First videos, registering as self-employed, invoicing with the right taxes, and first paying clients in either language.
Equipment hardly counts
That is what stops the most people, and it is the least important point.
Three items are enough for the first six months: a recent phone, a window, a cheap clip-on microphone.
Three things count more: clean sound, constant light, a text written before filming.
One useful expense later, when orders arrive: a second light source, indispensable from November to February, when useful daylight shrinks to a few hours.
Register before the first invoice
Four steps, in this order.
Choose the form under which you operate, knowing what it implies for your income and your obligations.
Check registration for the applicable taxes, with the threshold and the special cases.
Open a separate account, where everything received arrives.
And set a setting-aside rule from the first payment, on that same account, so as not to discover the amount owed a year later.
Those four points are settled in one session with an accountant, and that session costs less than a single first-year mistake.
Decide your language offer
That is the decision structuring the whole business on this market.
Three options, all viable.
Working in one language, stated clearly on your profile: the simplest route, and it does not close the market.
Working in both, provided you deliver in both at the same level: a dubbed or subtitled version is not a version in the other language, and it is heard immediately.
Or working in one language and subcontracting the other to somebody whose language it is, which is declared to the client.
One pricing consequence: a bilingual campaign is invoiced as two shoots, not as one shoot and a translation.
Set your prices from the start
Three blocks, separated from the first quote.
The production: preparation, shooting, editing, versions.
The usage rights: channels, duration, territory.
And the constraints: short deadline, travel, second language, regulated category.
Two mistakes to avoid at the start. Free work in exchange for visibility, which sets a starting price at zero. And the low price meant to win a first client, which attracts the hardest requests and becomes impossible to raise.
The first four weeks
| Week | What you do | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Two videos with products already at home | The start of a portfolio |
| 2 | A complete profile and a price | A page you can send |
| 3 | Ten messages to active brands | The first replies |
| 4 | One order, however small | A real sample |
What is decided before any message
A category, a city, two formats, a price, and the languages you deliver in. In a bilingual market, that last line changes the number of requests received.
What is useless in the first year
A personal website, a logo, expensive gear. Three sharp videos are worth more than all of it, and take one afternoon.
The first clients are local and small
That is the reality of this market, and it is good news.
Four entry points, in order of ease.
The shops in your neighbourhood, which have no video and nobody to make one.
The resellers and distributors, who manage whole catalogues of empty product pages.
The local organisations and associations, which have a permanent need and a modest budget.
And the foreign brands selling here and looking for a local face.
One method that is enough for the first three months: fifteen targeted messages a week, in the recipient's language, with an example shot on a product you own, a displayed price and a delivery date. The first client rarely comes from the best-written message, but from the tenth one sent.
