Artist And CEO Richard Juan Is All About Living A Life Without What-Ifs

“Five years from now, I want to be known as someone who has created content or created a platform or created something for Filipino, if not Asian talent, to get to a global scale,” Richard Juan tells us. “That’s what my company believes in; that’s what I believe in. I want to continue pursuing that in the next five years.”

From being a model to being a Pinoy Big Brother housemate and later a host and podcaster, Richard is truly a man of talent as he has made himself fit into many molds in the course of his career. Now a CEO of a production outfit in the Philippines called 28 Squared Studios, Richard is working towards his ambitions of making it abroad.

“Let it be me becoming some sort of international name and then, being able to bring people alongside me—bring my team along with me—to reach those heights,” Richard sets his sights on, claiming that he will continue to propel his on-cam and off-cam pursuits. “I don’t see that I have to sacrifice one thing for the other. I’ll still be doing both things at the same time.”

Creating high-caliber content at the core

Founded during the pandemic, 28 Squared Studios is a video production company aimed at creating content of high caliber. “We produce any type of videos—from simple videos like coverage of events to something more complicated like corporate AVPs and even mini shows, lifestyle shows,” Richard introduces, when asked what his agency is impelled to brew. 

“We’re capable of doing that and that’s something that we are working towards—we’re working towards producing our first full-length film,” he offers, adding that they are cooking some more things they are excited to talk more about soon. “That’s definitely more the goal for 2023—to produce a full-length film as an independent company and see how things go from there.” 

Going global is one of the main objectives of Richard and his team of talents, and they are starting to tail the dream of delivering more quality material from the Philippines to the world. “That’s always been the goal,” he proudly shares with Metro.Style. “Baby steps muna. No matter what, we’re still a young company so we have to slowly build our way there.” 

28 Squared Studios, which is named after Richard’s date of birth—August 2—caters to celebrities and content creators as well. It now adapts to digital branding and works as a platform for personalities who wish to popularize their brands or products. With his celebrity and non-celebrity clientele, Richard’s start-up company foresees a luminous future.

“We are in talks with a couple of projects, but I guess I’m trying to look for a project where I feel I’m very excited about,” Richard notes. “There’s something in the company that we’re actually producing. We recently just finished post-editing our first self-funded, self-produced docuseries,” Richard teases, naming the project in progress. “It’s called Tropical Home.”

A series that follows the story of overseas tourists whose occasional visits to the Philippines have volumized into longer stays and eventual settlement, Tropical Home will be launched with the intention of promoting the Philippines to the international community. “[The] Philippines is a great, amazing, and]beautiful place. Why don’t you guys come here more often?” Richard wonders. 

Good at both games

“Background-wise, I was never meant to be in [the] entertainment industry in a sense that my parents have always groomed me ever since I was a kid to be a businessman, to be an entrepreneur, or maybe do my family business,” Richard narrates. “[The] fun fact is, I was already writing checks for my mom as young as eight years old.” 

At age 30, the actor-host-entrepreneur harks back to the baby-step beginnings that baptized him to starting a business. “I knew what double-crossing meant on the check. I know that you’re supposed to put .00 at the end of every number,” he continues. “It’s like [a] mini training that my parents have always been doing for me since I was a kid that led to where I am today.”

Needless to say, Richard is bound to chase after his parents’ aspirations of him becoming a businessman, but the universe says otherwise. It was a solid and unanimous agreement among the gods to lead him to greater heights. “In a way, lagi kong sinasabi, nagkataon lang na bigla akong pumasok sa entertainment,” he humbly tells us.  

“Growing up, I never thought of myself as a good-looking guy or I never thought of myself as a performer; I never thought of myself enjoying art but because of me being in this industry, I just kind of stumbled upon it and fell in love with it and never left.” Richard, who has taken on both his showbiz and business endeavors, is marrying entertainment into entrepreneurship. 

Indulged in what he is currently tailing, the 28 Squared Studios CEO explains, “I’m very lucky to be merging both my loves now—my first love and my current love. I’m merging them together to make a company that works as entertainment and also, business. I wake up every single day knowing what goal or dreams I’m trying to build myself towards. I love it, you know?”

“Hopefully, this will lead to a lot of different things and bigger things out there,” Richard pictures, with his focus pinned on his production outfit. “We’re focusing on getting it to grow—to try to become the vision that I have—being a company that produces content that is not just for the Philippines but also for a global audience,” he promises. 

A laid-back leader

When asked about how he would put into words his leadership language, Richard replies: “I’m very laissez faire in a way, in a sense that I trust my team. I have them for a reason. I’m not the ‘Oh-you-have-to-do-it-this-way’ or ‘It-has-to-be-my-way-or-the-highway’ [type]. Super hindi ako gano’n.”

“I listen to their opinions a lot; I value their opinions a lot and sometimes, to be honest, some of my other CEO friends say that I’m too chill and I’m too chill in a way that I let them have too much control,” he shares. “Running a company—it’s not like a one-man team. You can’t do everything yourself.”

With the common cause of bringing Filipino content to other countries, 28 Squared Studios is a group of budding filmmakers who share the same goals with Richard Juan’s executive direction. “You have to have the right people to grow together and I’m very fortunate to have a team where we have the common vision—we have the same vision,” he emphasizes.

“Again, we’re a very young team. We’re very open to absorbing each other’s opinions. We want to do projects that have international value na hindi lang para sa Pilipinas. Our goal, of course, is to at least reach Asian or regional [level], but the dream, siyempre, is to produce something that will be out there for, let’s say, Hollywood, or that type of platform.”

On the topic of taking on every chance he could exhaust, Richard reveals, “What keeps me motivated, honestly, is the fear of one day realizing that I did not get to maximize my potential. I remember reading a quote before saying that ‘your biggest nightmare is to meet the person that you could have been.’ It’s engraved on my head now.”

Richard also realized how time is the real treasure when it comes to creating the life that he wants to live, mentioning how short a man’s life can last. “Every time, when I feel lazy, I think of that quote and I’ll be like, ‘Oh, man! I got to work. I got to hustle.’ What I hate the most about life is all the what-ifs.”

A learned man, Richard leaves more room for realignment. “There are so many more things I could’ve done which I feel I didn’t do. That’s why I work so hard in my 20s—to catch up to some of the lost time. Some people would say that life is not all about winning—it’s all about enjoying the journey. I don’t know, man! You can enjoy the journey and win. Why can’t we do both?”

Photography and creative direction by Bjorn Michael of Bjorn Michael Studio

Styling by Julian Rodriguez

Grooming by Mycke Arcano

Shoot assistant and interviewer: Carla Buyo

Shoot coordination: Red Dimaandal