Matt Singer, Musician, Founder & Thought Leader on Digital Communication "Music Moves Him" Ep. 27

While in prep school Matt Singer performed at a religious ceremony and became fascinated with the impact his music had on the congregants. This fascination led Matt Singer to major in music at Yale, where he graduated Summa Cum Laude, and to think of how to make a life in music. Matt hit the streets soon after graduating to start his music business. For ten years he built Dawn Treader Production with marquee names such as Paul McCartney, James Earl Jones and the New York Philharmonic. Relying on the emotional connection possible on TV, he sold the CDs he produced by the tens of thousands on QVC. In 2007 he joined co-founder Amanda Eilian, in starting a company that is now changing the way large enterprises communicate with their customers and employees via video. Videolicious makes it easy for employees to produce polished videos personalized to particular clients that make emotional connections. The platform is now used by 4,000,000 users in 100 countries, it’s even taught at 90 schools of journalism. Backed by Amazon and VC money, this startup is poised for continued growth.

This is the story of someone who followed what seems to be an impractical passion but managed to create something that is useful to large numbers of paying customers. Listen to this candid and introspective conversation with a young man who thinks deeply but acts practically. In particular, I liked what he had to say about how founders can prepare their psyche for the arduous journey of building their startup: “It turns out that anything that you accomplish in life actually brings a crush of responsibility, so you really just have to enjoy the journey because there is no magic carpet ride of happiness that comes with any accomplishment.”

Here are the topics covered and some quotes:

• Matt Singer Bio
• Matt Singer Actively Looks for a Way to Turn His Passion for Music into a Living, and Succeeds
• The Story of The Talk Market Which Became Videolicious
• How Matt Connected with his Great Co-founder, Amanda Eilian
• What Videolicious Does Today
• Sal Daher Reads a Review from Listener ChangDS and Ask Listeners to Leave a Review on iTunes
• The Pivot that Turned The Talk Market into Videolicious
• The Vision Stayed the Same, the Implementation Changed
• Great Point about Finding Your Focus
• “From the perspective of entrepreneurs, I think it's just good to note that you can have a vision but there are a lot of choices along the way in terms of who should you really sell to.”
• Videolicious is Taught at 90 Schools of Journalism – It’s Becoming Ingrained
• Instead of a Sales Binder Videolicious Allows You to Send Your Customer a Compelling Personalized Video
• “Video is becoming the standard way that people create content.”
• Videolicious’ Board Has Been Very Supportive – They’ve Been Amenable to Reasoned Arguments
• “Yeah, you've heard that theme of focus, focus, focus, but exactly what that means is not always super clear.”
• "Wow. What do I need not only just to get in the door, but also to keep them forever?"
• How Matt Singer Got Amazon as an Early Investor in His Company
• How Videolicious’ VC Backers Help with More than Money
• The Interesting Route Videolicious Took to VC Funding
• The Path Ahead for Videolicious – Making Video Creation Ever Easier & More Effective
• Matt Singer’s Three Bits of Advice for New Founders
• “Definitely finding a great co-founder is important… someone that you can really work with… work through thick and thin, because there's going to be ups and downs constantly and so it's great to have someone that can support you and you can support them.”
• “…thinking through the entire lifecycle of your customer from the acquisition to renewal.”
• Having a Long-term View Is Crucial in Selling to Enterprise Customers
• Because Everybody Works from Home, Videolicious Looks for Self-starters
• ” I do find that being able to tell the story and the vision is a good way to attract talent.”
• Other Startups That Matt Singer Admires – Companies That Make Using their Product Super Easy
• What Matt Singer Has in Common with C.S. Lewis
• “…most technology is pretty disruptive for your average employee. It's different than what they're used to doing. That's what you have to contend with as a startup, you assume that's a big jump, even if your product in the isolation is easy.”
• Matt Singer’s Parting Thoughts – A Truly Valuable Observation
• “It turns out that anything that you accomplish in life actually brings a crush of responsibility, so you really just have to enjoy the journey because there is no magic carpet ride of happiness that comes with any accomplishment.”