Today we’d like to introduce you to Sharon Raijman.
Sharon, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I am the CEO/Founder of beTRUE Group. I started this creative, entrepreneurial journey three years ago after leaving my life in the medical world and graduating from medical school. I made the decision to take my compassion and commitment to helping people in a new creative direction.
As I was finishing my medical board exams, I started working part-time with an influencer agency that solely focused on LGBTQ+ content creators. This was an exciting and new type of work that I was not used to having been focused on medicine for so long and I even found myself getting excited for email responses from brands wanting to work with us — who would have ever thought an email would be so exciting?! This part-time job turned into a full-time job and partnership where I became the Vice President of that company and helped grow the network of creators we worked with to being the largest influencer agency for the LGBTQ+ community. In late 2022, I decided to follow my entrepreneurial ways and start my own business, beTRUE Group, which encompasses beTRUE Agency and beTRUE Los Angeles.
beTRUE Agency is a social media marketing agency with a network of over 1,000 LGBTQ+ Content Creators all over the world that I connect with brands to move forward diversity and inclusion and share the message of supporting the LGBTQ+ community, not just during Pride but all year long!
beTRUE Los Angeles is a creative space that allows anyone that walks through our doors to be true to who they are! It is a space that provides opportunities to create content, connect with like-minded people and feel inspired to be your authentic self no matter who you love or where you come from. In a short time since opening this space, we have already become a destination for marginalized communities who need a space to connect and empower one another! Our Los Angeles location is the first of what I know will be many more locations to come!
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey have been a fairly smooth road?
Like any new business, we have had our challenges along the way. Getting the word out about the new agency and the new studio space had me starting from the basics — figuring out which method worked best from social media ads to in-person flyers and “cold-emailing” a lot of brands to work with our creators was a challenge for the first few months.
With the new year, we started to see a lot more inquiries come through for our creative space and noticed a lot of word of mouth getting around the community!
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about beTRUE Los Angeles?
beTRUE Los Angeles is a creative space that allows anyone that walks through our doors to be true to who they are! It is a space that provides opportunities to create content, connect with like-minded people and feel inspired to be your authentic self no matter who you love or where you come from.
With close to 7,000 square feet of space located in the heart of Hollywood, the opportunities are endless. beTRUE Los Angeles has three fully equipped studios, two design-inspired lounges, open desk coworking space, private offices and a fully transformable 4,500 square foot paved outdoor space – perfect for creating memorable experiences at large and small events. Our clients can host their own events and/or attend our community events, such as beTRUE Cinema Club, open-mic nights, wellness days, comedy shows, farmer’s markets and more to come this year!
One of our studios is in the process of becoming a new podcast and green screen studio, which we hope will be available in the next month or so!
Our motto is “Feel Inspired. Get Creative. Be True.” We love offering a space where creatives from all avenues of art can come and be true to the content they create, the events they host and the people they connect with. The space is so transformable that every event has a different look/vibe when you see it come to life! From music events and art galleries to birthday parties and weddings, you can do it all at beTRUE!
Have you learned any interesting or important lessons due to the Covid-19 Crisis?
Fortunately, our business started as things were starting to come “back to normal” where masks were not required and large gatherings were allowed again. We hope a crisis like that does not happen again but if it were to happen, our space has the ability to be used separately where you would not need to come in close contact with other people, especially for studio rentals.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.betruegrp.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/betrue.losangeles/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/betrue-group/
- Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@betrue.losangeles
Image Credits
beTRUE Los Angeles
