Living Entrepreneurship Blog / Babson Entrepreneurs

2017 SVP Startup Profile: Vidvision

Kyle Lawson and Derek Tu of Vidvision

Founders:
Derek Tu ’18: Co-founder
Kyle Lawson ’18:  Co-founder

What’s Vidvision?
Vidvision converts video viewers into customers

What is the story behind your startup?
We met and started working on this idea in our dorm room in eTower, stayed up late brainstorming on the idea-paint walls. Derek worked for start-ups in marketing roles and saw that they were all bullish on video / was investing in creating that content, but not seeing the ROI behind their investments / how video is making an impact at their company. We felt that marketing should be a dialogue and interactive (both sides exchanging information and learning more about each other, which means marketers learning about the audience as well), rather than one-sided (one person talking, another listening), which he felt what normal videos were Kyle built tools and websites for content creators (financial advisors) and saw that video was being leveraged heavily but that the performance was not being measured / tracked

What’s been a big milestone/accomplishment you’ve made since Summer Venture Program started?
Launched our beta and have users

What’s been a big obstacle/surprise that you faced?
The largest surprise was that we didn’t end up pivoting the product as much as we thought we would… the market gave us better validation than we had anticipated.

Huge lesson learned: “We overestimated what we could accomplish in the short run and hugely underestimated what we could accomplish in the long run.”

We were impatient earlier in May and felt that we didn’t have enough validation and traction coming into the program, but we didn’t anticipate that in these two months we’d learn and grow so much, as individuals and as a company, despite the setbacks we felt we were facing each week. Most people early on don’t realize that growth / learning increase exponentially, so progress multiplies as time increases.

Any tips for aspiring entrepreneurs that you want to share?
College is the best time to start a venture…so what if you fail? You still learn a lot.

“Keep in mind that neither success nor failure is permanent.” — Roger Babson

Meet Vidvision at the Summer Venture Showcase on Thursday July 27. Register now! >>