The Making of You

Marissa Bennett didn't plan to become a CEO. She joined her husband's retouching studio for "one year, just to help a little" and ten years later she's running a full-service international creative studio with clients like Sephora and Laneige.

In this first episode of The Making of You, host Ryan Huffman sits down with Marissa to hear the real story: the early growing pains of scaling a one-person studio, building global post-production teams from scratch, surviving the Sephora project that arrived in November with a January live date, and learning to stop apologizing for what she charges. Slowly, painfully, and then all at once.

Her advice to her younger self? Know your value. And stop making money conversations so emotional.

Honest, practical, and full of the kind of hard-won wisdom you only get from actually doing the work. This one's for the builders.