Meet Justin Sena | TV Producer & Entrepreneur

We had the good fortune of connecting with Justin Sena and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Justin, every day, we about how much execution matters, but we think ideas matter as well. How did you come up with the idea for your business?
The idea for my business was born out of a failed attempt in the fashion business. I am friends with a fashion designer named, Rey Aquino, that wanted to bring his collection to life, so we partnered on a brand but had a rough time trying to produce high end garments in Los Angeles. Getting people to like the brand wasn’t the hard part, Rey is a very talented designer, the hard part was producing and manufacturing high end garments in LA. I’m a TV Producer and whether I am producing a TV show, starting a business, or approaching a problem, I typically approach everything by working the problem backwards. The problem was, I knew nothing about fashion and dove right in. Rey and I went through the wringer every step of the way. We once paid $10,000 to a manufacturer for a small order that completed roughly 3/4 of the order and then just disappeared, when the last round of garments were late, per usual, we showed up and the place had been packed up and we never heard from the guy again. On another collection, we ordered some very expensive fabrics from Japan we were very excited about, but then a tsunami hit, and we sadly never heard from the fabric manufacturer again. As a producer, you are weekly, not hourly, so it’s not uncommon to work 15-18 hour days, 7 days a week, with with no days off until you wrap. I had some ideas for products I believed in, but after my run in the fashion industry, I needed something with low overhead that could serve as a creative outlet and survive if I had to pack up and leave on a moments notice …e-com! The bulk of the items I got excited about were recycled or up-cycled derivatives of other items. The lightbulb went on and I quickly started searching USPTO and the domain names and both were available. The trademark process took almost as long as having a baby but after 9 months, Derivative® was born.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Nothing is ever easy, ever! This sounds negative but it’s oddly what drives me and where I do my best work. I drove to Los Angeles with everything I owned or needed in my car. I made a stop in Miami at my dads house, left my best friend (my dog, Ebony) with my parents and drove to LA to crash in a friends spare bedroom to work a paid internship with Yamaha Music. Thank you, Jamey Tate! I moved to Los Angeles in 2006 originally to pursue the music industry. I was a drummer turned artist manager struggling to survive in music almost as badly as the artist I was representing. How do you make money in an industry selling a product people were easily stealing online for free? Nothing is or has ever been easy. I was managing, tour managing, worked a serving job on the side, contract managed events and promotions for brands, sold Items on ebay, resold domain names, anything I could do to survive. I had just returned from tour managing for a Jazz artist and was looking for work. A friend mentioned he really needed a PA after someone dropped out last minute and asked I was interested. I of course took the job but had no idea what a PA was! When I drove to LA in 2006, Film & TV production had not even crossed my mind, but in 2008, I took a short gig as a PA on the season finale of American Idol and have been working in production ever since. When the show wrapped a few weeks later, someone asked if I’d be interested in interviewing for a position at a production company. He mentioned he was going to work on a show called “Survivor” and was looking to replace his position and thought I’d be good a good fit for job. I decided to take the interview to at least find out more. I went to the interview and was hired on the spot as the Assistant Operations Manager at, Mark Burnett Production. …I still didn’t know what a PA was. After 2 weeks, I was out of music and in production. Little did I know, Mark Burnett Productions was a powerhouse production company, and at the time, all the productions were under the same roof, so I was able to connect a lot of people, many I still work with today. I loved working for Mark Burnett and eventually became the Operations Manager, but after 2 years with the company someone gave me some of the best advice I ever received, “Sometimes the best way to move up is to move on.” 4 weeks later, I found myself out of the office and in Alaska, camping with the Palin’s as Unit Manager on “Sarah Palin’s Alaska”. So how do I run a successful business while I’m always in production and what does any of this have to do with my brand, Derivative? As a producer, I’m a professional problem solver. Although my creative mind sometimes creates the problem by coming up with ideas I’m not even sure are possible to produce, like the crazy idea I had to do a vertical runway down the side of a building on “America’s Next Top Model” Cycle 20, but I always figure it out. How do I run a business while traveling? I link www.DerivativeApparel.com to Amazon FBA, ship Amazon enough inventory to cover me through production, scale a couple ad campaigns for the inventory I shipped out, and let it run on autopilot, leaving Amazon to fulfill the orders. Then I contract myself through my business, Derivative Media, to produce tv shows and media derivatives! It’s obviously not easy, I have had to travel with bar code printers, product, and packaging. I’ve turned hotel rooms into storage units to re-route inventory from manufacturing to Amazon in between shows with a short turn around or delayed shipments, and turned my own apartment into a warehouse shipping center hiring people I trust to ship orders and inventory. The process could of course use an improvement but it’s where I’m at right now and I’ll keep figuring it out when I can, I always do!

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I have spent much of the last 13 years living out of a suitcase, when I get home I’m usually working on Derivative Apparel or Derivative Eyewear inventory and enjoying being home, because I never know when or where I’ll be traveling next. There is a lot to explore around California but if I’m traveling with a friend for fun it’s probably going to be somewhere tropical or somewhere I can bring a drone and get some awesome aerial shots. If I’m traveling or hanging out with friends, I’d either prefer to hang at their place and if we are taking a road trip, we’re going to be aware of what’s interesting and available where we are going but with no itinerary. When I’m scouting locations, I’ve found my greatest experiences have been the people and places you find when you’re exploring, genuinely curious, and take an interest in people.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
A silver lining is seldom appreciated as the line is being drawn. You don’t start a business planning for it to fail, but you go into it knowing it’s a possibility, and sometimes a failed business can pave the path for a successful one. I need to begin my gratitude with the friend I went through the fashion trenches with and learned so much about the industry together, Rey Aquino. Rey is still an incredible friend and fashion designer and has taken his passion to new heights, always somehow brilliantly coming up with concepts and designs that lead trends. I later applied what we learned in sampling, sourcing, and tech packs to a product I had always wanted to produce, sleeves. Yes, sleeves! I sell them every single day and these were the original idea behind the brand but instead of starting with one single item, I baked the idea into the brand and began designing, Arm Apparel. I began learning how to build websites after an unfortunate injury during production on a show that lead to a painful surgery that had me with my dominant arm strapped to my chest and several months of rehabilitation. When I could eventually wiggle my fingers, I bought a bluetooth keyboard and started learning how to build websites to keep my sanity. I had only recently trademarked “Derivative” and hadn’t been able to devote much time while producing tv shows, now all I had was time. I couldn’t quite sample sleeves with one arm, but fortunately my friend Rey had two. It took a few months but Rey was eventually able to help me slide a sleeve on the functioning arm I did have. I’m incredibly grateful to the friends and family members that have supported the brand since I started, either sharing on social media, paying full price online for Derivative items, and some even becoming wholesale customers. Thank you!

Website: https://www.justinsena.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/justinsena/

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justinsena

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/derivative

Other: www.derivativemediagroup.com www.derivativeapparel.com www.derivativeeyewear.com

Image Credits
Photographer: Donald Meyerson