Speaker
Wistia product that's in beta. And so, it's nice to able to save people if they run into an issue. Wistia the second time it's happened that I was working with somebody, and they're on Riverside ran into a problem. But it records the individual feeds just like Riverside. It also is recording into the cloud as a backup as we go. Nice. So you'll and I'll just I can share it all with you after. It's very easy, so you'll get it. Oh, so we, so we have a demo and a podcast at the same time. Yes. Exactly. And just so you know, in terms of interface stuff, there's this stage button on the bottom. I don't know how big your screen is, but you can hide the additional, like, feeds. If you hit stage, it'll just maximize the conversation area. This is so fun. There's also a pop out button so you can hit pop out, and then it'll give you, like, a picture and picture that will live above something. So if you have notes or something, you can do that. Awesome. Yeah. Any in any case, here we are. Oh my god. I'm immediately canceling Riverside and signing up for this because that was BS. And microphones and all that, like, are they they're, like, more intuitive, like, connecting, like, a microphone and, like, I don't I mean, look. This is it is a hard problem. Like, I feel for Riverside too. It's a hard problem because every single person's setup is different. So it's like making sure that you actually have the control over which mic and which speaker and they switch and iOS does all. I don't know if you're on a Mac or PC, but the new iOS and the new macOS is really awesome because it will switch. Like, if you have headphones And I, like, put my attention from my phone to my computer. It'll just switch automatically. But for things like this, it screws it up. So if you get, like, a call on your phone while you're recording on your Mac, sometimes Oh, it'll It'll it'll switch all it's it's annoying. But in any case, nice to meet you. Welcome to You too. Podcast. Oh my god. This is gonna be fun. Well, first of all, thank you for your patience. Oh, no worries. No worries. Before this, after this, and during this. So I really really appreciate it. And, yeah, I'm I'm sure I'll just drop a folder and you can just plop all the things Yep. Later. Okay. So I'm using your platform to do this. Oh my gosh. That's actually kinda fun. Alright. You ready? I guess I ordered your recordings. No. We're we're ready. Alright. I was about to plug my microphone, but I'm like, don't wanna f with it, so I'm just gonna leave it over there. Yeah. Yeah. That sounds good. I think, you mean, you can also you can add the studio sound to it. So Oh. Oh, oh, yeah. I'm I'm an editor. Great. Yeah. I mean, if I'm saying, like, there's post processing you can do that will make it sound like it's actually built into Wistia, not another plug, but, and it's in other platforms too, but that will make it sound richer like it was recorded with a nicer nicer microphone. So Yeah. You said you'd script with that. Is Wistia live the beta? Yeah. You can get into the beta. Yeah. Oh, okay. Alright. Let's let's get this started before I run out for before you get to run to your next meeting. Sounds good. Sounds good. I just I'm I'm a tech nerd. Alright. Let's start. Okay. My editor is gonna laugh his ass out. Alright. Hey, y'all. Welcome to the RevenueMind podcast where revenue leaders talk all things mental health. I'm Julia, your Wistia, and with us is Chris. Welcome, Chris. Thank you for having me. Excited to be here. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. It's been it's been a road, but we we got here. Yeah. Just a nice straight road, all going as planned. Exactly. So the question that I kick off with, and it kinda leads the podcast, the direction, is what makes you you? Wow. Had a question. You know, I I feel like my answer to this has changed over time as I've learned who I am, and, we do you know, this is from, like, feedback from my wife, from my kids, from my peers at work, three sixty feedback. Today, I would describe myself as someone who is, like, very excitable, very optimistic, always looking for a path towards making something work instead of saying, like, hey. I don't think this can work. Someone who I really value spending my time on things that I care about and with people I care about. And so, like, I love what I do every day, and I love I love solve solving hard problems with people that I that are really fun to solve hard problems with. And then I love just, like, I don't wanna waste my time. And so I don't wanna waste my time with people who give too much negative energy. I don't wanna waste my time with people that aren't pushing me to grow. I don't wanna waste my time when I could be spending time with my kids, my family. So, yeah, I would say it's like a optimistic, excitable, looking for a path towards things that are that for how things can work. And, I think the thing that I the love the most of my about my job specifically is trying to creatively solve problems. Like, that's what gives me energy. That's amazing. Couple of questions that I that came up, when you were speaking. So what if something doesn't work? Like, you you try. You try. You try. And you mentioned I'm I'm a big puzzle person, so I love solving puzzles. What if you can't fix it? What then? I mean, the truth is a lot of stuff doesn't work. And so I think a lot of it is my mindset going in is, you know, does this need to work now? Does this need to work eventually? Like, what kind of not working are we talking about is is the question. So I I've written about this before. I think it's a good example is, you know, Wistia is not your average tech company. Like, we're not VC backed. We actually raised debt to buy out our angel investors. We've been around for nineteen years at this point. We've tried a lot of different stuff. We've we've seen a lot of different trends and things shift and change. And for most of the business, we were video hosting and analytics platform. But a few years ago, we launched a webinar platform in, like, a full fledged everything, registration emails, like live stage, q and a, polls, integrations into all the major every everything. Right? And when we decide we decided to do that in twenty twenty one. We acquired a company that was doing webinars. We thought that was going to be the answer. We got going, started to integrate it in. We realized this is not gonna be answer. It's it's not we couldn't integrate it seamlessly enough in because it was different stack, different people. So we rebuilt everything. So you could look at that as like a failure. In some respects, it was. In other respects, it showed the company how serious we were about doing this. Then we set about building our own version of this team on it. You know, nine people working for a while. Year later or so, we launch it. The first month we launch it, how many customers try it? Two. And did they keep using it? No. And then it was like the next month, how many customers tried it? Four. Did they keep using it? No. And I think there's a lot of months you would look in there and you would say, my god. Like, this is an abject failure. But if you were to go look at our numbers today, you'd be like, oh my god. This is a wild success. This thing is growing so fast. It's got so much attention, so much interest. The product is so good. And so I feel like I run into things that don't work all the time. And the question is, is this is it not working and we're hearing crickets? Is it not working and we're getting feedback? That's the first question I look at. If it's not working, we're getting crickets and no one cares, then, yeah, that might be a failure and we should walk away from it. But if it's not working, but we're actually getting feedback, people only give you feedback if they care, and only the most engaged people give you feedback. So it's it's actually usually representative of much larger group. So, I I really key in on that, and I always try to put things perspective of the long term. So I have assumptions of what I think things can go in the long term. And then the question is, is the short term telling me that we're on the right path or not? And we might be failing royally, but if I believe we're on the right path, it's pretty easy for me to stay on it. But if if the if we're failing and the feedback is, there's no feedback or it's like we're totally in the wrong direction, then I will reevaluate. Yeah. That makes a little sense. How did that during that time, how did that pressure affect you and your team? Well, I lace, I've learned from doing this a long time that, like, you should only go after problems you wanna work on for for a long time. And it it reframes failure completely because if you have, if I need to have a ton of revenue from something in three months, First of all, it's really hard to predict the future. But, secondly, like, it it is very often that that will not be the case. So needing that is where the part that I would look at, as zeroing in on. And I've just learned from making that mistake in the past of having expectations that were too short term and not recognizing how much work it really takes to make something great, to make people aware of it, to find your lane on where what you can do that's that's so unique and so valuable to the market that they'll be delighted. They'll share it with others. And so, yeah, I think it's just like, there were definitely times when we had failure. Actually, it was probably looking back. There's probably there's there's things I can think of that I actually thought were failure failures and gave up on, and they weren't. That's that's a big one. It's like things that my expectation was, this is gonna ten x this year, and it didn't ten x at three x. And, we failed. God, we suck. And it was like, no. We had a we had an outrageous comparison we were making for ourselves that was self inflicted. And you go back and look and, like, actually, we're killing it. And the mistake we made was not real it was was not framing the the challenge properly. Oh, for sure. I was at six cents just, like, kind of I was it was during the, oh my gosh, the triple, triple, double, double For tech startups. And now I feel like we've we've, I don't know if we've calmed down, but we're but it's it's Well, I think it Yeah. The expectations for the AI first businesses is, like, quadruple quadruple quadruple. Yeah. And it's moved on to this. And it and it's like, look. If you're thinking about everything from the perspective of an of a venture investor, yeah, the the whole model only works with the power law exceptions. Right? Like, that's the only way you get a return. And the accept so it's like you need to model and push for, like, what those exceptions are. But ninety nine percent of companies are not gonna be that. So what do you do if you're not that is the question. That's where it gets into, like, how are you funded? How are you set up? How do you maintain on the problem? Like what what goals are you trying to set yourselves up for? And, it's just a different game. Right? It's like it's reframing the rules, I think, is what you have to do so that you can play a game that you can actually win. And for most people, it's probably not the triple, triple, triple, double, double. That's like, Woodchuck could. Yeah. That's that's what when you said it, that that's what it remind me of. Yeah. Did you have initial expectations, like, when you first started Wistia Oh, yeah. That and what were they, and how did they hurt and or help you? I mean, at the very, very beginning, it's just me and my cofounder, Brendan. We had no clue about funding or anything. So, we're a year out of college. We both had some savings, and we're really lucky. Like, my dad was a professor of computer science, at Brown, and he was given made it as he was given an option, like, before I was born. Does he wanna pay for his own health insurance? And if he does that, then Brown will cover to the college tuition of his children, or they will pay for his health insurance, but he there it won't be, like, this tuition benefit. And he he made that decision before I was born. I have two older siblings. And because of that, I was able to go to college and not have debt. And so unbelievable decision. By the way, if he hadn't had four children, it wouldn't have worked out. So but it worked out. And that meant that, like, after a year of work, I was able to save up something. My cofounder is in a similar position. And so when we started Wistia, we thought we had enough money to survive for six months. So our plan was start it, do it, and then either six months in, we would sell the business as we ran out of money, or we would just if we felt that it was like we couldn't do that, it was just failure, we just tell no one that we tried because we're embarrassed by the idea of failure. And that was the strategy. That was the plan. And then when as we got into it, it turned out that, like, it was both harder than I ever could have imagined, but also much more fun than I could have imagined, easier to keep doing. We had modeled our living expenses. We live way cheaper than we thought we're going to, and it made us survive to getting about a year in, which is when we got our first paying customer. And because our expenses were so low, within, like, a year and a half, we were actually covering all our expenses. And that was not expected. It was not, rocket ship growth. Although I think in hindsight, it was one of those things. Kind of what we're talking about before with failure is, like, the first month we figured out the what what Wistia could be, we got one customer, and they're paying four hundred dollars a month. And the second month, we got our second customer, and they were also paying four dollars a month. And the third month, we got our third. So it's one customer a month. Thirty ish days a month, you're not getting customers. Sucks. But, actually, the industries, the customers, they really loved the product. They stuck around forever. They weren't canceling. They were telling other people. And so I think, actually, if you were to look at that looking at it in hindsight, it it happened pretty quickly that we got really big brands trusting us, found what our product was, started to find our way towards the business model. So, yeah, it was it was very cool. And even what we do today is just like an evolution of those those early insights. That's amazing. Yeah. I wasn't I'm actually writing down notes, not doing work. I promise. I didn't think you were. No. No. No. I'm definitely yeah. I'm definitely like, oh, okay. Making the, you know, neuropathway connections. Great. No. That makes a lot of sense. So throughout your time at Wist, you mentioned nineteen years, I think. Yeah. What was your experience with, because it's a two part question, but learning how to balance as a phenomenon is really tough. Yeah. And if you burned out or when you burned out or if you still burn out, how do you handle it? I've never burned out, but I would say I have spent a lot of effort trying to get my work life balance set up. And the moment that it shifted so we had this moment, a little more than ten years in where we had the opportunity to sell the business. And, I mean, SaaS companies, people are always poking around private equity, stuff like that. We had three companies try to buy us at the same moment. So my cofounder and I took it seriously, and we got into the whole process. We got pretty close to selling, like, real close. There's a long story there, but, when we were sitting there saying, what would we do if we sold? And we're like, we're gonna have all this money. We're not gonna have Wistia anymore. What are we gonna do? And so we're like, well, we love working together. We think we have a unique partnership. We'd start another company. Okay. This is in, like, twenty seventeen. We're looking at how video is changing. We've seen two major shifts happen with video since we started the business. The first one was DSLRs, which didn't exist when we started. So that made it DSLRs added support for video, which made it so that the budgets of videos dropped tremendously, and they would still look really good. And then mobile phones added video, and that was the second big shift we saw. And we thought there were gonna be more shifts like this, like computers being like, think looking at your computer as a camera, and we're recording a remote podcast right now on our computers. This is not something people are doing in twenty seventeen. And so we were, like, really excited about that. So we're like, okay. If we're gonna start another business, it's gonna be in the video space. Who which customers we'd focus on? Well, we thought small medium sized businesses because we know those customers well. We go through the whole list of things, basically realize we'd rebuild Wistia if we were to sell. So that made us think, hey. This is something must be wrong. And, like or else we wouldn't wanna sell. And it caused me and my cofounder to admit to each other that there was something wrong. We actually weren't having fun. And we had been running the business leading up to this kind of like a growth at all cost mode. We'd switched into that mode. We're running at a loss. We had a million projects going on. A lot of things were not working. We were unhappy, and we're working around the clock trying to make this work. And we basically realized that we could fix the business, and to fix the business, we had to start saying no to more things. We had to be more clear about the bets we're gonna stay on versus the ones that were, like, fleeting. And it was in that moment that I remember talking to, my wife, and she's like, honey, you've been telling me forever, like, all this work is gonna lead up to an exit someday. And she's like, what are you gonna do? Like, are you gonna just keep doing this forever? And so I changed my mentality after the buyback that was like, alright. I need to pretend I sold the business. What would I do? It's like, well, if I sold the business, like, I'd take real vacations. If I sold the business, I would actually, like, in the day to day, I'd be more willing to delegate and give more to other people and stuff like that. And so I really it really changed my approach, and I started taking real vacations. And I started realizing that, like, me working around the clock, there was not gonna be the difference between more productivity or not at Wistia. It was gonna be, like, do people believe in where we're going? And so made a ton of changes, that really changed my ability to have a great work life balance. And I would say I now do. And, I still work a lot. I I just work on things I love working on that give me energy versus taking away. I'm very present with my kids. I I I look at it as, like, work is gonna be stressful, but that's not bad. Like, stress makes you stronger. Like, the equivalent from, like, I think working out actually is that you stress your muscles, you lift, you get stronger. If you don't recover, you never make gains. Like, this whole secret that everybody talks with today about getting in great shape is actually about recovery. And so I think the same thing is true at work. Like, if you don't have recovery built into the system, you're you can't get better. But if you do, then it's okay. You can be you can stress yourself. You can recover from the stress. Ultimately, you can handle more stress, and and it makes it much easier day to day to manage all the stuff that's going on. That's awesome. I was gonna ask if you had tactical advice for, for leaders, but you answered my question. But I do have another one. Of course. I always have questions. I mean, I can go further. I yeah. I I would say, if you want it, you can. Yeah. Yeah. The the only thing I would say there that I think is, like, just I'll stay on the stress thing for a second. There's this great book called The Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin, and he was, like, a chess grand master person at, like, a young age and did all these other wild things. And he talks about the connection between physical stress and emotional stress and how they're connected. And so what's happened in chess is that, you know, these people sit down there and they spend seven hours a day, like, battling each other, and they burn, like, some, you know, crazy number of calories just by thinking. Right? And people eventually figured out they these these folks figured out that if they actually work out, like, actually go for runs and other things, their capacity to manage the stress is the same Wistia, so they can manage more stress in the games, and therefore, they perform better. And so physical and mental stress are connected. And so a huge unlock for me on this is, like, I work out every day. It's the first thing I do. It gives me tons of energy, but it literally helps me manage more stress. And so the total threshold of what I'm dealing with is below Wistia of most days, there could be, quote, unquote, stressful things happening with you, and I I they don't have, a hugely taxing, effect on me. That's awesome. Yeah. I, my mine is spin, endorsement classes. I, at one point, assumed, like, seven days a week, forty five minutes, and I'm like, I should I should probably mix it up. But that honestly sets up my whole day. And my mood alone is, like, is leveled up. You know? That's awesome. And it makes perfect sense. Yeah. It just, like and to your point, like, the ability to handle stress is just it's kinda built in once you work out. There's so many benefits. But I was just, with your work life's balance with the workplace balance that you were talking about, do you believe that it prevented you from burning out? Because you mentioned you didn't have it burning out. Oh, I think so. I I think that it's basically it's kind of like, if you never if you just never give yourself the time to recover, you're you're done. So you I just think you have to bake it in. And that is the secret. Right? It's like if you if you think, oh, I'm just gonna go sixty days straight. It's it's you're not you just you lose the productivity you think you're getting. Like, it's just there's a reason why almost every US president has somehow been able to find the time to work out. Like, why is that? Is it that there is, like, supposed to be the most stressful job on Earth? And it's well, people know that, like, it's not just about you. It's about the people around you. I mean, I mentioned delegation too. I really think a huge part of this is, like, if you have team around you a team around you that gives you a lot of energy, lot easier to keep going, much easier to not burn out. If people are actually taking control of, like, those big problems and dealing with them, and then they're finding people to help them, you have a system that works together, and so nobody is in the at risk of being really burnt out. But I you have to take care of yourself. It's like I think about the oxygen mask thing on planes a lot because, until I was a parent, I didn't understand why it was like, hey. You'd think the instinct would be put the oxygen mask on your kid first versus yourself, but but you actually have to put it on yourself because if you are not there as the adult to take care of them, then it's you're screwed. And I feel like this the same thing here, which is, like, you have to take care of yourself and actually be selfish about your own your own self care. And then when you're doing that, if you're in a good place, much easier to be a great parent, much easier to be a great leader. You just show up better. For sure. And speaking of parenting, how many kids do you have? Two. Oh, that's that's weird. I have a brother. We're, we're two and a half years apart. Reverse. Two how many years apart? Okay. Two and a half years. Yeah. Yeah. That's similar to my kids. Yeah. We're it's a it's a I feel like it's a good balance, like medium porridge. I was curious. How did becoming a parent change your perspective on mental health? I mean, I I think the thing that has changed is, kids see how you act and show up as, like, the that's what they take from you. It's it's you can tell them, hey. Don't use a screen or whatever. And if I'm using a screen while I say that, they see it instantly, and and they see that as, like, that's important to me. And so I I think a lot of it is, you modeling just really, really matters as a parent. Like, that is that is most of parenting is modeling. And so you have to show up the best way that you can. And I don't mean to be happy all the time. I actually mean when, when I'm dealing with something that is stressful, when I'm dealing Wistia something that's really sad, like, actually talking about it because I would want them to talk about it. And I want them to feel comfortable having those emotions and not feeling, like, shame around those things. And so I I'll just so much of parenting, I for me comes back to how do you model this for your kids. And, I think model the range of emotions, model your own ability to try to take care of yourself, not and, yeah, like, have expectations for yourself that are similar to the expectations for them. And so I don't know. You just can't really fake it, I think, is the thing. Kids are very observant. They're unbelievably observant. Unbelievable. Yeah. And and you have kids. But Yeah. But it's also, like, their memory the percentage of their life like, something that can happen to me that doesn't feel like a big deal as someone who's now forty one. Like, what? I have a bad day. Someone subsequently gets hurt, stung by a bee. Like, well, a kid, the percentage of their life that that bee sting, represents a much greater percentage. And the fact that they got stung seven months ago in this exact moment, they really remember it and think about it, and it's like a defining thing. And so to me, it's also just having little kids. It's, so much of it, is how you is just how you show up. It's it's basically that simple, which to make the connection to work, I think, is actually incredibly similar to, how you lead. Right? Like, it's modeling. If I show up and I always start meetings late, people will be comfortable starting meetings late. If I never start meetings late, but I always ask about how people are doing in their lives, Everyone will do it just it's the this unbelievable ripple effect that occurs, which is actually why I think when we evaluate leaders, we try to evaluate their basic morals and their basics of how they show up because we implicitly know that that has such a huge impact on what happens in an organization. I was smiling because that I was like, oh, damn. We're on the same wavelength. What, so it could be a Wistia value or your own value, but what value do you think you connect with the most just kinda like in general? Oh, man. That's really tough. I would say, like, creative optimism. Can you expand on that? Yeah, I think I, I, I love finding a path through challenges to take something that could be bad and turn it into something good. I find that very rewarding. So it could be anything like, I I can remember the early days of Wistia. We made some mistake technically, and people's videos were not working for some period of time. I can't remember how long. And, you know, the instinct was, should we tell people or not? And a lot of people would be like, well, most people didn't notice, so don't tell them. Like, we made a mistake, but they didn't notice. Don't tell them. And I remember we're like, well, some people did notice, and those people are gonna think that this is, like, acceptable. So what if we actually tell everybody and we're really direct and honest about what went wrong and why we're how we're changing? And then also we're really figuring out what our brand was at that moment. So, like, can we have fun in that communication, which doesn't seem like a good idea. Doesn't seem like it's a good moment to have fun is when you made a mistake. But we followed our instincts and did it, and it ended up being, like, incredibly engaging response from the customer. This is why we love you so much, and all this stuff is like, k. We took a bad thing, and we flipped it from being bad to really, really good. And it's that's, like, an addicting that's an addicting idea for me is what is the challenge that we have that we can flip around and turn it into a positive? And I think also, like, a lot of hard things, the only way to get through them, like or if you're trying to build something that's hard to build, it's often taking all these different pieces that are working and plugging them together in in one or two specific ways that actually make that actually delivers on the promise of what you're trying to do. And so that I find that to be a fun puzzle to work on, but I think it requires a lot of creativity, and it requires a lot of optimism that you are capable of getting these things done. And so I guess that's where I came up with that. I don't know. No. It's it's super it's I can't speak. It is super unique. That's, that's awesome. It also kinda reminded me of integrity and honesty, those values too, especially with the especially with the email. And it's funny. We at a company, I did the exact same thing, and it was such a positive response. It's like, we effed up. Yeah. You know, we're human. So, you know, it's and you make it and you turn around. That that's really, really cool. How did you make not the connection with the creativity, but or how do you use creative optimism? Like, did you use that beginning of Wistia? Did you kinda learn it as you went along, or is that more now? Or, like, what was that journey like? I think I've always had that in me, and, it took a few years to trust it at in building Westia. You know, I think the beginning was very much like trying to copy what I thought a company was, and what the expectations of what a company is. You know, doing things because you see other companies doing it, other people, things in the culture. And it was it was just it was finding our way and ultimately finding things that actually worked. You know? It there's a lot of this, I think, is trying to get to, like, base level instincts and first principles of how someone responds to something and then, and then trusting that and using that to help guide you when, like, things are murky. And so what I what I mean by that is, like, let me think of a good example. So I'll go back I'll go back to the the webinar product. So we launched webinar product. Slowly but surely every month, more people want to try it. And I look at that. I'm like, well, if they wanna try it, there must be a reason. So why is it? Is it that there's a problem with their existing things, that they've never done webinars? Is it that they really like Wistia and are wondering if the Wistia version of this will be good? And so you go in with this premise and go try to talk to those people directly and try to understand and, like, really listen to their feedback and then go the layer beneath the feedback you've got and more and more and more and more. And it's this discovery process of trying to establish the first principles of, like, why someone would actually look at this and why they would care. And then over time, you build a stronger and stronger picture by doing that as to what their needs really are, why they really are signing up, what things we can really help them with, which is now influencing all the new stuff we're building into the road map and how we're reprioritizing features, how we talk about them, how we bring them out. And this collective learning, like, starts happening. And, I mean, it's kinda the same exact thing, I guess, in terms of, like, how can we fit together the things we're really good at doing, the things we've already built, the things we wanna build next, and build a path towards making something that really resonates. And, you know, you you start doing that enough, you build enough trust in yourself, it comes easier and easier to do it. Everyone on those on that team starts to have stronger and stronger inks instincts of what to build, and it just snowballs into this, like, success. And I think it's like the I don't know. I've seen this happen a lot where bay we'll have a team put them on a hard problem, and use it it's very hard to predict when they have a breakthrough. But usually at some point, they have a breakthrough. And then once they have a breakthrough, the question is why. And then if they get the rye, the why right, they have another breakthrough and then another one. And then suddenly a very high percentage of the things they're doing are working and it looks kind of effortless. And it's the opposite. It's like a huge amount of work, but it is taking this approach into how you build new things. That's awesome. The thing I resonate with is almost like not the root of the problem with the root of the solution. Yeah. I think that's right. And going kinda down the the five whys. And then once you figure out the formula, there you go. Yeah. And I I also feel like you're talking about product launches. I feel like in general, they kinda fail because we're not we don't really listen. We're not not we, but, like, the the company or the collective. Yeah. Don't really listen to the people that matter the most. What are your thoughts on that? Yeah. I think if you're not listening, you don't use the language that other people are using, already. Also, I think it's, like, the most normal graph of a product launches spike in interest, big old drop, and then it the question is, like, where does it come back to? Like, after a bunch of people made aware of it, does it did you change the trajectory? Like, are more people doing it or not? Like and I think even admitting that is important because that first launch is important. But I I actually think the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth touch points, those are ones that really add up. It's like, oh, they're still on this. Oh, they've improved in a way I thought they might improve it. Oh, this is I'm oh, I'm seeing it in more places now. And, in a in a way, it's it's it's exactly what you're saying. It's, like, getting to, like, why this solution matters for a group. And then can I just put enough signal out to you that, like, we you are the right group, and this solution is what you were looking for? And we get that when you get that right, things take off. I'm trying to find the mute button. That's awesome. I'm trying to sit oh, is it your It's a child. Yeah. Oh, so cute. I I have puppies. Those are my children right now. Fur babies. I had a question. You gave me a thought. Thank god for editing. I always I used to say when I was editing my own podcast, like, thank god for script. Yeah. The the amount of f ups I had in the beginning, like, a year and a half ago. Yeah. Anyways, I knew we're I knew we're, we're coming up on time. So that gave me a thought. Why do you think Wistia worked? Did you have, like well, two part question. Why do you think Wistia worked? And did you have some sort of either perspective or that corny saying superpower or, you know, why do you think it worked and why do you think it took off? I think Wistia worked because we ended up being right. That there was about to be a huge shift in how online video was used. I mean, that was the biggest thing. It was, we saw YouTube happening. We thought everyone, this is going to completely change online video. You know, I had done film before Wistia, not for long, but I had done it. And And I tried to be a part of online filmmaking communities. They never took off. And it just seemed like, hey. This technology is not gonna be limited to one company. And so we were right about that. And then when we first got our first paying customers, it was helping businesses who are not experts in video use video. They were they found that very valuable. And that also turned out to be really important and true. Still true today. It's still exactly what we're focused on. So I think we got those things right. We did we were very wrong on the timing. Like, we thought things would happen really, really fast, and there are things that took, like, seven or eight years to happen. And in terms of the amount of adoption, the price that people would how how much people would use video in different parts of their business, the price of making videos, expectations of video, all that stuff. Like, a lot of that were really wrong on the timing, but really right that they happened. And so part of it is just the way we're funded. Like, if we had raised venture capital in the early days, we would have been overcapitalized for what was actually occurring. And we have tons of customers that went out of business for that reason. Not customers. We had tons of competitors who went out of business, because they were overcapitalized and they couldn't get the revenue, that they needed for the amount of money they raised. So being small was an advantage. Being patient was an advantage. Our funding model was an advantage. And then I think we just didn't get bored. I think that's the other thing is I'm a, I'm a big believer that most people overestimate how quickly they will find success, but then if they actually do find success, they underestimate how far they can take it. And I think in our case, we just got lucky that we didn't screw up the culture. We were really judicious with hiring. And so we built this, like, core of strong talent, even when we're ten people that was so strong that it made other great people wanna work with us, made it easier for us to, keep the quality high of what we're doing across the business. And I think if we had gotten that wrong, like, if we had hired too rapidly, I was so immature in terms of a leader. I I think it would have been very painful. If, in some ways, I think if the success had come too quickly, we would have it would have blown up. And it was the fact that it took a while, the fact that we cared about culture, the fact that we got the right people, the fact they're in the right markets. You put that all together, and I and I think that's why it worked. That's a great formula. That that's awesome. And it sounds like it wasn't easy to discover. No. No. It was not easy. I mean, if you had I I've said a a few times publicly, like, if you had told me what Wistia was gonna be five or six years in, I probably wouldn't have done it. Because, you know, I think it was kind of that same thing with those those wild expectations I was talking about earlier. But five years in, I think we were maybe four million in revenue or something. And I can't that my number might be wrong, but it was something in that order of magnitude. And I remember thinking before when we made all our financial models, it was like, oh, we raised the first round, which is two years in. We're gonna be at thirty million in, like, two years. You know? And it's like, that's what we thought that's what was gonna happen. And so if you told me it's gonna be insanely hard, the team is gonna be super small, and it's, like, gonna be this modestly successful at this time, I would have been like, I don't think this is gonna be worth it. But the fact was we got to that moment. It was really fun. We were able to keep doing it, and you just keep compounding. And so it's kind of that simple. Yeah. So it's it's why it's interesting to go back and think about. But, For sure. Yeah. I think the question I wanna end on before we I mean, I'm gonna put in the notes and everything. But before to hear from you how to find you, and how to connect if people have questions. What about you do you think made Wistia work? I mean, I think I, so I, as I mentioned before, my dad was a pure science professor. My older brother worked in tech. My, older sister, her ex husband worked in tech and pretty early in tech. It's a big companies. And I basically grew up in like an early adopter household. So I can remember the Bose wave radio came out. It's like this tiny little radio, incredible quality sound. My dad was like, we have to go get this. And we got, like, the day it came out. We brought it home. We talked about it. We talked about how good it was. We talked about the implications of it. I got to, like, beta test the flight simulators from Microsoft. I got to play with Xbox early. All these and we was just constant, like, testing and discussing and trying and playing. And so I think I was, like, accidentally raised to be, like, an early adopter. Or and maybe that was just my instinct. I don't know. But, like, I just was. And I think that that has been quite helpful, in building the company is, like, that approach, and it comes back to that kind of creative optimism of, like, what can this thing become? And then I think, I knew the customer from the beginning. I was the customer. You know, I was like, I had made a bunch of videos. I've been editing feature length movies. I had done been a producer on some documentaries, and, like, I understood how painful the old world of the tech was. And even now, I still am the customer. I make tons of videos. I am on social media all the time making videos. I host my own podcast. I am looking at the performance. I'm evaluating. I'm talking about the the intersection between the creative stuff, and the science, like the art and science together and what what great marketing looks like. And I I enjoy doing it. I I it's it's one of the things I do a lot, and I think that I think that that's just that stuff has helped a lot is being really, really close to it. And then I think a lot of those stuff I just learned along the way. You know? It's just like trial by fire. It turns out I enjoy that. And I'm I'm not sure everybody does, but from it's been fun for me. And so I think that's probably how I have it back to things. I don't know. It's a hard hard question to answer. No. It was it was a great answer. My opinion, I feel like the best the best ideas are when you build something that you wish you had. Yes. Yeah. We we talk about that internally as, like, be your own best customer. It's just you make you make different stuff when you're gonna actually use it. Yes. Exactly. So thank you so much for being well, for your patience, first of all, with our technical glitches. As I'm saying technical glitch, I can't say the word. So, you know, that that's I'm not I'm gonna have him probably leaving because it's funny. But, I know we're we're running out. So if if people have questions, like, how should they how should they contact you? Yeah. Best way to find me is on LinkedIn. Chris Savage on LinkedIn. You can find my podcast, talked a lot with Chris Savage, where, I interview entrepreneurs and builders and stuff about what it takes to make a great brand, a great product. And, Yeah. You can also just email me. You can find my email online. I won't say it here. But, yeah, thank you for having me. This is super fun. Awesome. Great. Well, thank you so much. K. I'm gonna end the recording.