CEO Shayne Mann spoke to media update’s Adam Wakefield about the company’s journey and what they have learned along the way.

The wedding video business

The company’s story began in the late 1990s, where brothers Shayne and Kevin Mann, whose academic backgrounds are in finance and accounting respectively, decided to start making wedding videos so they had pocket money while studying.

A chance meeting would see the brothers form their own professional wedding video company. The person who advised the Mann brothers to go the professional route, and who would later be a silent investor in Mann Made Media, clearly had an eye for talent.

“We always wanted to make the best stories possible. From young, while others used one camera, we used two cameras. We looked at all the latest editing techniques. We got to do weddings of wealthy families. We really learnt about customer service, dealing with mothers and brides.”

One day in 2000, Shayne spoke to one such mother who, though her daughter was pleased with the video they had made, was aghast with the end product. After this altercation, Shayne told his brothers, Kevin and Mic, who had since joined the venture, “I’m not doing this anymore. It’s too emotional”.

The move into corporate videos

The three Mann brothers then moved into the corporate sector, making AV videos based on what their client requested. Thus, Mann Made Media was founded in 2000.

“We started making a lot of those and then we thought, ‘We’ve got a lot of experience in eventing from the wedding video business, we’ve seen all these guys, what they do, and we’ve had a lot of experience in storytelling’, so we started doing our own events in 2006,” Shayne says.

The production and eventing departments were later joined by an activations, interactive, and a gaming department (which was open for three years). A social media department has since been added to the mix.

The company’s growth, since its founding, mirrors the premises they have used. Shayne says they first started out as a side-room in a flat, expanded to the main room in a different flat, then moved to another flat, and after that to a house in Norwood.

A successful media company has great people

Shayne describes the company’s journey to 2017 as one of ups and downs, and, through it all, their secret has been to work with “great people”.

“You trust the people in all the positions, and that’s how you grow. I think we are getting into a nice run. There’s a good culture, there is a good feeling in the business. We’ve gone through a lot,” Shayne says.

“We’ve had great years, we’ve had bad years, and we’ve had some incredible, very talented people join the business – and prima donnas.”

Asked what he would tell someone starting their own media business, Shayne replies, “It is a cliché, but you need to love it. You need to really love it. You need to be patient. These businesses are very tough. It’s taken years.”

That patience is especially important because the business has made mistakes along the way. However, according to Shayne, you learn more from your failures than you do from your wins.

“There needs to be a culture of ‘It’s okay to try things’. It’s okay to make mistakes. Fix them, learn from them, and move on. If you’re going to do something, do it. If you’re going to try something, try it. It always lead us into a new direction,” Shayne says.

One such experiment has seen Mann Made Media partner produce its first gaming title, Echoplex, in partnership with Output Games, soon to be available via the global Steam platform.

Mann Made Media, Maharishi Institute and Singularity University

2017 has already been an eventful year for the company. At the beginning of March, it was announced that the Maharishi Institute in Johannesburg had acquired 51% of Mann Made Media in a BBBEE ownership deal.

Shayne has known Taddy Blecher, the CEO of the Maharishi Institute, for 15 years and they have worked with the institute on a pro-bono basis for a long time, with the company’s passion for education and empowerment dovetailing with the institutes objectives.

Shayne has personally seen how the institute takes unemployed individuals with no opportunities be turned into working professionals with “pride, dignity, and earning a salary”. It was a powerful driver of the decision to work together, and he is confident the deal will have a positive impact upon the South African economy and young professionals.

The broader strategic objectives of the deal are still being formulated, but Shayne expects the company to take in many graduates from the institute, where skills and knowledge will be transferred.

Another initiative the company has undertaken, one which Shayne referrs to as the “biggest of our career”, is their partnership with Singularity University in the United States.

“Singularity University (SU) is a global community with a mission to educate, inspire, and empower leaders to apply exponential technologies to address humanity's greatest,” Shayne says.

“In 2015, one of our clients brought out the Singularity lecturers to come and talk to their clients and we pitched for work. Mic has been following Singularity since 2009. We won the work, did this conference and we sat there for two or three days. It’s mind-boggling.”

After the conference, Mann Made Media were later approached by a bank to work with them because the bank were bringing SU back to South Africa, and Mann Made Media had worked with SU before.

Mic later went to San Francisco, did SU’s executive programme and has now returned to South Africa with a license to hold the first Singularity Summit in Africa, with August the slated month.

“What do Singularity and Maharishi have in common? Transformation. It’s about positive transformation. Positive impact,” Shayne says.

“Every single person you take out of poverty and becomes a tax-paying member of society, they go back to their communities, make a difference and they pass it on. That’s what it is all about.”

For more information, visit www.mannmademedia.com.

We recently spoke to Mann Made Media’s social media head, Romy Fleishman. Read more in our article, How brands should prepare for the future of social media – Romy Fleishman’s advice.