LegacyReel | San Diego, CA and beyond | (619) 629-7885 | info@legacyreel.com
When LegacyReel first started, I had no idea if the concept of creating legacy video biographies for seniors would be viable.
As with starting any business, I needed a proof of concept. Luckily, I had already created a short video memoir of my own grandfather, which I could use to show potential clients my services.
Even with a business degree in entrepreneurship, I didn’t know exactly how to market our services. So I tried everything to see what stuck. I cold-called, reached out to friends, and posted on social media.
Finally, I received a direct message from Nextdoor.
A young woman reached out to me, asking me about LegacyReel’s services. She shared that her grandmother, a 100-year old centenarian, was turning 101 the following month, and wanted to give her a birthday gift. After all, what do you gift someone who has already seen it all?
Her grandmother, Maria, had been born during the Spanish Flu of 1919, survived the Great Depression, lived in Pearl Harbor when it was bombed, and eventually started many of the first strip clubs in San Diego!
At first, I was fairly skeptical. I thought, “There’s no way all this could happen to one person.”
But, only a few days later, I was in her grandmother’s home that she had lived in since the 1950s, and she told me her life story. It was all true.
Maria shared, "By the age of 22 I had all 4 of my children. And I was in Pearl Harbor when they bombed it. We lived right outside of Pearl Harbor Gate. We girls were all out in the backyard, looking at the planes. We thought they were ours, we didn’t know they were Japanese planes. I was bathing the baby when the plans came over. She was 3 months old…I was in shock."
After leaving Hawaii later that month, she would go on to meet her new husband in San Diego. Not only did they run various bars and strip clubs together, they became so successful that they retired in their 40s, and she hadn’t worked in 60 years!
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