Checking in with REC Philly's Dave Silver

So thinking back to when you first were deciding on colleges, what made you pick Temple?

For me, I wanted to stay close to my family. I was born and raised in the Philadelphia area and trying to find something that fit well with my interests and keeping myself close to home. Growing up in the Bucks County area, I really only came down to Philadelphia to go to sports games. But a few members of my family went to Temple, and Temple was always kind of mentioned as I was growing up, and it felt very at home for me as a solution for where I wanted to go. When I was 18 and walking through the campus the first time, I felt this was home. And then never looked back, [had] no regrets.

Were you always interested in the media space— did you always know that what you were going to major in?

My honest answer was I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was very unsure of what it meant to have a major and what that commitment looked like. And I remember going on Temple's website and looking through all the different majors, and I liked advertising. I [thought], that seems easy. It was also during the Mad Men era where I was watching Don Draper religiously on HBO. And I was like, I think I want to be that guy. I never really loved school, honestly. I always found it to be a bit challenging and [I was] not super interested in it. I said to myself, how can I find something that isn't going to challenge me too much but still try to scratch something that I think I'm interested in. That was my real reason for going into advertising. But a little bit more of a proactive answer is I always wanted to be in the media field. Growing up, [I and] my best friend from high school, who was also co-founder of REC, had ambitions to build a media company or always be shooting video. So I knew I wanted to be in a media world.

During your time at Temple, you were very focused on extracurriculars. Can you elaborate on the importance of those?

Yeah, it was important for me to be able to explore all of the other benefits that the university had to offer. For me, I was really excited to not destroy myself in school and be able to focus more on what else Temple had to offer. I was involved in about a dozen clubs throughout the years, whether it was the business clubs, the media clubs or student activities like the fraternal organizations. I was bouncing around all over and it was really an opportunity to just explore different interests. Then you also have the opportunity to rise up in the ranks to be a leader of those clubs. I remember specifically one of the media clubs was called Media Meltdown; it was a student-produced club organization. I [thought], this is exactly where I want to be. There are also so many resources around campus; the tech center, the clubs, the organizations. So when I had my first event in my basement around 2011 or 2012, I was able to tap all those organizations and bring an audience, have the fliers and the printouts and the infrastructure. I needed to have a successful event without having to worry about all of the costs and marketing.

You've also seemed to touch on collaboration a lot, and the importance of that, not only back during your Temple days, but creating REC and up until now. Can you touch on that a bit?

Collaboration is at the heart of everything that we do at REC. All throughout my years, I've said independent doesn't mean alone. There are so many other folks around, whether organizations or individuals, that have complementary skills and resources so that it's a no-brainer not to tap into it. It's just so much more powerful when you're working with other people for reasons of support for amplification, just for learning and since the first show in the basement. You can't accomplish anything by yourself. And you shouldn't have to accomplish everything by yourself. There's no reason not to tap into your community and to the resources that it offers, and it's truly the heartbeat of the company.

So post-graduation, how did REC Philly officially come about?

For about a year or two in college, I was throwing basement concerts and parties, which was the blueprint of building community and a mission around creating a platform for the local creative community. As we picked up momentum, it just got big enough where we [thought], we should go do this in a real venue and not in our basement (laughs). I was kicked out of my basement because I didn't have an insurance policy to do what I was doing, but it was really an opportunity. I was able to go to the venues I was volunteering and working with and barter with them. I would throw my open mic showcase at four different venues in the city, just building community, creating that platform for the local artists’ community in Philadelphia, and just being like a reliable resource for that community. There was no money being made at all; I wasn't getting paid and I had no problem with it. And that was when I knew, this is what I want to do. You know, it's really hard in life to figure out what your purpose is. I just found myself doing it with so much joy. I also had a corporate job for the first year and a half after graduation, and I realized that's what I didn't want to do. At that point we were trying to build a strong enough base of a business to give myself the relief to eventually leave. So eventually we were at the TLA and Union Transfer. We were doing stuff all around the city and helping the local artist community, and now with our location at 9th and Market, the rest is history.

You've amassed all this knowledge over the last ten years. What advice would you give to younger people or students who are trying to break into the industry?

My general advice for students is try as much as you can, throw it all against the wall, do the internships to find out what you love, but also do them to find out what you don't like. Get involved in those organizations because you don't know who you're going to meet. Postgraduation, I went to every networking business tech event that I could get my hands on and every one of those events, it was not about what anyone could do for me, but it was always about how I can provide value to them. Is there something I could volunteer with? Can I work the table for you? Is there any way I can support you? You should want to be known as the person who is just always there to help. You want to have a positive brand reputation for yourself as a postgrad. It kind of feels like that throughline of collaboration is everything where those relationships, the networking, the collaborations is basically how you create a success story.

You and REC as a whole have been very engaged with Temple over the years. Why has it been important for you to stay so connected with Temple?

I'm just really proud to be a Temple alum, honestly. And I say that very authentically. I find that Temple is a part of my personal brand. Like when people see me, I want them to know I'm from Temple. There's just something that that means. There's a feeling you get when you think of Temple. I want to resonate with that feeling, whether it's hustle, mentality, grit, grind, real, authentic. I'm very proud to be a Temple alum, but also to carry it in my brand and who I am when it comes to partnerships. You know, the Temple Alumni Association specifically was one of our first partnerships when we were still in the warehouse. That meant a lot to me, that they saw me and they believed in what we were doing. The fact that my alma mater was recognizing me and putting money where their mouth was, it meant a lot to me. That's why it's important for me that all Temple students and alumni, since we've opened our doors in 2019, get a discount on their membership.

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