If you are a social media influencer or any content producer, you know the value of good content to maintain and grow your audience. Aside from content creation, to be able to deliver it quickly at the right time is of paramount importance.
Constantly releasing quality content to satisfy the needs of audiences becomes quite a challenge when you are primarily dealing with videos. As time, effort, and cost associated with videos is higher than any other forms of content that influencers normally deal with.
Often times, contemporary video creators are found to be negligence or don’t give proper consideration to one or more stages of creating a good video due to: time-constraint, the stress of constantly churning out new content, lack of resources and ability.
Mostly, it’s the editing part that gets undermined due to above-mentioned reasons. Moreover, some video creators may find it boring as it takes time and is a lengthy task if you are not an experienced editor.
Vidchops was created to take all the hassle of editing videos from the Youtubers/creators and enable them to focus on what they do best i.e. shooting/creating videos for their audiences without worrying about the tedious task of editing videos.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! So, how it all started and how you became a founder?
Reflecting back, it all makes sense that I became an entrepreneur as I had all the typical tells growing up.
In elementary school I sold candy as a “soccer fundraiser.” In high school I sold burnt CDs. It’s just one of the ways my brain works.
Basketball has always been my thing, along with my passion for side hustles. While playing basketball professionally in Europe, I didn’t have access to English TV, so I was watching a lot of YouTube.
I was bored one afternoon and did a Google search on “how to make money online.” One resource I found taught me how to create an audience on YouTube and then sell to that audience.
So I started creating YouTube videos teaching players different moves, drills, and other tips and tricks.
I grew it to 200,000 subscribers and 20 million views. I also created an entire info and physical product line or what I call a “background business” behind that.
And during that time I had an “Ah ha” moment. The amount of video editing I was doing was insane.
I knew other YouTubers were dealing with the same thing. I wanted to solve that problem. I imagined, what a life it would look like helping others grow on YouTube and it looked like a fun, fulfilling job.
So helping other YouTubers grow their audiences became my mission and Vidchops was born.
Can you share the funniest or most interesting story that happened to you since you started your company?
On a cold, rainy night I was eating Campbell’s Tomato Soup and chatting with my wife about the possibility of ghosts existing versus aliens.
Yeah, I know, random! Mid sentence I got an email notification on my phone that said I got a new Vidchops signup.
When I checked, it said that Laura Lee had just signed up with us. That is my wife’s favorite YouTuber and arguably the most famous beauty guru online.
When I told my wife, she spilled soup all over our brand new carpet in complete astonishment. I was just as amazed and that is a moment I’ll never forget in this startup journey.
We edited her videos for a long time and really enjoyed working with her.
What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?
There are 3 main things that allow us to stand out.
First is our pricing. We offer a monthly, flat-rate subscription that basically handles all of our clients’ video editing needs. They don’t have to worry about hiring and managing a freelancer as well.
Secondly, it’s my experience with YouTube and other social media platforms. We’ve trained our editors to edit in a way that is best for YouTube or whatever platform our client is on.
Vidchops has a CEO that knows online video and that gives us a huge edge over the competition.
Third is our ability to deliver high quality edits with super fast turnaround time (48 hours) that separates us from our competitors.
48 hour turnaround time is pretty much unheard of in the video production world and we deliver on that day in and day out.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?
Growing up all of my friends were athletes. We all loved sports. I played basketball a few times a week with a guy who later became one of my best friends. His name is Lucas.
He was into basketball, but was more so interested in making money online. He worked from home which to me was odd, but had a lot of benefits as he was able to play basketball whenever he wanted.
He was an affiliate marketer, and he was the first person to introduce me to making money online when I was just 16 years old.
This was back in 2003. At that time, I still didn’t consider it as a career then. It wasn’t until about 10 years later I started my online basketball training company.
I started Baller Boot Camp, Lucas was also working from home, running an ecommerce business selling high-speed memory cards.
I would take my laptop over to his house and work on Baller Boot Camp, while he processed thousands of orders a month through his Ebay and Amazon accounts.
He was a great sounding board. He and I would, and still do, stay up late on Friday nights talking business while our wives sip wine together.
We know each others deepest and darkest business secrets and I’m grateful for his friendship and mentorship.
Are you working on any exciting projects now?
We are getting ready to launch our own in-house web app to help clients and editors manage each videos progress.
It is similar to a trello board that alerts clients when their video goes from a-z.
Any advice for young entrepreneurs looking to make a mark in the online world?
If you can’t get the traffic you can’t run an online business. I’ve launched a few companies that just didn’t cut it in the end due to the fact I couldn’t get traffic.
This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!