Videolicious’ Amanda Eilian on wholesome Pessimism in Entrepreneurship
João-Pierre S. Ruth November 09, 2015
should extra founders take heed to their inner pessimist?
Amanda Eilian, co-founder and president of recent York-based Videolicious, mentioned this trait is vital to success. “Pessimism is in reality a favorable factor as an entrepreneur,” she mentioned.
She spoke Friday at the Cornell Entrepreneurship Summit in the big apple, a daylong experience that integrated Hampton Creek CEO Josh Tetrick, and Brandon Steiner, an outdated-college Brooklynite who literally found a solution to make a buck promoting dust as CEO of Steiner sports activities advertising and marketing & Memorabilia.
Eilian’s message used to be extra about not believing one’s own hype, and not more about walking round grumbling that the whole lot sucks. Videolicious developed software that lets companies simply create professional-high quality video, without hiring a 3rd party to do the work.
In in this day and age of startup hype, frothiness, and rumblings of the following downturn, Eilian had an exceptional level. probably the most overinflated expectations that encompass entrepreneurs could make it sound like they are skipping gleefully via candy Land. “Entrepreneurs are speculated to imagine they are rising unicorns in a single day,” she stated. “Any article you learn on entrepreneurship will inform you optimism is the #1 success issue.”
Eilian mentioned healthy pessimism helped her after her firm obtained started in 2007, and she or he and co-founder Matt Singer made the rounds to are trying to find doable buyers. They landed a meeting with a excessive-profile West Coast challenge capitalist, flew out to California, and gave a pitch they idea was compelling—only for the investor to go away with out asking any questions.
Believing it used to be a moment of triumph, Singer raised his hand for a excessive five, Eilian said, however she knew the reality. “in the event that they don’t ask questions, that’s a in reality bad signal, now not a excellent one,” she stated.
The duo by no means heard from that venture capitalist again. despite that early rejection, Videolicious has survived. for this reason Eilian called pessimism “the flexibility to think about the absolute worst thing that could occur, and then innovate round it.”
the original plan for Videolicious, she mentioned, was to bring skilled-caliber video modifying to the plenty, however that concept could be difficult to scale up. the company signed up a diverse range of customers, including a file firm and a hotel chain, then made up our minds to double down on the retail space and pitch the provider to large shops. but that was once no longer sufficient for Eilian. “We had revenue from day one,” she said. “even though we obtained a hundred of the nation’s high retailers, it wasn’t every person. We weren’t attaining the dimensions we notion shall we.”
She additionally had issues about the tenuous relationship with her company’s shoppers. The licensing contracts each and every brought in five to six figures in annual income, Eilian stated, yet at many corporations most effective two or three individuals on team of workers used the instrument. That made Videolicious extremely prone to turnover. “If somebody left or acquired promoted, certainly one of our few points of contact in that firm was once long gone,” Eilian said.
the appearance of smartphones—particularly the Apple iPhone 4, in a position to taking pictures video with first rate quality resolution and providing greater processing power—offered a brand new opportunity for Videolicious to remain aggressive, she said. on the other hand, it took some arm twisting in-home. “no longer each person in our firm was certain,” Eilian stated. “I was once telling everyone to turn far from a lucrative legacy product.”
Launching a fully cellular platform used to be not straightforward, she mentioned, but her pessimism compelled her to push for the trade. “I used to be envisioning the worst-case state of affairs, and that i didn’t want somebody else to leapfrog us with this technology,” Eilian mentioned.
In 2011, Videolicious released its app for video editing on the App retailer, and the reception a long way exceeded expectations, she stated. With the 2 versions of the app, one for prosumers and a far better company model, catching on, Videolicious once again caught the attention of doable backers. the trouble used to be that they had … next web page »
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