Life & Work with Chad Ressler of Cleveland, Ohio

Today we’d like to introduce you to Chad Ressler.

Hi Chad, so excited to have you with us today. What can you tell us about your story?
We grew up in Solon, Ohio and have been making videos since sixth grade. We launched Double Take Video while we were still in college. In the early days we emailed companies offering to create videos for free just to build our portfolio. But what we kept seeing was that the videos were actually working for the businesses we made them for, helping them explain their products, train employees, recruit talent, and grow. After graduating in 2023 we went all in. We started working with businesses in the Solon and Northeast Ohio area and built relationships with the local business community and beyond.
Today we run a full service video production company focused on helping mid-sized businesses in Northeast Ohio tell their story, train their teams, and grow through strategic video content. We have always embraced the twin angle, hence the name Double Take Video, and it has become a big part of who we are as a brand.

I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Definitely not always smooth. Like any small business, we have had our share of challenges. Early on the biggest hurdle was simply getting people to take us seriously. We were young, fresh out of college, and trying to convince established businesses to trust us with their brand. We did a lot of work for free just to prove what we could do. Building a consistent pipeline of clients has also been one of our ongoing challenges. Video production can be feast or famine. Some months everything is firing and other months the phone is quiet. Learning how to build a more predictable, recurring revenue model has been a big focus for us and something we are still actively working on.
We have also had to figure out how to wear a lot of hats at once. Running the creative side of the business while also handling sales, client relationships, operations, and finances is a lot for two people. Finding the right systems and support to manage all of that has been a learning curve.
But honestly every challenge has taught us something. We are more focused now on the types of clients we work best with, how we price our services, and how we build relationships for the long term. We are in a much better place than where we started and we are just getting going.

Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
We specialize in brand story videos, training and onboarding content, promotional and sales videos, and ongoing retainer-based content for marketing teams that need a reliable creative partner without the overhead of hiring in-house. What we are most proud of is the work that actually moves the needle for our clients. When a video helps a company land a new client, onboard an employee faster, or finally tell their story the way it deserves to be told, that is what gets us excited.
What sets us apart is probably a combination of things. We are two people who think and create alike, which makes our process efficient and collaborative. We keep our overhead lean so our clients are paying for great content, not for a big agency to manage itself. And we genuinely care about the businesses we work with. Most of our best client relationships feel more like partnerships than transactions.

We love surprises, fun facts and unexpected stories. Is there something you can share that might surprise us?
A lot of people assume we came out of college with a full client list and hit the ground running. Every piece of equipment we have was bought piece by piece over years and we built this from scratch with very little runway!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://doubletakevideo.com
• Instagram: https://instagram.com/doubletakevideo
• Facebook: https://facebook.com/DoubleTakeVideo
• LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/company/doubletakevideo
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@double_take_video
• Other: https://vimeo.com/doubletakevideo