of CEO of a business leader. Because instead of hiring musicians and building an album and touring, I'm now like working with developers and a team to build a tool and we're going to conferences and like speaker events and panels. So I think that's actually why I've been relatively successful at this, is I'm actually been training for like 15 years doing this. Like I can public speak, I can I know how to coordinate people and set deadlines and yeah, get everyone kind of on the same page.

Speaker 26:37

And when you said earlier, when you mentioned storytelling, I think like storytelling is marketing in the business lingo, and it's you know, it's part of making art in the artistic realm, right? So it the similarities are there, like you're saying.

Speaker 1 26:51

Yeah, inherently, yeah. Well, like yeah, the marketing side, yeah, it's the same thing. Like I'm you market an album through storytelling. You're telling your story, you're telling the story of the company, whatever it is. Yeah, creative, yeah, creative storytelling is marketing. Yeah, instead of selling a song or an album or a tour, it's like, well, now we're sort of selling a tool. And it's really not that different.

Speaker 27:13

Do you take criticism from the arts community or other artists when it comes to AI and the arts? Like I feel like there's a bit of a different viewpoint in terms of the creative side of things. I know you've spoken about creators having their work used to train AI. What are your thoughts around kind of where AI and art coexist? And is there conflict and tension in that?

Speaker 1 27:38

Yeah, I mean, it's there's definitely conflict and tension. Uh any new technology is going to be a bit polarizing at first. And I just view this as a tool. Like when the computer came out, that disrupted every industry and the music industry and the arts industry. That's the same thing. And these are just tools. They're not doing anything on their own. It's how you use them. And I guess sort of difference is like how the models were trained. It's not really that different from like how are computers built, like a lot of ethics, you know, unethical way of how computers are made. So I think they're very similar. And it's yeah, it's unfortunate. It's a it's a sad reality how computers are built, and it's a sad reality of how those models may have been unethically trained. And I think that's what the government and you know bigger, bigger, bigger companies are sort of responsible for for trying to to try to either fix it and rebuild it from the ground up. That was part of what like I was at the summit in uh Banff, the AI summit with like Evan Solomon and uh the other uh Minister Miller. That was part of the agenda. And like, you know, I'm I'm in these conversations of like how do we reconcile or like is there a way to fix this? And or you know, the damage is done, but can we move forward and build better, more ethically sourced models? Can we uh pay the artists, whether it's voice or image or video? Is there a whole system there that can be done? Like we're so this is so new. And so we're we are having those conversations. Like I'm that's why I was invited out there. And yeah, we're we're trying to explore that. Like, can can we create mechanisms where artists are getting paid? You know, the people like the training is getting paid, there's IP protection, there's uh yeah, let's just say a film gets made and it uses a likeness of someone. Is there some royalty splits? Um, same thing with audio. I think those are trying to that scaffolding is like slowly being made, uh, I hope. And yeah, that's what that's the best that we can do. And I just tell people in the meantime, like the tools are here and it's and it's just how you use them. And I think I think it's important to use them or at least understand them. And yeah, that's just how I've been navigating it. And that's how I've I've I've always been pretty like technologically open-minded in my art. And that's just how I navigate it. Nice. Yeah.

Speaker 29:59

You mentioned earlier that you leaned on like the grant funding applications early on to kind of get you going with some of the development. But uh, I'm curious what led you down that path, you know, instead of going to raising money other paths or or just trying to bootstrap it yourself.

Speaker 1 30:14

Yeah, so as an artist, I've had to be incredibly resourceful. You know, I've yeah, it didn't, it wasn't like that. I was decently successful, but like really not uh in the grand scheme of things. And I relied on as an artist, like arts grants, so music funds, uh, travel grants, all the like the grant world that I'm quite familiar with in the arts. And it was only because a friend explained that that existed also in tech and business. And I was like, oh, interesting. But it's the same mechanism, similar, like that's another overlap. Like, you know, I apply to get funding to make an album. It's the same same similar questions, like who are you hiring? What's the impact on the country? What's what's your export method? What's like what's the big picture? Why, why, why now? Why you and like why is this important? And so yeah, it's just something I was comfortable with. I'd I had done before, I'd received grants. So I was like, okay, let me at least try. And yeah, the I didn't even know what VC meant, like raising funds. I don't know, I don't know what any of that means. I don't, I don't even, yeah, I don't watch, I don't know what that is. Like I now I do, but at the time, like that wasn't even a concept. And so this just made sense. Like it was just this is a thing, a mode. And then I did, I applied and we got it. And it took a while. Like, I think if I had been a normal tech founder, we would have just raised and accelerated everything. But I did what I knew and it it went slower. But who knows, maybe we wouldn't have gotten as far if we had done the VC thing and people would have pushed, pushed, and pulled and changed the course. Instead, I get to, you know, ultimately have control and lead lead what I think is an important thing worth making.

Speaker 31:53

As you look ahead, how are you thinking about outside equity? Or do you plan to keep it fairly closely held? Like is control kind of that one of the core values that you have for it, or are you looking more on the acceleration side?

Speaker 1 32:06

I think now, now that I've done like we've been at this for a few years and we've gotten quite a considerable amount of funding, especially recently, like on the federal level. I now understand it. I understand it more. I understand like it's thinking you get these stories of like, oh, the VCs or the angels come in and gobble up all the control and burn the company. It's like you hear all these horror stories. Yeah. I think now that we, you know, we've got customers, we've got people, like people all over the world are using this platform. We now have all this funding backing us from federal and provincial level. Like we're well, we're really stable and we have a killer team. And now I feel like we're well positioned to now have these conversations instead of coming from a place of desperation. It's like, hey, are you the right fit? Are you gonna open the right doors? Are you actually gonna connect us with, you know, say people in Hollywood or big big agencies and companies in London? And have you done this before? Have you have you done what we're doing? And do you know understand like the market and the uh what we're trying to build here? Do you align with our values and our mission? So I'm now open to it. Now I'm like, okay, I'll entertain doing a raise. I will entertain these calls and and conversations with angels and the VC space. I'm at least open my open to it. And um, it's really just gonna be a matter of collaborating and just finding the right fit. And yeah, it for the point of accelerating and because we do have to compete with you know some of the big players in the states and in Europe. So I do see that like as like a it might be a means to compete and and really, really explode us.

Speaker 33:44

Nice. And you're building this, you know, from Manitoba here, and but you've got a lot of recognition beyond Manitoba. Yeah, I just wanted to ask, like, you're building a company here from Winnipeg, and now you've had recognition well beyond Winnipeg and Manitoba. What do people outside of the province misunderstand about building a company here? What are some of the misconceptions that you run into about being based from here?

Speaker 1 34:09

I mean, I think it's like the same misconceptions about Canada as a whole. Like, why aren't you in San Francisco or New York, I guess? Yeah, I think a lot of people think like go to SF and go to the States for the VC stuff. And then I guess for Manitoba, yeah, a lot of people just don't know much about Manitoba. And when that's fair, like, yeah, I mean it's a smaller city, just Toronto, Vancouver, probably in Montreal, like especially in AI, Montreal's really strong. So yeah, like Manitoba doesn't have a huge AI ecosystem. So I don't know if some of the misconceptions might be not misses, but I think, well, I like to believe that being from Manitoba just means we're friendly and kind and pragmatic and you know, at least from an artist perspective, like we're authentic. Yeah, I think anytime that someone finds out that I'm like a Winnipeg or from Manitoba, they're like they get excited because I think that we have that type of um like recognition, like as being just like nice good people. Yeah, those are like normal con I hope those are normal conceptions. And I I think I guess people view it as a bit of a smaller market, and there are some companies doing some pretty big things that people maybe don't realize. I just yeah, I think people should take Winnipeg and Manitoba not necessarily more seriously, but I just think nowadays you can make a company, you can grow a company anywhere in the world, and shouldn't rule it out. Yeah, there's like there's great talent in Winnipeg, there's obviously there's good government support, and that's really that's huge, and like good incentives, and like I think everyone's rallying and pretty supportive of one another, which I think isn't really helpful. I know I guess this isn't I don't know if this quite answered your question, but being a Winnipegger is just uh I don't know, there's something like homey and friendly about it that I wish other cities were more like.

Speaker 36:03

Yeah, they don't know what they're missing out on.

Speaker 1 36:06

Like, you know, when people come here, yeah, I think they just like the people like the winters are just so bad that it's like we all have a common enemy. And so that yeah, I think that's just what happens. So I was originally from Toronto and then I moved to Winnipeg, and I feel like when I moved to Winnipeg, that's when I became an artist and like became who I am because it was so cold and you had nothing else to do in the wintertime that like you either go insane or you fit find a hobby. And yeah, I got into like songwriting and and performing and drawing and all sorts of stuff. And like, yeah, I think people don't realize how resourceful and and passionate and uh artistic and driven like Winnipeg's are. It's like because you have to be, it's so cold, it's such hard living that yeah, that like energy, that like intensity kind of I think goes into that hard work goes into whatever you're doing, whether it's music, whether it's tech, whether it's farming, whatever it is, like yeah, I think that maybe people don't realize. Like, yes, we're friendly, we're friendly on the outside because like we're like friendly, like polar bears, but like if you mess with us, like we're polar bears, like we can if we can handle minus 40, we can handle anything you throw at us. So like the resiliency, the grit, the toughness, like, yeah, we're not messing around. Like, it is so hard to live here, like sunny California. Like, come on, you haven't you haven't been through hardness at all. Like, nope. That's true, very true.

Speaker 37:34

What are you most focused on over the next year? I know you talked about product launch or feature launch, I guess if you will, coming up, but you know, what are you focused on over the next year and kind of what are your success metrics to know kind of that things are moving in the direction or really working at the level that you want them to?

Speaker 1 37:52

So I think what we're focusing on is is making some like larger content pieces. So like TV pilots, TV shows. Uh, we're helping with like Manitoba and and international filmmakers with their films. Yeah. So I think just like bigger, more substantial pieces uh of art, uh like cinematic, film, television, commercial content. Like it's at that point now where the the stuff that you can make is indiscernible from reality and and it's pretty much on par with Hollywood level CGI. So yeah, just more projects. We're going to bigger events, um, like festivals and content festivals and uh tech conferences and things like that to just sort of debut and and show show the different things we're making. I guess maybe one day it'd be great to have like a if you're thinking film-wise, like TIFF or yeah, something like that. And like I'm speaking at VRTO in a few weeks, and like we're gonna be showing like the short films and content that people can make that like the yeah, the TIFF filmmakers and award-winning uh directors are are gonna be there and like hopefully you know using our platform and things. Yeah, so for me, it's just like output. I mean, right now there's users in 98 countries, so I guess if we break a hundred, that would be pretty wild. I didn't I don't yeah, care too much about the numbers though. Like I just want this to be in the hands of every content creator and like aspiring filmmaker and creative storyteller that just has an amazing idea and they've thought it was impossible and now they can create. So that's just like my overall mission. And then I guess maybe like a big artist, like on the music side, like I saw Snoop Dogg use his AI for his latest music videos. So I guess having an artist like yeah, at that level using using our tool for their next music video. People whose art and music I really love, like yeah, I guess if you win an award, that would be that would be epic. And then measurables, I'll just yeah, I just yeah, just growth.

Speaker 39:59

Growth, yeah. How do you think about it as a it's a tool, right? That essentially that others can use, but you know, is there a thought or was there ever kind of a thought in your mind about whether to sell the tool or whether to create for others, like be the studio or be the tool that the studio uses, so to speak? How does that factor into your thinking?

Speaker 1 40:20

It's ironic because we made the I made the tool to not do custom production, and then now the the tool's gotten so good and the demand is so intense and it's not as easy as I thought people like it is easy, but it's also not easy to use. But um, the tool's gotten so good that I'm like, oh, custom production would be pretty sweet because like some of these scripts that we're getting and some of these projects that are coming through the pipeline are like epic. And so as a video content creator, I was like, I couldn't I never worked on these types of things. Now like we're being asked to make the craziest things. So I'm like, maybe we should do more custom production, and we and we are, and like that's why we're hiring like filmmakers and and stuff. But it's uh it's just ironic because yeah, I just tried to make a uh infinitely scalable tool, and now we're making a more customized production studio, but it makes sense like because I always made content. So like Moonlight Media was like a when I first launched it, it was yeah, media studio. And then we made labs, which is Moonlite Labs the tool that then Moonlite Media or Moonlight Studios would now use. So it makes sense. So we're headed, like we're already doing that, and that's where we're gonna continue to keep going. And and then it's just on a per project basis, and it's cool. Like we've had people like like anything from like animations to like TV shows to Manitoba films, even like the whole kind of a whole breadth of content coming through the pipeline, and that's cool for me. And like my passion's still music, so I'm like, we're my I'm making an album and releasing a record that I'm using Moonlite to make some of the sickest music videos for because why not? So that's my that's been my like personal like creative uh North Star and my goal is like hey, let's release my album, make just the most incredible videos, and see if other big artists can use it too and get a lot of joy out of it.

Speaker 42:14

No, I love it. Adam, thanks for coming on the podcast. Really enjoyed having the conversation and having you here.

Speaker 1 42:20

Appreciate it. Yeah, thanks so much for having me.

Speaker 42:25

If you found this conversation valuable, I'd encourage you to subscribe to the Building Manitoba Review. It's a short practical breakdown of the key insights and lessons from each episode, along with actionable takeaways for building and growing businesses here in Manitoba. You can find the link in the show notes. Thanks for listening. I'll see you in the next episode.