Boom. Roasted.

When the new live-comedy arm of your business has its inaugural event mere days before the COVID-19 pandemic starts to grip the city of Sioux Falls, what’s a fledgling business to do? In the case of KaiZen Comedy, it’s relying on one unique business model to light the way for the next phase.

What was begun in May 2019 as KaiZen Studio, a full-service agency specializing in audiovisual production, photography and marketing, among other disciplines, the downtown business had seen an opportunity to branch out into the live-event space.

KaiZen founder Cham Phan started the studio without much of a concrete plan for what it would turn out to be.

“It’s like that movie, We Bought a Zoo,” he said. “We had the building before we really had a game plan. We just started recording podcasts and doing original content and on the side started doing independent commercial work.”

Local comedian and KaiZen Comedy founder Cole Boeve approached some fellow Sioux Falls comics about brainstorming a way to give the local scene more of a voice.

“We decided KaiZen would make a good partnership—a media outlet where we could feature a lot of the comics around town or passing through,” he said. “Because every time I talk to somebody about comedy in Sioux Falls they all say the same thing—‘I didn’t know we had a comedy club in town!’”

Teaming up with several Sioux-Falls-based performers, Boeve started pulling together what the group’s inaugural performance would be—and that’s where the idea of a roast was born.

“Personally, I’d developed a really good rapport with these guys,” Boeve said of the fellow comics who participated in this first event, including local comedians Jeff Seiner, Skyler Bolks, Zach Dresch and Reid Baxter. “I appreciated their professionalism as comics. I wanted to see if there was a way I could give back to the comedy community for accepting me.”

And it was KaiZen’s founder himself who served as the perfect subject for the first event—The Roast of Cham was held March 6 at ICON Lounge, and the organizers quickly fell in love with the process of working in collaboration on a comedy event, versus the oftentimes individualistic world of traditional standup comedy.

“Comics usually prefer to work alone,” Bolks said. “You want to write your own jokes and perform your own jokes. So when it’s this sort of thing, where you come together, it feels like something special.”

“Everybody in the group comes from a different background, so it was cool to have all of us come together for this one night,” Dresch said.

The amount of excitement from the audience and the showing was a promising start for the group, according to Boeve.

“Even in the crowd that evening, we had multiple physicians, nurses, people from all walks of life,” he said. “It was a true testament that people want good comedy, and they want to be able to see it live. They just need the exposure.”

And the natural partnership of entertainment and a media company proved to be a perfect marriage.

“A lot of times where comedy really fails is in promotion,” Bolks said. “It’s hard to reach everybody. The crossover between different communities is a big benefit to the way this was put together.”

“KaiZen puts it together really well,” show opener Baxter said. “The amount of time Cham and his crew had to get stuff together, it was amazing. I can’t describe it.”

Post-roast, KaiZen Comedy has had to reconfigure rather quickly with the onset of COVID-19. But thankfully, its parent company is well-equipped to innovate.

“The roast came together very organically, and I think that’s one of the best parts about it is the authenticity,” Boeve said, adding that since the pandemic began, Bolks and Dresch live-streamed a comedy show in the spring with about 3,000 viewers in virtual attendance. “It was bananas. We talked about maybe doing some podcasts to be able to feature the comics.”

Once live entertainment is possible again, KaiZen Comedy hopes to recapture some of that magic from its first event, including specialty shows at various local venues, such as additional roasts, comedy games, themed shows and collaborations with other established groups.

“It’s a really big deal for comics getting their starts to have a variety of different things available to them,” Bolks said. “An opening spot for a show can go a long way to developing a young comic. But even more valuable than that is making money without leaving town.”

“It’s a big deal to get paid to do something you love and do creatively,” Boeve said. “I’m hoping to be able to give that back to so many people tenfold.”

And Cham and his team will be ready to support the effort on the media side of things.

“I think once this is all over we’re going to be going even harder than before,” he said. “It’s in my blood. There’s so much creative energy here—we’re all about to explode creatively.”

Stay in the know on what KaiZen Comedy is up to next by following the group’s Facebook page @KaiZenComedySF.