Justin Thompson did not take the conventional route to owning a media business, having graduated with a bachelor’s degree in biology and beginning his career as a hobby on the weekends.
Now with his North Carolina-headquartered Captivate Media, he's taking his media talents outside of his hometown with a new location in Atlanta open as of February of this year.
Thompson debated whether to enter college as a business student, but after his mother's worries on the security of jobs in that field, he planned to be a physician's assistant post graduation.
Although he received his biology degree from Winston-Salem State University in 2014, Thompson noticed he seemed to have a knack for videography.
“Growing up, I used to have one of the camcorders and the mini discs, and I would kind of just go around shooting random things and then kind of coming back in and editing or creating various things that I kind of felt would be cool,” Thompson said.
Raised in High Point, North Carolina, Thompson grew up in a single-parent home, the middle child of three siblings. Despite having a child right out of high school, the entrepreneur found his way to college — only to have to unenroll after his first year at WSSU in 2008.
“My brother ended up getting killed my freshman year in college,” Thompson told Triad Business Journal. “When that happened, it was just really, really hard for me to stay focused and really do what I was supposed to do to graduate. Me and my brother were really, really close. So, I took some time away from school and pretty much worked at one point.”
Working two full-time jobs at one point, Thompson decided to re-enroll and again study biology. He said the adversities he faced only pushed him to be successful.
“There’s no way that things can come into your life and challenges can stop you from doing something if it’s truly what you want to do,” he said.
During this time in college, he reached back to his childhood hobbies and bought a camera, starting him on the path to becoming a videography entrepreneur.
Starting out, Thompson specialized in wedding videography. In March 2013, Thompson founded One Love Productions with his now-wife Victoria.
“Our wedding company at one point was doing about 75 to 80 weddings a year. Now, instead of like 80 weddings, we typically do about 25 to 30 weddings, but those weddings can be from here to Ohio to Jamaica,” he said.
It was not until 2017 that Captivate Media was founded with the aspiration to expand the business to a larger audience.
“I started trying to work with corporate companies or businesses under the wedding brand, and it was just hard to communicate both audiences with that same name. So then I ended up starting Captivate Media,” Thompson said.
Now, the 5-year-old business continues to grow, with around $675,000 in revenue last year with a projected $900,000 this year.
The company creates videos and visuals in many areas, including education, manufacturing, marketing, partnerships in human resources and nonprofit organizations. Its education clients include High Point Christian Academy, Guilford County Schools and N.C. A&T State University, among other schools.
Other clients include Children’s Law Center of Central North Carolina, Boys and Girls Clubs and the Lenny Peters Foundation.
Thompson, 33, opened an office in Atlanta after working with the Atlanta Public Schools district. He said the opportunity came from “doing it old school and picking up the phone and calling” to try and get his business out there.
The business has a staff of six between the two offices with operations in Atlanta determined by project necessity.
“I want to continue to really expand to different metropolitan areas,” Thompson said. “In the next five years, I definitely want to have both offices fully staffed. Both Atlanta and North Carolina and possibly a third online. I just don’t know which city yet. But instead of just having a presence in the Southeast, having more across the U.S.”
Thompson plans on about eight to 10 employees eventually working at each location.
Captivate Media is certified on Clutch, an online data-driven platform for businesses, with a perfect five stars. The business also ranked eighth on The Manifest's top 90 minority-owned video production companies. The Manifest is a business news website that compiles business intelligence for innovators, entrepreneurs and small-business owners.
In addition, Captivate Media was also awarded the 2020 Minority-Owned Business of the Year Award from the High Point Chamber of Commerce.
Despite being busy with Captivate Media and One Love Productions, Thompson also founded Films From The Heart, a nonprofit platform to help tell tough stories regarding a variety of topics such as social inequality, homelessness, sex trafficking/abuse and substance abuse and addiction.
“I went from a solopreneur to pretty much a full agency or video production agency, and it was just me having that vision that we can be more than this,” Thompson said.
