What B-Movies Tell Us About Entrepreneurship

This video has been making rounds all over the internet. It’s a clip from “Karate Girl”, a Turkish exploitation movie from the 1970s. It’s got to be seen to be believed.

Low-budget movies often offer a more immediate connection between us and the film makers. I also feel that commercial B-movies are perhaps the things that best reflect what it’s like to be an entrepreneur.
The people who make these movies are almost always entrepreneurs themselves. And like most entrepreneurs- not a heck of a lot of people believe in them. Which is why not a lot of money can be invested in these movies.

Because these films are so raw, it’s usually very clear when the film makers have drive and passion in their work. In almost the same way you’ll often feel a better connection with the people who run a local mom and pop diner compared with whoever is CEO of McDonald’s at the moment.

The best B-movies — the ones that are legitimately good, as opposed to the so-bad-it’s-good variety– make up for their small budgets by working on the things that give the most return for the least amount of money.

Here’s a list of low-budget films that made waves critically, and commercially. I disagree with the author’s list, but that’s beside the point.
It’s not just exploitative sex and violence that get these films a dedicated following. Great stories, and more importantly -unexpected technical innovations have come about precisely these film makers lack any kind of budget.

Plenty of “A-movies” are watchable only because they had a big enough budget to turn in a polished product. George Lucas, Sam Raimi, Francis Ford Coppola- almost every single director-screenplay writer worth mentioning, and about the same proportion of actors, editors, and other film crew professionals – most of them started with projects almost no one but themselves believed in.

On the other hand, you also have people like Uwe Boll and Paris Hilton, who even without the benefit of hindsight, shouldn’t have allowed to make movies.

The same thing goes for all entrepreneurs. No matter how you hack it, it’s the carpenter- not the tools.

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About the Author

Arthur Piccio Author Bio Art manages The Art of Small Business. When not passive-aggressively chucking UPrinting’s own high-quality business cards and custom yard signs at his coworkers, he enjoys…y’know. Other stuff.