"From engineer who makes films on the side to AI filmmaker"

Before this program, I was an engineer with a creative habit. Twenty-five years in semiconductors, three Mindvalley AI Artist Awards, a 30-minute AI film in production. Yet I still introduced myself as the AI guy who "also makes movies on the side." I had a consulting brand, Your AI Backpack, that tried to be everything: education, strategy, content, film. Nobody could tell you in one sentence what I did. Including me.

Thanks to this program, I got the frameworks to see what was already true. Daniel Priestley's signature positioning. My baggage is my IP, name my own game. And, Vishen's insistence that the founder has to be the face of the thing, not hide behind a business brand. So I had to take these lessons beyond the classroom and truly apply it. I dipped my toes into the pool at MVU in Tallinn. I took what I've been calling an identity sabbatical: for two weeks I stopped explaining myself as an engineer and simply introduced myself as an AI filmmaker for hire. Every conversation. No caveats.

And now, my life is revealing paths in a way I can measure. Within weeks of coming home, 10 people from the MVU community and beyond reached out about film work. The first inbound inquiries I've ever had that weren't about AI strategy. That gave me the clarity to stop trying to be a backpack and pivot to my true niche:

A founder of a studio that makes cinematic AI films for founders and their stories. I'm not the AI guy who makes movies anymore. I'm a filmmaker. The engineering background just makes me a better one.