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Seth Socolow
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Today
I am excited to share an interview with Seth Socolow, CEO of
Telling Stories, Inc.. With great determination and
passion, Seth launched his software company and deployed his
first software product in a pure bootstrapped mode. I know
you’ll enjoy his entrepreneurial views and insights.
Anthony: Seth, what led you
to launch Telling Stories?
Seth: I was at a point in my
life where I had realized many of my career goals. I always
wanted to work for an American company in Europe - a dream I
fulfilled. As I was consulting for a very small software
company in Paris, France, I shared an office with the CEO
and got to know her business well. During the course of this
8-month consulting assignment, I came to the realization
that starting a software company was definitely within my
reach.
At that time, I wanted to do something entrepreneurial
and was looking for the next great entrepreneurial
inspiration. Whenever the next great idea came, I was ready
to go for it. I was looking at a USB thumb drive, and was
brainstorming ideas with a friend of mine on the kind of
data that one would want to store on that device. Amazingly,
you can store a great deal of content on these devices,
which are becoming increasingly inexpensive. We thought of
storing music, pictures and art; basically anything that can
be digitized that has been important to you over the course
of a lifetime.
I kept going to events where there was a tribute done to
the guest of honor. These were weddings, major milestone
birthdays, graduations, retirement parties, and even a
memorial service. I hadn’t seen any products that were
geared towards making it easy to integrate all these
components of the tribute. Having worked in the software
industry, I knew that the average person would have
difficulty completing such a project, and that one would
need to come up with a user friendly tool to help him/her
put it together. So I took the concept a step further and
launched Telling Stories.
Anthony: Can you give us a
brief overview of your product?
Seth: Telling Stories, as the
name indicates, is about giving people with very little
computer experience an easy-to-use tool for creating
multimedia stories. Our first product is all about a life
story. We would like to release additional products for
different, more limited types of stories. But right now our
product is about telling a life story with multimedia. This
could be the result of an inspiration to record your own
memories to pass to your family, or your desire to create a
tribute to someone else.
Telling Stories allows you to pull together:
- photos, both digital and conventional (we help with
the process of scanning photo prints)
- home movies (once again, if they are not digital we
have a service that helps people get those converted so
they can be used digitally)
- favorite songs, whether you have them in MP3 format or
in your CD collection (we have a built-in CD ripper)
- text
Obviously, the story is a big part of it. So Telling
Stories provides a way to create the narrative that pulls
all this multimedia together, either in the form of text on
screen or by recording the narrative in one or several
voices. The output is something between a slide show and a
movie. It’s available as a self-running executable program
that can be played on any Windows computer. It can also be
put on a CD. In the original product, the story is projected
from the laptop at an event. We are about to launch the
first upgrade which will allow people to generate a DVD so
that they can play their stories on a television.
It’s quite a powerful thing to see people watch their
whole life flash before them.
Anthony: What is your target
market?
Seth: This is something we’ve
been struggling to define. However, our biggest segment
today is the family history enthusiast, a segment that
definitely skews more towards women. There is a phrase that
people are throwing around these days that describes our
target market well: “The Chief Memory Officer” in the
family.
Also, scrapbooking is an extremely popular hobby in
America today. It’s grown to be a $2.5 billion dollar
industry where customers are for the most part women.
Anthony: As a bootstrapped
startup, how did you find resources for product development
and how long did it take to complete the development cycle?
Seth: I worked in the software
and Internet development business. So I had the right types
of contacts to find the people I needed for this project.
Times were also difficult back then and a lot of people had
been downsized. So there were plenty of talented people in
the marketplace who didn’t have full time jobs and who were
willing to a) get involved in something very exciting and b)
work for less money than they used to.
As far as the product development cycle is concerned, it
took exactly 2 years from the original idea to launch. I had
the original idea in May 2002, and launched the original
product in May 2004. There were some stops and starts along
the way. Obviously I needed to recruit the team so we didn’t
begin coding until September of 2002.
Anthony: Did you follow the
traditional product development process?
Seth: I had been trained
formally on that process, had written market requirement
documents, and worked with engineers to turn those into
engineering specifications and then have the product
developed. In the case of Telling Stories, I think it was
something of a short circuited development cycle: I had
written up what I wanted in terms of a requirements
document, and as often is the case when you involve a
marketing person in that process, you’re blue-skying the
features and finding later that there is no way you’ll be
able to implement everything you want for your first
version. The next step was really to bring in a user
interface specialist who would help me come up with
interfaces around all of my ideas, and then work with the
programmer to actually build the product. In retrospect, I
would have liked to have had a more formal architecture
prior to developing. At the same time, that’s not always
practical when you’re prototyping.
Anthony: What is your
approach to building the team?
Seth: This step is critical
for any entrepreneur. One of the most important lessons I
learned in the course of running this company is the
distinction between who is an employee, who is a partner,
who is a consultant, who is an advisor, and what kind of
expectations to have of all those people. I think many
entrepreneurs face these issues and the only way to deal
with them is to go through the process.
You hire someone who is really committed at the beginning
and then his or her time gets diverted elsewhere. It comes
down to what motivates people. Some people are motivated by
money. That’s not the type of person you want to work with
in a startup because you don’t have a lot of money to give
them. Other people are motivated by being part of something,
or thinking that the work being done is for the greater
good. Others are motivated because they are great risk
takers and can see that there’s going to be a long term
payout even if there isn’t any short term cash.
To build the team, I’ve taken various paths. The most
effective one has been to tap into every area of my network
and try to find the right people that way. I’ve also placed
ads on CraigsList. I think CraigsList list is an incredibly
powerful tool. You get tons of responses back. Particularly
if you spend some good time crafting what you’re looking for
ahead of time. Regardless of how well you describe your
needs, you will get a lot of responses that do not match
your requirements. You'll need to spend time weeding them
out, and then calling people back to try to find the right
person. It’s particularly challenging when it all comes down
to people’s motivation.
Anthony With the job market
improving, is it becoming harder for Telling Stories to
recruit good talent?
Seth: It’s getting a little
bit more difficult. At the same time, we’ve validated what
we’re doing, so it’s easier to see the potential. Once you
have traction, there's more interest because people can see
the upside.
Anthony: Which channels do
you currently use to sell your product?
Seth: Our product is available
for sale at Fry’s Electronics, as well as on our website.
We’ve also partnered with various companies and Dell just
started selling our program on their web site this past
week. This is very exciting for us in terms of product
exposure and brand recognition.
Retail sales have been increasingly challenging for all
hard media goods. The record industry is fighting very hard
as downloads are cannibalizing their CD sales. The same
phenomenon is now being experienced with DVDs and software.
More and more is being downloaded and less and less is being
sold at retail outlets. As a result, direct marketing
opportunities have been a big part of our sales and
marketing strategy. We like to team up with a company that
has an e-mail list of interested parties. They market to
that list and we share the revenues on what’s actually sold.
The model for software sales is changing and we have to keep
up with it.
Anthony: Have you actively
pursued public relations as a marketing tool?
Seth: We’ve done a phenomenal
job with PR. It’s been about explaining this new concept and
our unique approach to solving a problem that so many people
have. It’s been easy for us to get great press coverage
because we solve a problem that is very easy to understand.
Everyone that I’ve ever talked to has piles and piles of
boxes of photographs or old movies in their attic, closet or
basement.
The press relates to the problem and sees a company
that’s approaching it uniquely. I also think that one
shouldn’t discount, in any marketing effort, how much people
respect entrepreneurs: this has been a big lesson for me.
People want to help. They understand that you’re putting a
lot on the line and they want to see you be successful. It’s
one of the nicest things about human nature.
On our launch we gave a gentleman by the name of Walter
Mossberg from The Wall Street Journal an exclusive.
Mossberg is well respected in the country as the consumer
technology guru. He wrote a nice piece about us. He also
goes on CNBC Power Lunch each week and speaks about what’s
in his column. So by virtue of being covered in his column,
we had television coverage on our first day, which is pretty
exciting for a small company like ours. We were also written
up in USA Today the following week. More recently, in
February 2005, we received coverage in PC Magazine,
where we got 4 out of 5 stars. We’ve also enjoyed coverage
in scrapbooking publications and some family tree magazines.
In addition, I’ve been on the radio a couple of times, and
in early May I recorded a segment that will air on a show
called Let’s Talk Computers
(www.letstalkcomputers.com).
Anthony: How significant is
the cost of customer support for Telling Stories?
Seth: This is something we’ve
given a lot of thought to. I’ve already identified an
outsourced partner for customer support. However, we haven’t
reached the volumes of customer calls yet to justify turning
that service on. In total, it’s probably about an hour a
month, which is nice. There’s a real human interaction with
our customers, and that’s important when you’re offering a
product like ours. People have a deadline – some important
family member is about to celebrate a big event and they
have to complete their project by a certain time. So we have
to be very concerned with these issues in our customer
support.
As we reach 10 hours of customer support a month, we
probably won’t want to do it ourselves anymore. It’s
actually inexpensive to outsource support. And anyone
outsourcing support has these questions to face: Are we
going to get the same quality when we outsource? What’s most
important about customer support is the feedback you receive
from your customers. So if you introduce someone between you
and them, is the information going to flow the way it needs
to?
Anthony: Do you have
interesting customer experiences to share?
Seth: The testimonials we get
back from our customers are important motivating factors for
me. There are two that stand out in my mind because they
both mention that viewing the stories they developed with
Telling Stories had brought tears to their eyes. So there is
truly an emotional impact being made by our software. We
also have people who send written feedback and say, "I love
this program." You know, love and software programs don’t
necessarily go hand in hand. This is certainly what we were
looking to do: create something that is much more than a
software utility, something that has an emotional impact.
And we’ve been successful in realizing that goal.
We had a gentleman who was part of one my early focus
groups for the beta version of the product. He came up to me
after the session and said that he wanted the software. I
asked him why he wanted it, given that it was not ready yet.
In fact, it hadn’t even been released as beta yet. He was a
controller in Silicon Valley who had been downsized. He
explained to me that he wanted to create a multimedia resume
with our software and use it to import reports that he’d
done, scan in some old business cards, and include pictures
of people he worked with. He felt that if he could bring his
multimedia story to the attention of an HR department, in
addition to his traditional resume, he would stand out from
the pile. That was something I never even thought of. More
and more, I’ve been hearing about the concept of multimedia
resumes, which I think they’re teaching in some schools.
This could be a good application for our product in the
future.
Anthony: What advice do you
have for today's entrepreneur?
Seth: Keep in mind that
determination is probably one of the most important
qualities you can have as an entrepreneur. If you haven’t
already done so, you should read the book “The Alchemist” by
Paulo Coelho. Being an entrepreneur is a very hard
undertaking. At the same time, the rewards come in so many
different ways. It’s very different from anything else you
can do. And you have to realize that if it weren’t this
hard, more people would be doing it. You’re really stepping
outside of what most people view as the conventional course
of action, which is get a job and earn money working for
someone else.
You’re going to be faced with some difficult challenges,
even just with making the decision to do it. It’s such a
divergent path from convention that people won’t understand
it, and many will tend to be naysayers. I think if people
discourage you, a lot of times it’s because they’re jealous.
They wish they had the courage to take the risk that you’re
about to take. So just don’t let that dissuade you. If
you’re sure you’re on to a good idea, you believe in it, and
feel that you have the determination to carry it through,
don’t let anyone stop you. That’s my most pressing advice to
today’s entrepreneur.
On the other hand, as you start your entrepreneurial
venture you’ll come into contact with a very different group
of people on a day to day basis. I describe it sometimes as
an informal club that you’ve joined. And this whole world of
people opens up to you. In many cases, they’re other
entrepreneurs. They’re the only people who can relate to
what you’re doing. They know how hard it is and they want
you to be successful. The true entrepreneurs are sharing
contacts, sharing ideas, making introductions for you. It’s
great to be a part of that club, and it’s something you can
only become a part of by taking the plunge. Being an
entrepreneur can be pretty lonely. You should connect with
entrepreneurs at networking events so you can become part of
this community. I recall meeting a gentleman at an EBIG
(www.ebig.org) event in the East Bay some time ago. He
gave a keynote speech and told the story of an original idea
he had about starting a chain to change motor oil after
being out of college for a couple of years. He met dozens of
VCs on Sand Hill Road, but every one of them said no to him.
Finally, he came to the realization that he was never going
to get VC capital. He went and got a $5,000 loan from his
grandmother. She put the fear of God into him about losing
her money. And he never did lose it. He built a successful
chain of oil change centers and ended up buying an oil
company to go further up stream in the process so he could
improve his supply prices. I was inspired by the story he
told.
Bio
Seth Socolow, CEO and Founder of
Telling Stories, Inc., brings a proven track record of
creating and marketing software and web sites that change
how people use computers in their everyday lives. At Telling
Stories, his most significant early achievements are the
recruitment of the management team, completion of Telling
Stories V.1, and the securing of retail distribution.
Previously he was Product Manager at Intuit for the UK and
German versions of Quicken 2000. He also helped conceive and
implement interactive personal finance Web sites in France,
Germany, the UK, Canada, and Australia. In 1999 he left
Intuit for AltaVista, where he was Product Manager for Babel
Fish, the company’s machine translation service. He created
the “World Channel”, which provided real-time almanac
information to consumers and resulted in $2.5 Million annual
revenues to AltaVista. In 2000-2001, he was the London-based
European Marketing Manager, at which time he launched 17
country-specific search engines.
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