Turning passion projects into production profits

Rachel Kroeger

Staff

April 28, 2025

NORTH CENTRAL WISCONSIN – Though 22-year-old Dakota Nyberg only graduated from the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse (UWL) two years ago, he is already four years into business ownership.

Following his high school graduation, “just after COVID-19 hit,” Nyberg – founder and owner of DMM Productions – said he realized he “had nothing to do.”

So, from “March into September of 2020 – when I went to college” – Nyberg said in his state of post-graduation and lockdown boredom, he began experimenting with photography.

Still photography, Nyberg said, eventually led him to produce “fun little passion films in college,” which in turn led to his first paid project for the Roncalli Newman Catholic Parish in La Crosse.

“The first paid video project I did was for a church just off campus that reached out and asked me if I could do a testimonial video for them,” he said. “I had no idea what I was doing, (but) I figured it out as I went. I did a lot of YouTube (watching) and a lot of Googling. I rented the equipment I needed, and I made my video for the (church).”

After that project, Nyberg said he “fell into the video world” and created DMM Productions – a video production company that, according to its LinkedIn page, specializes “in interview-driven storytelling, capturing authentic conversations that build trust, engage audiences and drive action.”

Though he admits he kind of fell into entrepreneurship, Nyberg said his inspiration to be a business owner came from his father.

“It all kind of comes down to my dad, who owns a small business as well,” he said. “I grew up being around him constantly being on the phone, working or talking about business things that I just picked up. I really had a good understanding of what (entrepreneurship) was like.”

At 22 years old, Nyberg said he’s only ever worked two jobs aside from his current role as owner-operator of DMM Productions – which is the only position he’s held after graduating from the UWL with a marketing degree in 2023.

“I would say it was probably (May) 2021 that I officially started doing video (production for work) – that I thought of it as, ‘yep, this is my job now,’” he said.

A ‘trust-based industry’

As an incoming UWL freshman, Nyberg said he had yet to discover his passion for video production.

“I chose my major before I even thought about photography or video in this way,” he said. “So I graduated with my marketing degree, and I did all my video stuff on the side.”

Even though he did not receive a formal education in his current profession, Nyberg said he still gained a lot from his college experience – mostly in the people he met.

“The biggest thing from college that I took away was the connections,” he said. “You can do so much in the classroom, but it really came down to a lot of the connections that I made. There’s still tons of people that I’ve met in college – professors, students, even old mentors and things like that – that still reach out. They’ll email me and say, ‘Hey, we met, like, three years ago, and now my company is looking for video,’ or they will refer my name to their CMO and things like that. It’s really awesome.”

Though he’s based in River Falls, Nyberg said his work has taken him everywhere from La Crosse and Eau Claire to the Twin Cities, Tennessee, Texas and California.

“Over the past couple of years, because (DMM Productions) is new, it’s been, like, 100% growth each year,” he said. “So it’s fun to see that. I think last year was 198% growth in terms of revenue. But this year, I’m going for another 75%.”

The media and video production industry, Nyberg said, is extremely trust-based – making word-of-mouth referrals especially crucial for growth.

“If you don’t trust your banker, you probably aren’t going to work with them and you’re going to go somewhere else,” he said. “It’s the same with video production. Most good leads come from (referrals) because when somebody trusts someone who says, ‘Hey, these guys are awesome,’ they sometimes don’t even look at our website. They just reach out and say, ‘Hey, we were referred, and we want to work with you.’ So it’s a very trust-based industry.”

Additionally, Nyberg said clients typically don’t “care about the cameras,” they care about the content and end product – making it easier for him to sell himself in the digital-first world.

“People don’t care about all these little tricks that you pick up, that’s just internal things that you do,” he said. “People just care about the results that you (give) them. So if you can show them videos they like and they feel things are going to go well, they can really stand behind it.”

Helping brands ‘showcase who they are’

Right now, Nyberg said he is DMM Production’s sole employee.

However, because of the collaborative nature of media, he said he still works “with a lot of great people” on an as-needed contract basis.

“I have several nice connections with other production companies, and how we do things – up in the (Twin) Cities, at least – a lot of us hire each other to help on set,” he said. “So there’s times when I’ll be hired as a contractor to direct a set for another production company to help, or I’ll hire out my camera guy (or) my lighting guy because they’re so good at it, and if I can have them focus on what they’re really good at, and I can focus on what I’m really good at – the client and directing.”

Contracting employees out as he needs them for projects, Nyberg said, allows him to tailor his crew to the client and provides him a wider knowledge base to work with.

“For example, I’m not a car guy,” he said. “I don’t know anything about cars. I’ve never shot video of cars. But if I had (a customer) come in and they wanted something to do with the automotive industry in some way, many contractors have experience there. So, I bring them on set… they have experience that I don’t have, so I ask them to chime in and (point out) anything they feel could be adjusted or changed.”

Nyberg said he works with businesses across various industries, because everyone needs a brand.

“I do a lot of corporate work,” he said. “I work a lot with manufacturing companies, financial institutions, educational institutions – and it’s not always the most creative,” he said. “We’re sitting down for interviews, and we’re making it look as nice as we can. It’s not always something that we get to really stretch our creative muscles with, but it’s something that really helps these brands showcase who they are.”

That’s where his marketing degree, Nyberg said, can help, as his work often involves learning how to best communicate what a business does to anyone watching their video.

“(What) I like to say to clients a lot is that they understand their business, and they understand what they do and who they are really well, because that’s theirs,” he said. “I understand, really well, the strategy behind video and how to create a great video. When we combine those things – I learn about what they do, I can share what we do, we chat and we learn from each other about how this strategy is going to work best for them – these videos turn out really well.”

To learn more about DMM Productions, visit dmmproductions.com or find it on social media.