Market7

Answer To “How’s The Show For You?” Question That I Was Asked 10 Times Yesterday

Above is the question I’ve heard the most times during the past few days in particular. But if I real-time search my memory for the most frequently fielded query during a longer period of the past several weeks, I think it’s from other people who are trying to make various other business endeavors succeed, and they’ve been asking, with hope, something like whether I “feel things picking up in the market?”

Many of those who’ve asked about experiences in the economy have indicated that they themselves are rebounding and looking forward to more developments. Market7 is doing fine, adding impressive new customers at a good pace and steadily building revenues. But nothing’s been too steep, and the growth has felt more organic than environmental.

But maybe my perception’s changed to greater economic robustness during the past few days at the Streaming Media West event in San Jose.

I started to work on what’s now Market7 during 2006, so this year’s is my fourth consecutive Streaming Media West in this capacity. I believe that the number of exhibitors has more than doubled during that span. And this year a new development was having to navigate around people having conversations in the aisles. Not even exhibiting, and there more for partnering with vendors than for selling to prospects, Market7 scored two new customers.

So my answers to question are: the show was a good one for me; and I think I am now starting to feel things pick up in the market.

Our first time publicly exhibiting at a tradeshow, and the launch of our integration with Apple Final Cut and Adobe Creative Suite — NAB ‘09 was big for Market7. The event was augmented by two veteran hosts showing us around.

Given that Apple doesn’t exhibit at NAB (or hardly any conference — won’t even deliver next year’s MacWorld keynote!). Anyhow, given that, the Final Cut Pro Users’ Group’s “Superbooth” was a perfect location for us to get a demo pod and launch our integration with Final Cut. Tremendous quality traffic too as avid users of that software / emergent users of our software came by for the every 40 minutes FCP tips & tricks instructional sessions from superstar teachers. And of course, the legendary FCPUG SuperMeet last Tuesday night seemed to draw thousands, all sitting rapt with attention through session after session until practically midninght.

The attention, dedication and energy of video producers and editors was perhaps the strongest impression made on me in Las Vegas last week. I showed up for a 6PM presentaiton at the ProMAX Digital Lounge last week to find people milling about the drinks and hors d’eouvres in a Venitian suite, and figured I had no chance for anyone’s attention at the end of a day among the booths. But as soon as ProMAX CEO Jess Hartmanstepped forward to introduce me I had every eye on me and the projector’s image of my slides and presentation, with a queue to further discuss as I finished.

Our strong week was in large part thanks to the friendship and support of Michael Horton, Dan Berube and the rest of the FCPUG crew + of Jess, Marcello Lewin and their ProMAX / PixelHeads Netork crowd (it seems that many hold joint membership in both of those gangs). We are enjoying converting these endorsements to Market7 success, and we look forward to further engagement with the passionate video devotees who assemble around these great organizations.

In Las Vegas for the National Association of Broadcasters convention. It’s the tradeshow catering to the worlds of professional media production and distribution, like the television industry. The event includes providers of software and technology for how content is developed and managed in those worlds. Market7 has a similar focus for a different world in which video is produced by general corporations (ie not exclusively those focused on production of media as their primary products), educational institutions and government offices, and other professional organizations.

With the declining costs of digital video production tools and the increasing consumption of video through means other than conventional TV broadcasting, the organizations we serve are increasing their activities in the area. They need to accomplish tasks analogous to those served by the tools promoted at NAB such as scheduling resources used in production, weighing in edit decisions, and making produced content searchable. But the tools at NAB are for people whose careers are in video production. We’re thinking about someone who spends most time doing something like design products or teach courses, and only sporadically engages in a video project to support those other activities. So, it’s important that these people come into environments for video production in which they can understand their roles, engage with other contributors to their projects, and be immediately productive. In other words, there is little time or inclination to learn how to use complex software to get these projects done.

In my (weak?) effort at a Hunter Tompson-esque headline for this post, I question the “entrepreneurial hubris” of my own mindset. I am getting a good workout lugging my laptop around NAB, and every hour or so I pull it out to show someone a demo of our software and tell them about the experiences of our pilot projects now up to five. So far we’re getting good validation on the value of the few, essential features on which we’ve exclusively focused, and recipients of a 10 minute demo comprehend how they could be immediately productive with what we provide. Checking out software shown at the booths here, it’s inconceivable to me that these offerings could fulfill our market’s requirement. For example, I received one demo yesterday in which a dialog box was called up that filled most of the screen and had about a dozen tabs and the tab that was open showed dozens of data fields — to me, there is no way that a sporadic participant in video production projects is going to dedicate the time and effort required to find what they seek there.

There are a lot of experienced hands at NAB who’ve come up with lots of sophisticated functionality that caters to the idiosyncrasies of the professional media production world. I am very confident in Market7’s prospects for success by focusing on professional organizations in which media production occurs but is not a principal activity, by starting with a blank slate, and by obsessively dedicating ourselves to providing only the most essential functionality in ways that are immediately useful. With these principles, some hard work and a few lucky breaks, I expect Market7’s confidence will prove not to be hubris, but prescience.