Meet Daniel Roman

We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Daniel Roman. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Daniel below.

Daniel, we’re thrilled to have you sharing your thoughts and lessons with our community. So, for folks who are at a stage in their life or career where they are trying to be more resilient, can you share where you get your resilience from?

My mother. I am first generation-born here in the U.S to my mother from Colombia, I’m the youngest of 3. She cleaned houses for years before, and after I was born when she got here. Some of my earliest memories were going to work with her while she cleaned. She had big clients in big houses so I remember being set down on big couches and watching blues clues or sesame street on huge televisions. The older I got the more I realized how much my mom struggled but fought tooth and nail to achieve her dreams. Through a toxic marriage and a rough divorce, my mom continued to raise us by herself, and pursue a college teaching degree. She taught herself english over the years and went on to graduate from St. Josephs University with her degree in spanish education. She is my beacon for fighting through any and all adversity. At 22 years old, she left the only country she knew to come here and achieve a better life, and did it. I hope to someday be half as brave as she was in 1980 and the rest of her life.

Thanks for sharing that. So, before we get any further into our conversation, can you tell our readers a bit about yourself and what you’re working on?

I make videos, and music, I was always the type of person to be involved in a million different things. Although acting was my first love from before I can remember. At 4 years old my mom took me into the city to find an opportunity for me to act. From 4 to about 15 years old, I appeared on shows like Law and Order, David Letterman Show, Sesame Street, Dora The Explorer and so much more. It truly was my dream and all I could ever think about.

Getting into trouble was also something I was unfortunately good at, at a young age. So my mom decided that private school for high school was the best move for me. There I learned to love gospel music and the drums. Guitar Hero worked out my hand-eye coordination and rock band was my first drum practice. 16 years later and I have toured the northeast coast and played hundreds of gigs in front of thousands of people.

I fell into the same trap most people do when thinking about their dreams. Scared and worried if it would work out, so I went to college to study aviation maintenance. I graduated and went on to work in my field. I excelled and became the youngest lead technician at my company. After COVID I was furloughed and then laid off so I went to work for one of our nations largest and most successful military contractors, Northrop Grumman. Not before I could get my real estate license during the down-time to make extra cash whenever I could. I also started an online sub-contracting company for home improvement projects as well as mobile mechanics to fix cars. At Northrop Grumman I still tried to carry all of these hustles on the side.

At this point I was fairly miserable at my day job. Sure, fixing things was something that intrigued me, as I always fixed my own cars and a brain surgery put my fast dreams of being a fighter pilot away, After a while that well ran dry. I was making more money than I ever had but was still miserable. Then came a company restructuring, and lay-offs.

Months before the lay-offs took place, we were made aware that the apartment that we lived in was not permitted and essentially illegal. The town put up notices and our landlord filed for an eviction after we couldn’t save funds to move that quickly. So now my girlfriend and I are facing an eviction on 1 income and debt.

I had an insane thought and knew this window would close and the chance to do something like this would likely never happen again. I had just enough in my savings to wipe my debt out entirely but not have enough to move. But with no debt and unemployment helping, as little as it may be, if I can make this work it would change my life.

This happened at a time where my music career involved me playing about 100 shows a year up and down the northeast coast. I play drums and sing, as well as direct the show from behind the kit, running audio and backing tracks. We had hired a video company to provide videos and other services for a 6 month contract. 6 months came and went and we were left with no useable video from them. Tapped out of funds the owner of the band and myself decided to start filming video ourselves. We both bought Sony A6400’s and an online course to learn. 2 years later we learned the basics and made some pretty great videos while also being on the road.

Fast forward to winter of 2025, I was without a job and soon to be without an apartment. I convinced my girlfriend to trust that I could make this work. To somehow believe that I will make the most successful company I ever tried to start while also facing the biggest odds.

I spoke to my managing broker and told them I could provide video tours and videos for the brokerage as a contracted outside company. They paid me for 2 video tours to see if they liked the product. We then signed a 2 month contract contingent on re-evaluating for a retainer contract on a 3 month basis.

I am proud to now announce 8 months later and my company has filmed over $100,000,000.00 in Real Estate, filmed music videos and business commercials, i’ve closed on 2 homes as a Real Estate Agent, and my music bookings are well into the summer of 2026, and we now rent a beautiful home, slowly but surely growing my businesses and our family.

This year has been completely transformative and has allowed me to be the artist that I have always been. I am blessed to say I have been both in front of, and behind the camera professionally. I will say, though, I may make a return to the screen in 2026. Who knows what the future holds.

There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?

1. Self Awareness
2. Resilience
3. Hunger

Is there a particular challenge you are currently facing?

Like a lot of small businesses growing can be a struggle. Doing what has been working is hard to not do at times, but as I got into this business through risk and achievement, that same risk will grow my business if done right.

At the moment we are very heavily involved in the real estate video business. I am trying to grow the team by closing on more retainers for more brokerages. Now that we recently broke $100M in real estate filmed, the goal is to build marketing materials to gain more clients, and grow the team.

The goal is to hire and train videographers and editors while closing new business and having it run in the background. I want to develop systems and videographers to work and represent my company while putting out some of the best content out there for real estate agents and brokerages.

I want to produce short films and get into filming business commercials for large clients. I remember being on big sets as a young actor and I would love to be involved in that production as a film hand next.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: @24FPSNY
• Youtube: @24FPSNY

Image Credits

Randy Palumbo Photography