My Biz: Cedar Falls' Around The Corner Productions celebrating 10 years in business

CEDAR FALLS — Around The Corner Productions, which is celebrating 10 years in business, was created after Eric Braley and Michael Rueber graduated from the electronic media program at the University of Northern Iowa.

'That program looks at radio, TV, scripting and encompasses the entire thing, so by working together in class on projects it really gave us a good foundation,' Braley said.

The first project the company produced was a UNI sports show called Panther Sports Talk.

'We've done around 400 episodes of that show by now,' Braley said.

ATCP also now helps manage the UNI-Dome and McLeod Center video board operations and trains students to work on them.

ATCP also produces online videos for corporations and writes and produces commercials, marketing videos and longer internal and external video projects for various clients.

The company has four full-time employees and 10 part-time freelancers who assist with filming, writing and editing.

'A lot goes into it,' Braley said. 'You have to get businesses that want to advertise to pay for our production. You have to persuade the TV station to air your show and then you have to do the work. You have to do the filming, the scripting, the editing, the graphics, the closed captioning, and then you have to deliver it.'

The production company recently took a leap of faith in producing 'Iowa Entrepreneur', which airs on Iowa Public Television.

'We really rolled the dice on it because we didn't have any funding,' Braley said, 'and we didn't know how it was going to turn out, but we felt so confident about it we just said we were going to produce it. We're thrilled now that we did.'

The show spotlights Iowa entrepreneurs and how they brought their businesses to fruition, and has been well received by IPTV.

'We write the scripts for Iowa Entrepreneur, which is a big part of our process because we interview those entrepreneurs for one to two hours and then we have to sift through all of the interview material trying to figure out the best parts to include in the TV series, and mold their story.'

Braley said none of them had taken any business courses, nor had any of them run a business before, when they launched ATCP.

'So we learned on the fly, and we used the services that the UNI Regional Business Center offered to help us put together our business plan and get through those first early years,' he said. 'We started up during the recession and we got through that, and every year the business has continued to grow and improve.'

His best piece of advice to aspiring business owners is to have at least one client or at least one project already on the table.

'I worked on getting sponsors and a TV station as well as worked to build a relationship with UNI,' he said, 'so when that first episode of Panther Sports Talk aired I was so proud because of all our hard work paid off. You don't just want to open up the doors and hope something is going to come through them.'

AT A GLANCE

Co-Owners: Eric Braley and Michael Rueber

Business: Around The Corner Productions

Address: 5417 Nordic Drive, St. A, Cedar Falls, IA

Phone: (319) 415-5932

Website: www.atc-p.com

Know a company in business for more than a year that would make an ideal My Biz? Contact Francie Williamson at francie.williamson@thegazette.com