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How Wistia Took the Ultimate Risk on Creativity [Podcast]

You’ve heard it time and again: No risk, no reward. The team at Wistia is certainly familiar with this idea, and they have an array of wins to show for it. Some of their risks have included buying back shares from their early investors, choosing to continue through hard times rather than selling, and their recent “1, 10, 100” project.

Wistia demonstrates that if you know your business, know your customers, and stay true to yourself, you can be confident with taking risks.

Chris Savage, Co-Founder and CEO of Wistia, joins the Content Experience Show to discuss Wistia’s “1, 10, 100” project and how they’ve embraced risk.

In This Episode:

Wistia and the “1, 10, 100” Project

Wistia approached Sandwich Video, a top video production company that specializes in product launch videos, and gave them a budget of $111,000. Wistia asked them to make ads at three different price points to demonstrate what an ad would look like if the budget was $1,000, $10,000 and $100,000.  

“Some of our most successful content has been around DIY video.”

@csavage

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Tips for Evaluating When to Sell a Business

In 2017, Savage and his co-founder were faced with the opportunity to sell the company. At the time, there were three companies trying to acquire Wistia. He explains why it was such a difficult decision, and the considerations that ultimately led to their choice not to sell.

“If we’re really thoughtful, we can probably talk about our own failings, and that will be interesting.” — @csavage

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How Wistia Chose to Buy Out Angel Investors

Making the decision not to sell the company left Savage and his co-founder misaligned with their angel investors, who, he points out, probably did want to sell because they had been invested in it for so long. They made the tough decision to buy out their investors for $17 million, which they believed would ultimately be better for their business.

“We believed that the focus and constraint of profitability would force us to be more creative. Fortunately, so far that’s worked.” — @csavage

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About the Author

Randy Frisch is a co-founder of Uberflip and held many roles, including President and CMO, where he evangelized the content experience.

Profile Photo of Randy Frisch