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“Let thy food be thy medicine and thy medicine be thy food” Hippocrates

n 2003, James’ father, Roy Colquhoun, got sick. Once vital, now bedridden, Roy spent five years enduring doctors, medica-

tions and their vicious side effects.

The diagnosis was Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS.) CFS is a blanket term for a collection of varied debilitating symptoms that happen to include extreme fatigue. There’s no known cause or cure, nor even a definitive diagnostic test. One medical journal article sums up the devastation wrought on its sufferers, “Quality of life is ‘particularly and uniquely disrupted’ by CFS.”

James and Laurentine poured their energy into making Roy well. Believing Roy’s hard-driving lifestyle of long work hours, poor diet and too much beer to be a major contributor to his sickness, they studied health and nutri-tion, looking for answers.

In the meantime, Roy relied on the advice of doctors, who prescribed medications for his symptoms, then more medication for the side effects. Years of treatments followed, his con-dition worsening with each one. He began to talk of suicide.

“Alice laughed: “There’s no use

trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossi-

ble things.”

“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen.

“When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day.

Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things

before breakfast.” Alice in Won-derland.

Like Carroll’s White Queen, social entrepreneurs James

Colquhoun and Laurentine ten Bosch have made a habit of be-lieving impossible things. In four

years, the couple has:

cured James’ father of a chronic syndrome that befuddled doc-

torsdirected and produced two doc-

umentary films, despite having zero filmmaking experience

used free screenings of a film to generate revenues of $1 million+ in 10 daysbuilt a multimillion dol-

lar business based on a social mission

‘‘

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ames and Laurentine, sharing a long-time in-terest in nu-trition and

health, formalized their ad hoc study of natural healing with nutrition through the Global College of Natural Medicine’s Nutritional Consultant Pro-gram. They were convinced that the “medication” Roy needed to restore health would be found in healthy, whole foods and natural supple-ments.

However, persuading Roy to abandon the advice of his medical doctors and try a nat-ural healing approach wasn’t working. The books they rec-ommended to Roy piled up on his bedside table, unread.

James believes that film, the compelling immersive medium, is the single best way to impart a message. They surveyed the movie fare available on nutrition and natural health and saw a gap in the market for a credible documentary on natural health,

one bolstered by the gravitas of trained medical profession-als and leading experts. He and Laurentine became filmmakers to save Roy and spread a message. Food Mat-ters was born.

Quitting their jobs, the pair left their home in the south of France to trek from Holland to England, and on to the US and Australia. For two months, they interviewed doctors, naturo-paths, scientists and journal-ists. Their goal was to convince Roy that drugs wouldn’t cure him. Good food would.

Since 2008, the pair have directed and produced two documentaries. Beyond that, they’ve built a thriving multi-million dollar business on the idea that “your health is in your hands.”

“Zero film making experience.”

How do two people who work in the global shipping indus-try – James as the captain of a large international vessel, Laurentine, a maritime logistics

expert - and no film making experience, create a docu-mentary film that sells nearly a quarter of a million copies and spawns a movement?

Fueled by determination and hope.

James describes Googling “how to light and interview” on YouTube. The pair taught themselves about cameras, filmmaking and editing.

With interviews in hand, they returned to Australia to show raw footage of interviews to Roy.

The message hit home.

“I think that when you are cre-ating a product for yourself – in our case, the Food Matters film – your desire propels you through all the unknowns and roadblocks,” explains James. “We were trying to impact my father’s beliefs. We wanted to equip him to take control of his own health rather than abdi-cating it to the pharmaceutical industry.”

Zerofilm making experience.

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The Power of Free

n the Western world, we hold certain truths to be self-evident: our

illnesses are cured or controlled by doctors who prescribe medicines. Filmmakers charge make money by charging fees to screen a film. Documentaries by first-time filmmakers do not make significant revenue. While Roy Colquhoun’s health steadily improved on his pro-gram of clean eating, supple-ments and stress reduction exercises, James and Lauren-tine launched Food Matters, the film and website. Using the best of internet marketing, social media outreach and new world distribution, the Food Matters film racked up impressive stats: over a quarter of a million DVDs sold, nearly 200,000 fans on Facebook.

Independent movie distribution expert Peter Broderick, who wrote about Food Matters and their follow up film, Hungry For Change, on his blog, The Dis-tribution Bulletin, attributes the film’s success to Colquhoun and ten Bosch’s creative ap-proach.

“…James and Laurentine…have been consistently entre-preneurial--seizing opportuni-ties, trying new tactics, and perfecting their strategy…The filmmakers have taken a fully hybrid approach – combining direct sales, online partner-ships, and distribution deals. Offline screenings have sup-

ported online sales. Online mar-keting has supported 3rd party retail sales.”Much of their success comes from embracing a new business model. Rather than corralling Food Matters behind a paywall and relying on screenings for revenues, the director/produc-ers took a long view. Their goal was to attract and serve lifelong followers.

“Instead of following the industry norm of charging organizations fees to hold screenings, the filmmakers took a risk and allowed any-one who registered to host a screening for free,” wrote Broderick.

By letting Food Matters out from behind the paywall, the movie and its message spread quickly. They also built a large fanbase quickly. When their second film, Hungry for Change, an expose of the negative health impacts per-petuated by the diet industry, was released in March 2012, Broderick wrote, “The extraor-dinary million-dollar success of HUNGRY FOR CHANGE marks a new era of opportunities for independents. It illustrates how ‘free’ can be used to achieve broad awareness, generate rev-enue quickly, and build a world-wide audience.”

“…Altogether there were almost half a million views from more than 150 countries across the globe in just 10 days. These are astonishing numbers for an independent film that had never been seen before, had

no paid advertising, and was not available through any retail channels…There were 229,000 sign-ups in the first four weeks…”

Making money from a messageThe rise of social entrepreneur-ship popularized the idea that organizations don’t have to choose between being profit-able or beneficial to society. There is a third choice: to make money while doing good. James says that he and Lau-rentine embrace the fusion of value-based business and so-cial good, “Running a business in a capitalistic system and at the same time, using that sys-tem to share information with people, all the while running a social platform for the good of humanity. It’s a fun challenge. It’s a beautiful dance.”Colquhoun commented that he and ten Bosch were continu-ously looking for opportunities to give in a for-profit environ-ment. He talked of a soon-to-be-launched membership site that would offer streaming nutri-tional training. For every mem-bership sold, Colquhoun and ten Bosch plan to gift a mem-bership to a school. “As we’ve grown, we’ve shifted even more into the idea that we give first. It’s funny, the more you give away, the more people will buy from you.”

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Lori Nash Byron is the founder

of FamousinYourField.com, a consulting and training company for professionals and solo en-trepreneurs who want to build a powerful brand and grow their business through speaking, pub-lishing and publicity.