Robert Sandie
By now it’s no secret that I have been working on vid.io with my good friend Todd. For the next few months we are working with some select customers rethinking the entire video management paradigm. Would love to tell more publicly, but going to keep our heads down till the right moment. If you wish to discuss privately, my new email is r at vid.io.
Life has been a chaotic lately and what has helped me get through this and been a solid in my life, has been Dana.
This July 8th I was lucky enough to get engaged at Ocean City Music Peer. A few weeks earlier she said this was her favorite place, and the plotting began.
The story of making this happen started working with The Billboard Boat to convey, the question. It was interesting talking Mike the owner, another entrepreneur, who has been working on this for last 5 years. They mostly do advertising but do have a plan for proposals (very reasonable).
Anycase, BillyD made a custom video with animoto (on photos I gave him) that he gave billboard people to play at 10:15 as they drove past Ocean City. It wasn’t easy getting it into SWF format but Billy pulled through.
Billy recruited a cast of videographers, including Tom Conners and Josh Gold, who were acting like photographers on the pier. Billy and I were texting (I said it was work related) as Dana and I were walking to go “get breakfast”. I suddenly “got sick” and had to goto the bathroom, where Billy mic’ed me up. I then needed more air and asked Dana if we could sit at the edge of the pier. Tom was moving someone from the seat as we walked up (Dana didn’t have a clue)…. We sat down. And then the boat came…
Just can’t give enough thanks to Billy and crew for helping make this happen. And more love and thanks to Dana for accepting 
Have been thinking long and hard how I share this.
For the last 6 years I have been sacrificing to grow Viddler to point it is at today: profitable, 25+ employees and growing.
It’s been a journey that has included: sleepless nights, building brand awareness, promoting other brands, organizing server growth, pitching, organizing capture of viral videos, attracting customers, thuggie promotion, mockups galore, product management.. you name it.. all with 3 months of capital invested at a time out of Bethlehem, PA .
Two weeks ago, the board notified that my services were no longer required. Will still be a highly invested board member (update: resigned week or two after for personal reasons) but my role operationally as CEO/President is no longer. It put’s me in an interesting position as this wasn’t exactly voluntary. And a slew of questions have been keeping me up…
How much should I share on my removal?
It’s clear to me, I should probably keep my mouth shut. Am still a very large shareholder and it doesn’t do anyone any good to share my perceptions publicly with how/why this happened. This is hard for me as I am generally a very transparent person. I want to share the lessons I have learned from this. After the fate of Viddler is decided, I will probably be more public on lessons learned/etc.
What do I focus on next?
It’s very clear my primary passion still is in online video. All paths are pulling me in this direction, and will maintain an open mind with new opportunities here.
Where?
As much as I can try to justify it being in Bethlehem, PA doesn’t continue to make much sense. Am being pulled strongly a in direction of Silicon Valley. Will also be exploring opportunities out of NYC, Seattle, Philly, Chicago, Boston, Austin, and Denver. UPDATE: And as Jim reminded me can’t forget Reno!
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Viddler was a long journey. Am excited for something new.
As Billy Disney (ex-viddler videographer) recently shared with me, “Time to get back to what you do best”
While at Streaming Media East this year had privilege of doing an interview with Andy from Beet.tv.
Todd Troxell, Systems Architect and friend did a fantastic job working with High Scalability to share what’s going on underneath the covers at Viddler.
It shows the good, bad, lessons and future of the Viddler platform from a technical aspect. Some folks might frown on this as TMI… I tend to side on transparency + honesty always winning.
Would love to hear your thoughts on TMI vs. Transparency FTW.
Now on to skydiving
Today, Colin criticized me on my choice of Twitter photo hosting solution as it included very intrusive ads next to them (plixi).
He told me that he personally blogs vs. Twitpic, capturing the long-tail on the content with Google. It was really something to think about as he was getting thousands of views on an old piece he did.
I didn’t want to blog as that would dilute the high value of this feed (please know I am mocking myself).
Anycase, after a quick Google, found a nice plugin by @michaeltyson. Recently, been using it and results are not bad. The bad side is Twitter clients don’t work with just anyone for previews. They really need to adopt OpenGraph like facebook.
What do you think I should do? Own my own Twitter photos or host them on Twitpic, Plixi or yfrog?
Consumerization of business is by far my favorite new tagline. It’s also known as “Consumerization of Enterprise” but screw that, it’s bigger then that. It’s all business.
Recently been hearing it on the interwebs.. on Techcrunch.tv introducing Bullpen Capital and then Techcrunch Disrupt.
It’s a new buzz phrase thats caught on but Jason Fried from 37signals was talking about this wayyyy back in 2007. I personally remember hearing Jason talk about this at 2007 SXSW “we do extremely well in small departments inside of large enterprise”.
What this buzzy tagline is formalizing:
- new products becoming indistinguishable from enterprise apps
- reduction of large gatekeepers in the enterprise
- going directly to end users in companies
- consumer’ish startup price points
- self service FTW
- end of the IT department
- very low signup friction (google app integrations, etc)
- one hell of a marketing/customer penetration strategy for growth companies
As Viddler has started as a consumer company and worked its way upstream to business services, this tagline is golden and plan on overusing it like Web 2.0 in 2007.
Today, I was on Pandora listening to some music, to find yet another LivingSocial ad.
This really got me to reflect on last 5-10 years…
Google, Flickr, Facebook and Twitter never advertised early in the growth of their success.
They won peoples heart by offering such a unique offering that they didn’t need consumer advertising. I put my 2005 hat on, and I remember at the conferences when advertising for consumer services was frowned upon as you should be able to capture users based on the quality of your product alone. Also, “the right type of people” (early adopters) signup when you are not advertising and feel more committed to the product.
It’s not only LivingSocial, new growth consumer companies have demonstrated more aggressive paid marketing levels including scvngr, Zynga, and GroupOn.
You can’t watch the superbowl or navigate an iPhone app without seeing an ad for these companies.
Is the cool “don’t need to advertise” attitude gone?
If so, what was the tipping point?
Did GroupOn 6B valuation change peoples psyche on this?
Have we reached hypercompetitive level for time to mass market that this is now required?
Is this acceleration a long-term trend or a short-term fad?
Not sure I have the answer but one thing has changed… Advertising is more accepted for consumer growth internet companies then it was a year or two ago.
About Me
Hello and welcome to my personal blog. My name is Robert Sandie, a digital entrepreneur, innovating with my second startup, vid.io. Join me as I update this blog on the daily challenges of startup.
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