EP 599: Taivaco Helps Brands FInd Old Offline Content to Digitize and Annotate With $50K Raised, CEO Michael Kaplan

Michael Kaplan. He's the CEO and founder of Taivaco which is a media technology company. He's also the former director of marketing at Sanyo and was appointed at San Francisco Water Bay Front Committee. Michael speaks Chinese, French and Japanese. He attended The University of Redlands, Waseda University in Tokyo, George Mason University and Chinese Culture University.

Famous Five:

• Favorite Book? – It's Not My Department
• What CEO do you follow? – John Cleese and Ken Okuyama
• Favorite online tool? — Any.do
• Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
• If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – "The more you listen to other people, the more success finds you" and "Be a nice person"

Time Stamped Show Notes:

• 01:28 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show
• 02:07 – Michael shares why January 20th is a special day
• 03:15 – Taivaco was set out to solve an invisible problem and ended up solving more problems
• • 03:47 – An archive isn't an accurate description
  • 03:50 – Organizations are struggling to manage their media
  • 04:17 – One of Taivaco's original ideas was to digitize media
  • 05:08 – Taivaco helps companies find their content within their media or discover what DAM (Digital Asset Management) software does
• 05:50 – Taivaco incorporates both software and manual work
• 06:01 – "This is not a software that we sell, this is a service that we do"
• 06:15 – Taivaco is a service-only company
• 06:26 – Taivaco was launched in 2016
• 06:33 – Taivaco is currently on pre-revenue
• • 06:49 – Taivaco has done under 10K in pre-revenue
• 07:00 – Taivaco version 1.0 will be available in April
• 07:12 – Taivaco was originally self-funded
• • 07:20 – Michael put in 20K in Taivaco
• 07:27 – Taivaco just closed their "seedling" round for less than 50K
• 07:43 – Long term plan is to have another round
• 07:56 – Michael shares how they actually make a sale
• 08:32 – Sabra Design is one of Taivaco's paying customers
• • 08:39 – Sabra Design came to Taivaco to ask for their service
  • 09:04 – Taivaco got less than a thousand for the job
• 09:10 – Taivaco has already reached out to potential clients to scale up
• 10:17 – Michael explains why it is taking them more time to close a deal
• 10:50 – Taivaco doesn't specialize in digitizing and they do it for a minimal cost
• 11:23 – Taivaco annotates content which nobody has done before
• • 12:12 – Michael shares their annotation process
  • 12:46 – The charge for annotation will depend on the volume
  • 13:20 – Taivaco will have a subscription model for the annotation
• 14:10 – Taivaco's goal is to make their service as easy and possible for their clients
• 15:34 – Taivaco is making money through annotation
• 16:27 – The metrics that Taivaco is measuring in pricing
• 17:09 – "We have to provide the whole thing"
• 18:21 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:

• Try to solve one problem and you might end up solving more problems.
• Do something that is new in the market to stand apart.
• Take things at your own pace and don't rush.

Resources Mentioned:

• Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments
• Drip – Nathan uses Drip's email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel
• Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn't have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal
• Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible.
• Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books.
• The Top Inbox – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences
• Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11" secure even when he left it in the airplane's back seat pocket
• Freshbooks – Nathan doesn't waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW
• Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives