Joel(00:00):
When I'm talking to other founders, you might think you're all aligned, but need to really get down and talk about what success looks like.
Sara (00:09):
Welcome to Spotlight on a podcast about how companies are built from the people doing the building, one messy, exhilarating decision at a time.
Vas(00:17):
I'm your host boss, Vas Natarajan, one of the partners here at Excel, and so excited to have Joel Flory, one of the co-founders of VSCO joining us today. Thanks Oscar for having me. Joel. We are past, I think, the 10 year mark of Xcel's original series, A investment in the business. So now that we are a decade in, it's probably as good a time as any to reflect back on the journey, the lessons, the learnings along the way, and also to maybe reflect on vis Cisco's role in the ecosystem right now because it's a really interesting moment in creativity at large. We have gen ai, we have so many different new competitors coming to the market. The notion of creativity, I think is being rewritten in many ways, and VSCO had an important role to play in creativity of past, and I think we have an incredibly important role to play in and creativity of future. So excited to explore all of that with you and more, but maybe to start, walk us back to when you started the company. I mean, it was four of you in a, remind me. It was like a
Joel(01:30):
Garage shed. So 2010, and then forming the business 2011. Initially we set out, it was a little more of a lifestyle business. I had an injury in my wrist from holding a camera for over a decade. It was really bad arthritis, and so I knew I needed something new and it's not really marketable to be a wedding photographer for a decade to then go and try and get a job somewhere. And so I was like, I need to start something. And so I got together a group of friends, and I pitched a variety of different ideas and we actually started five different businesses at the time, but I remember
Vas(02:10):
Some Were the friends, you pitched the current co-founders, or did you have different permutations with different friends,
Joel(02:16):
Different permutations with different friends. So Greg Luzi, who's co-founder of VSCO, he's designer, but honestly he's just a true creative, and it's not like, I don't want to say I'm not a true creative, but Greg draws all of his energy in life from creativity and exploring new avenues. And so Greg and I really embarked on VSCO. It was the idea that seemed right with him, and it was one of those things where we met a need initially for ourselves. So Greg had built a website for me. People were wanting to have Greg do the same, and we're like, Hey, let's build kind of photographer specific or photo specific websites, WordPress customizations for photographers. We started with the workshop for photographers. It was kind of really our seed round, if you will. It was $1,500 a person. It was here in San Francisco, and we sold out in less than a week. It was like, oh, okay.
Vas(03:21):
How many people came to the original workshop?
Joel(03:23):
45 people.
Vas(03:24):
Okay. Yeah.
Joel(03:26):
45 people came to the initial workshop and it was really around how to run a photo business, which not to jump forward, but literally if there was ever a physical representation of where VSCO is going, it was really what that initial workshop was. Yeah, that's
Speaker 4 (03:41):
Interesting.
Joel(03:42):
I taught a class on how to market yourself and contracts. We talked about editing and the tools needed. We talked about building community and there's all the things that someone needs today in order to run a successful business and everything to kind of help a photographer make it.
Joel(04:00):
And that's what we started with. We thought the first product was going to be these websites, but it turned out actually being Zach Hodges, who was part of the founding team, he built a tool to help me save time editing weddings so that I could spend less time on my weddings and more time on VSCO. And I literally remember the day I plopped it into Lightroom, it was kind of a plugin for Lightroom. I put it into Lightroom Portrait 800, and there are these custom camera raw profiles, and it was kind of this like, oh my gosh, it was like one click. Wow.
Vas(04:34):
Because to get to that level of finish on a photo before you had this plugin, how long would that
Joel(04:43):
For? So yeah, it's kind of put it typically before this plugin, I would spend about 12 hours editing a wedding, and this took it down to about six. It cut my time in
Speaker 4 (04:53):
Half. Okay.
Joel(04:55):
After that, launched a few more tools that really got that down to even two to three. And so
Vas(05:01):
These were all Photoshop plugins initially,
Joel(05:04):
Photoshop and Lightroom plugins.
Vas(05:05):
Yeah. And could you monetize
Joel(05:06):
Those? Yeah,
Vas(05:07):
We did. Okay.
Joel(05:08):
So it was $119 a pack. Talk about actually real software margins is 97% margin digital download. And yeah, that's what we launched with November 15th, 2011. Wow. But I thought it was going to be, we had 250 or so photographers that were asking us about these WordPress templates. We thought this would be a nice supplemental income at that point. And within 48 hours, we had over a quarter million dollars in sales and we we're blown away. And everything that could go wrong went wrong. Gmail shut us down for sending too many emails in spam. Our credit card processor said it was fraud. Put all of the money that we made ended up putting three quarters of a million dollars into an escrow account that took seven months to get access to. Wow.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
So we
Joel(06:06):
Had to flip over to PayPal to take payment, and it was kind of like a start. This was all trial by fire, trial by fire. But I think what we quickly realized was is that we built something that gave photographers time back
Joel(06:24):
And allowed them to do what they loved. And that was spend more time capturing photos and being with friends and family and less time individually tinkering everything in Lightroom. And we just met a need and it went from there. Launched mobile app that was a paid app in 2012, and then moved to a free app within in-app purchases and really a community in 2013. And that really kind of defined the era for the next four years. And I think one of the biggest moments of why VSCO is still here today, Brian Mason, and really pushing out subscription at VSCO in 2017. And I remember thinking as we always wanted it to be perfect, and Brian was like, just, it needs to get out. And he really wanted to make sure that we had that foundation and had to build off of it. And I think about the subscription in 2017 to really, 2022 was just one skew, one-off yearly, and now kind of where it is today with multiple tiers and offerings, and it's really expanded where there's really something for everyone.
Vas(07:44):
So along that journey, we faced a number of different pivot points from a product standpoint, and maybe pivot points is the wrong way to describe it, but it was, there were moments in which our community was telling us that they wanted something different than maybe we necessarily envisioned or they were attracted to something. They were getting energy from a part of the product that we hadn't intended. Talk about those moments and maybe what advice you have for new founders that are going zero to one, that are building that product, that are listening to their customers, navigating the tension between one's vision versus the data that you're getting in from your end users.
Joel(08:29):
I won't lie, it's probably the most difficult thing around growing a business. And I think very early on, it's easy. You don't have much and you can't do much. So you're really focused and then you grow the business and now there's all these opportunities and the customer base is growing and you're trying to really hone in on what that core customer base is. There's a few instances where we listened to our customers and we almost took it too literal and we didn't look far enough into the future. So VSCO Keys is a perfect example.
Vas(09:06):
I don't even know what VSCO Keys is.
Joel(09:08):
Yeah. Okay. So great. So back in the day, there were, for Lightroom editing, there were these custom keyboards, physical keyboards that you would need to buy that were programmable. And we built a tool that, and these products were all five to $700. We built a tool, VSCO Keys, that we actually for the first time ever hacked Lightroom to be able to change your own keyboard. So you didn't need to buy a physical keyboard. You could map and change all the keys on your own keyboard into whatever you wanted them to do in Lightroom. And it was this huge feat. The team did it. It was amazing. It was a beautiful product. It worked really well. And literally within a span of 12 months, that market almost went completely away.
Joel(09:58):
And we ended up open sourcing VSCO keys. It was probably two years, 18 months worth of time and effort that in the end was not a part of our future. And I look back on it and it was like we literally listened to exactly what people wanted and it didn't last. And I think that was one of the challenge you have, especially as a CEO. You have all of these inputs and noise coming in, and it's really listening and taking in the right inputs, taking in the right pieces of advice, and really thinking long-term about the vision and really staying focused on that vision. And I would actually say, not that we lost our way, but I would say our focus on that initial vision around professional and photographers and creatives, we've had sometimes where we're better at sticking to that than others. And I think that's one thing that Eric came in and really latched onto and doubled down was kind of this refocus on the vision. And I would say VSCO o's current success is really based upon that principled approach towards who our core customer is, what their needs are today, but really thinking about their career trajectory as they grow from an aspiring and hobbyist to a pro
Joel(11:28):
And what they need along that journey. It's not easy. And different fields and different products are different, but especially in the consumer play, if you redraft store reviews or the Reddit channel and you chase those down, sometimes it's a vocal minority. Sometimes there's a silent majority that is not telling you what it is, and you actually need to listen to that. And that's the job of the CEO.
Vas(11:56):
Yeah, makes sense. So iPhone comes out 2007, and it's building an install base. It's getting more significant among your community. More importantly, the hardware is getting a lot better. So every iteration of the phone, they were advancing the capabilities of the underlying camera. And so when did you realize that mobile was going to be a much bigger opportunity than desktop?
Joel(12:30):
In 2012, April, 2012, we launched our first mobile app. But I would say even then, mobile photography was not a serious craft for photographers. Instagram was out, but professional photographers like myself, I didn't even have an Instagram account. The mobile photos looked gimmicky. They weren't quality, and it was a nice to have. We built it to drive sales of our desktop product. But that first year, from mid 2012 to mid 2013, we saw the rise of it and we saw this global whole community take onto it. And at the time, there was only paid apps or free apps. There was no in-app purchases. We were top five grossing in the world in the kind of every country on that. But then it was really the iPhone four s, that was the unlock button for us. And that phone, if you remember, they doubled the megapixel size.
Joel(13:34):
It went from a four megapixel to an eight megapixel. They did not increase a lot of the memory around it, and it caused a lot of problems, if you will, from these much larger files with the phone that couldn't handle. And it was something that actually, it was an insight to me and to the team. If Apple who they think in decades, they don't mess around. They're not just trying something for six months. If they expect someone to upgrade for a phone purely for a camera. And it was the first time they marketed the camera, candidly, the quality was not there. The iPhone four was not really, it wasn't until the iPhone five, it was the first mobile photos where I was like, okay, we're onto something. These are decent. And now looking back on it, it's comical because it's like the quality's amazing.
Vas(14:24):
It's gotten so good. Yeah.
Joel(14:25):
Yeah, it's better than my professional digital cameras at the time. But it was really that insight that they're going to pour everything into photos. We should really double down on mobile and really have this be all about mobile photography, where you put your photos that aren't your
Speaker 4 (14:43):
Portfolio,
Joel(14:44):
The work in progress, the things that you're trying. If I'm a portrait photographer, where do my landscape photos go or my travel photos go because my professional website was this super curated, only a specific subset of my photos. Where does everything else go to
Speaker 4 (15:01):
Live?
Joel(15:03):
And so we built this, it was the VSCO grid, and we built this place for you to put those photos. And instantly we saw the freedom that it gave photographers and their passion for sharing to VSCO around the VSCO grid. If you think of something that shaped the VSCO community to what it is today, I think that moment. So it was really VSCO cam two, and it was really the grid component of it. It was the first time you could share onto VSCO. Prior to that, everything was sharing off of VSCO. And we're still, it's a big part of things sharing everywhere, but a special place for what you
Vas(15:41):
Share on. Yeah. VSCO at that point became a destination for your content. It wasn't just a conduit for your
Joel(15:47):
Exactly. Not just a tool. And it went more from a feature to really an ecosystem, an experience and a place where I think an important thing is something that people identify with. So if you want to know who I am, check out my, and I've always thought of if you can build a brand and build a company that lasts, it's something that you identify with. It says something about you that you are proud to tell others about.
Vas(16:12):
Sure.
Joel(16:14):
And that played a big part.
Vas(16:16):
Yeah. Okay. Let's get into the guts of company building because not everything as we know is rosy and perfectly up and to the right. But let's start with the moment you decided to raise money. So this skinny Indian kid who has a creative tools thesis begs you to go grab a beer at Price Fighter in Ville. You
Joel(16:43):
Remember,
Vas(16:44):
And he's exploring the opportunity of investing in this business, and he's telling you what he thinks. And at the same time, I'm sure you've been pitched by a couple of different venture firms at that point, because you guys obviously were top of the app store and a bunch of different countries. You were a profitable business. You've been bootstrapped for a long time. You had this great desktop business, and then you had this emerging mobile business. I think at the time you were probably around a couple hundred thousand DAUs. And so that was significant back then. So you meet Excel, we meet, we're dancing around the idea of investing for you and the team. What was the moment that unlocked for you that putting Excel aside for a second, that you wanted to raise vc, that you thought there was a venture scale business here and you needed the capital to go do that?
Joel(17:34):
June, 2013, we launched VSCO grid and it was the VSCO Cam 2.0. And at the time, we were allowing a thousand people onto the platform to share their content. And we were seeing how much it cost us. We were running a profitable business, and it was kind of like, what is our expense? This was new. We had no idea we'd operate for a month, see what it cost us, and then how many more people can we let in? So Thanksgiving 2013, we had a kind of oh shit moment. And that moment was it doesn't matter if we let in anyone else, the engagement of who we've already let in was increasing so rapidly we were going to run out of money at the time. You're right. We had every venture capitalist under the sun had called. I will say something that really stands out. It was a test. I'll tell you the number of VCs that would not cross the bridge from San Francisco to Ville. Oh yeah. It's not an industry in which you want to call out, but there's so many names of everyone would be like, well, here's our office and here's when so-and-so's able to meet with you. I was like, great. So I'm building a business, so I'm free from four to five, the bar around the corner from our office and great. And the number of people that just never took the meeting past that.
Joel(19:01):
And so not only,
Vas(19:01):
So lesson learned, cross the bridge,
Joel(19:03):
I had three kind of guiding principles. First, find investors that believe in your space and believe in what you're building that are really passionate about it. Not so much of even where it's at today, but really what it could be. Two, find investors that believe in you as individuals that are right for this space. And really the third thing is believe in you as the founders to execute that vision. And so most investors I talked to either did not see the space past where it was that day, and really what they were drawn to was the Instagram copycat. Instagram had just sold a few months prior for a billion dollars. What is the next,
Vas(19:47):
What's the successor to Instagram successor now that it's been bought?
Joel(19:51):
Second, if they did believe in it and they believed in where it went, it was kind of met with the, alright, you'll get it to this stage and I have this other team, or we'll need new staff to,
Vas(20:01):
We'll bring in a professional CEO to come around this company.
Joel(20:04):
And I think meeting with you, I think really what set it off was you came in with a thesis for the space and not to pat you on the back. No, pat go. I actually think that vision is more relevant today than it was 10 years ago, which is it's played out in a way. And I think we're entering into a space where I don't think as many people saw it back then, but now I actually believe the opportunity is even larger and it's really come into fruition and feel very fortunate to be in the position that we're in with the business that we have to now go after this even bigger opportunity.
Vas(20:45):
Did you and the team see the big multi billion dollar opportunity at the time? Or was it, Hey, we need to raise some money because our costs are, it was outstripping,
Joel(20:56):
It was both. There's like a spectrum. So I'm the eternal optimist looking at the biggest opportunity. You have Zach on one end that's just heads down, tinkering, building things, and then you have Mike, Wayne and Greg and kind of various degrees of
Vas(21:14):
Different shades of conviction at
Joel(21:16):
The time. Yeah, I think we all had, and this is actually kind of an interesting insight that I learned a few years, VSCO, was the importance of alignment around what the definition of success is. I think what actually I realized at that point, I didn't know it at that moment, and I've now come to kind of realize we all had different definitions of success. Interesting. And we were not explicit with each other and we got ahead of it. It didn't turn out to be this poison pill, if you will, but it really almost came to that. And I think that's one of those things that I now really, when I'm talking to other founders, you might think you're all aligned, but a great insight. You need to really get down and talk about what success looks like. Because some founders, it's like, well, I might have a certain number that I want to get to. I might have a certain stage that I want to get to. Or others might be like, I have this lifelong pursuit that I will never be
Speaker 4 (22:25):
Satisfied.
Joel(22:27):
I am going to die pursuing this passion.
Vas(22:33):
And so walk us through, how did that manifest?
Joel(22:36):
Well,
Vas(22:36):
What were,
Joel(22:37):
It manifests itself in the risk that one's willing to take.
Vas(22:40):
Sure, yeah, that's
Joel(22:42):
Right. In certain situations or where to play it safe or where to kind of go all in. And it starts to play the speed at which you feel the urgency to run at something,
Vas(22:55):
Who you're hiring, at what rate, what that implies about burn rate
Joel(23:00):
Pre fundraising at that moment, we were about 40 employees. We still had a daily standup with the entire company. Everyone knew what everyone was working on. And as far as alignment goes, it was really easy to stay as a unit. At the time we were, Wayne was in New York, but it was Colorado Springs, Greg, and all the curators and some of marketing, and then Mike and I leading the Emeryville office. And we more or less could really stay connected. And everyone was understanding where we were going. We took fundraising. The company almost doubled in a year. We expanded each of the offices, built out New York office. So now it's like three offices. And I think that's where the definition of success, the clarity of, we knew where we were going, but what that looked like or how far it needed to be pursued, the speed at which it needed to be pursued. I think we spent the next two years trying to figure out how to work together. And that's where I remember one of the more defining moments. At the time, I did not want to hire anyone on the people function. I was just more engineers product design. And I remember, I don't know if it was Excel or we're at the stage now you need to hire HR people. And so hired a woman by the name of Katie Shields, which looking back on it was one of the best decisions ever. Oh my gosh.
Vas(24:46):
One of the best people
Joel(24:49):
CPOs
Vas(24:49):
Out there.
Joel(24:50):
And candidly who shaped me personally as a human being, not just like a leader. And I remember I went to Katie, I was like, alright, I have these, I want to fix these people. I want these people to perform different or step up as a leader this way and that. And she's like, great, so we're going to start with you. And I was like, no, no, no, no. I'm not the problem. And so we started with this 360 review of me, which was both one of the worst and best moments of my life. I remember real moment being vulnerable here. I literally curled up in a ball on the floor at my house. And I was like, after getting all the feedback from everyone, and I was, I gutted. And I remember my wife told me, she's like, do you know how lucky you are that people cared enough to share what they thought about you? She's like, I don't have anyone like this that would give me this tough feedback. And it's like, be thankful that you had people. Now you know what to work on, where people, and that was really the moment where I realized a lack of alignment around expectations in a variety of roles, expectations of where I wanted the business to go and what I was expecting of people, what they were expecting of me.
Joel(26:12):
And so how did you create alignment from,
Vas(26:16):
You got all this data, you saw the misalignment in, I dunno, ambition or outcomes, whatever you want to call it. Okay, so you have that now you have to go create alignment.
Joel(26:28):
Yeah.
Vas(26:29):
How do you do that?
Joel(26:30):
Well, I mean, you fumbled for a little bit, to be honest, to try and figure it out. We had hired a coach at the time, and I think those coaches that we had hired were great for conflict resolution, but not so much strategy building. But I ended up reading a book, five Dysfunctions of a Team from Patrick Lencioni and the Table Group. And it really, if I were to think about VSCO today, I would say probably around 70 ish percent of the structure is built off of the premise of what's outlined in the table. In that book, Patrick has another book called The Advantage, which is more a true how to book around building alignment around values and meeting structure strategy. And so it was kind of like trial and error and putting things in place, but it really started with clarity of vision, where we were going, what success looked like, and then it was really around expectations. And I think one of the things that was a challenge for me was setting expectations that were from the focal point of what the business needed. And so much of what at the time, my job and what I felt my strength was taking an individual, looking at what they were strong at and then utilizing those needs to make something out of it. But there was kind of this turning point of this isn't personal, it's not about you, but what the business needs right now is this. And it's not saying that you're not capable or that, but it's a different skillset or
Vas(28:20):
Maybe a different person
Joel(28:21):
Different. And it actually really was. And I think that was kind of a shift in starting to be like, who are the right people for the moment in time to accomplish what we needed to get from where we were to where we wanted to go.
Vas(28:33):
Yeah, absolutely. It's so challenging for us when we are, our growth investing practice was really built around this archetype of company. It's the bootstrap founder that has identified a problem in the market. They've attacked it in a very efficient way. More often than not, they've gotten a profitability, but the company, maybe the revenue and the profits of the business have outscale the team and its processes. And for that moment in time, that can be okay based on the scale that you're at. But if you're Excel, and I remember this conversation at Prizefighter, we were dreaming about VSCO being this default, this standard in the market that every photographer would build upon. And that was a massive vision to go out and execute against. That implied a level of scale
Vas(29:37):
That as we now know, outstripped, the capacity, the skillset, and maybe even the intentions of the original team. And that tension point of getting from kind of scrappy, bootstrapped everyone in one office, or at least everyone, a stones throw away from one another, a high degree of trust and intimacy with one another. Everyone knew what each other was working on. Getting from that point to a structure that arguably is going to be much more scalable in service of that large vision, that is always a really tough transition point. And it is, there's no playbook for that. It is an imperfect art in some ways that requires a lot of, well, I think first and foremost, empathy for the team because to your point, a lot of people signed up for this really awesome, scrappy, live within our means profitable type business. And now Excel comes in and we all have this shared vision for going really, really big.
Vas(30:39):
And maybe some people don't want to sign up for that. So you have to have a lot of empathy for the team. And then quite frankly, I think it's a lot of trial and error on the people side. I mean, I've been doing this 15 years. I can't think of a single company that has perfectly hired the right executive team out of the gate. We have gone through any number of iterations to find the right person for the right stage with the right skillset. Walk us through that transition of growing up from bootstrap business to now scalable venture backed to company, specifically from a team building standpoint. What are the lessons learned going from V one to V six? What would you tell young Joel to watch out for as you're reinventing the org chart?
Joel(31:27):
I mean, I think about this often. I would say definitely over the last couple of years, this is really the people side of it's become my passion. It went from literally the thing I saw almost no value in to now I believe is
Speaker 4 (31:41):
Everything.
Joel(31:44):
Because it doesn't matter how great your vision is, if you can't build an organization that's effective, that executes well, that works together,
Speaker 4 (31:52):
Nothing
Vas(31:52):
Else
Joel(31:53):
Matters. Nothing else matters. And it really comes down, there's a few products or companies that it doesn't matter what happens on the people's side, they caught lightning in a bottle that's going to work. And I would say in a lot of ways, that's also been the case with VSCO. I look back at some of the ideas and the leaders that we had at VSCO, and they probably needed the VSCO today to actually support them better. Now I'm playing it back and it's like they probably came in and are like, oh, great. I didn't realize how much work I need to do here in order. This isn't ready for where I'm at. And I do, I look at people in their careers. David Brooks has this book, second Mountain, I don't know if you're familiar with it, but looking at leaders that are in the stage of their career where they either have everything to prove for themselves, they're in this, look at me and look at what I'm capable of doing, and I have something to prove, or I've proven everything I need to prove. Look at what I have to give. And I actually look at it from a team stand. You need both.
Joel(33:02):
You can't have everyone being in this
Vas(33:06):
Chip on the shoulder. Yeah,
Joel(33:07):
Yeah. Everyone can't be chip on the shoulder stage. I have something to prove because they're fighting with each other on it. You can't have everyone in the, I've been there and done that and I'm just here to help others because it loses the hunger and the fight. It's the balance. And that balance is needed for different situations and different scenarios. But I do think it's critical to have enough of the leadership team that has nothing to prove. I think it's something that has really set Eric apart,
Joel(33:48):
And I think a few of the leaders that Chris is another example with him on the team right now. And I think currently we have the best balance that we've had of that. But yeah, I think that's one. And then two, it's really around kind of back to Patrick Lencioni's book and Five Dysfunctions of a Team. I think we have always had, it's the leaders that are excellent in their field, but not always the leaders that understand the whole business and the enterprise leader. And one of the ways that I, in talking with other execs, I always say, I will know you're successful when you're advocating for the resources of someone else in the business. Because what it tells me is that you understand what the business
Speaker 4 (34:41):
Needs.
Joel(34:42):
You're able to set yourself and function aside and realize that if in fact putting more money or people towards this other area will grow the business and is what the business needs, that's an unlock moment for me with an exec when they are thinking back to not what they need or what marketing needs or what product needs or what design needs, what does VSCO need, and ultimately, what does VSCO need to do in order to meet the needs of our customer? And that I think is kind of the most critical altitude adjustment and language and creation. And I think is something where I didn't realize that early on. And it's easier said than done looking back on it, but I think it's something that is also really critical, understanding the needs of the business and how it works.
Vas(35:36):
Yeah. Let's fast forward a bit to 20 23, 20 22, 20 23. So VSCO has gone through its learning curve, its journey. We are serving tens of millions of users. We have millions of subscribers. We have tens of millions of revenue. We're not profitable in some ways we've come full circle. We're this self-sustaining business, but we've never lost sight of our end vision of serving creators and helping creators be the best versions of themselves. And talk us through the psychology of, we've mentioned Eric, who is our now phenomenal, fantastic CEO. Talk us through the psychology of hiring Eric, the process of getting alignment between you and he on expectations, and then ultimately the process of handing over the keys to him.
Joel(36:42):
So around 20 18, 20 19, I sat down and wrote this 10 year vision. And I looked at it from a professional family and personal side of things. And at the time, 10 years, I knew where I wanted to be and where I wanted VSCO to be. I really wanted VSCO to always be something bigger than myself. And in order to do that, it needed to be weaned off of me. It needed to not be dependent upon me. This could not be attached to me as an identity. Some individuals and CEOs like the businesses, the ceo, the
Vas(37:24):
Person, and vice versa
Joel(37:25):
And vice versa. But it was not what Greg and I ever aspired to. We always aspire to have this generational business that was much larger and bigger than any of us individually. And it was about the community that we served. So working back on that, I worked with my coach to kind of create this 10 year plan. So it was really five years into this plan was to transition out as CEO and into exec chairman. Well, if I wanted to transition out as CEO in five years, I really wanted someone built up from within that was not just this. Like, Hey, everyone, here's a new person that you've never met that's now going to run the business. And so then it was hiring a president or COO type individual to take over. But again, we worked with the coach and we kind of created this four phase plan. And back to clarity, definition of success, it was like, here's what success will look like in each of these phases. And Eric and I both did this whole analysis of a dey model of blind. So we each did it ourselves of everything that we thought in each of those phases we would own, be responsible for, be the decider on.
Vas(38:45):
That's a great exercise.
Joel(38:48):
And then it was kind of like we came together and looked at it and there was really only one area that we were, and it was kind of around the brand. And I think I maybe had some hesitation of giving up decision making around that, but I think we came to a really healthy kind of resolution around that.
Joel(39:11):
And so we kind of created this map and it was phases and we knew what the outcomes needed to be. And it was both ways. It was both what VSCO needed, but it was what Eric needed in order to be successful, to provide that air cover. And also for Eric to be able to stand up in front of the company and for it to feel natural. And I think where it ended up with was everyone was like, well, yeah, this is clear to us. Eric's in this role, we want him. And it's not like it's good ridden stool, but it's kind of like it worked to near perfection that the team, he really built that trust and leadership with everyone. And so yeah, I mean, I look back on it and I think it takes two individuals. Eric had a vision for what he wanted for the future, and I think was really critical for that. And it was one of the best pieces of advice. I know you gave it to me, Ryan Sweeney gave this to me. But it was really around finding a leader that wasn't just regurgitating my vision, but that they had their own vision of the future that built off of
Joel(40:20):
What Greg and I had built, but was bigger. It was new. It would excite me
Joel(40:29):
To really have that person at the helm. And I think that's really where this was today. It took this foundation that is phenomenal. You mentioned it's a really great business, and I think Eric's made it even better, even a positive the last three years, and just a really well-oiled machine, but this opportunity to help photographers make it in principle, Greg and I always talked about this, and if you were to ask us, it's what we wanted. But when you looked at the business, we had only accomplished parts of it. And I think now today, and really especially, I mean, it's a really exciting year for a lot of the things that are coming, but everything that a photographer needs to make it as a photographer and as a creative VSCO is really focused on building. And so it takes a lot of trust to hand something over. But I think it was back to that it's not about me or my identity. It's again, what's best for the business? What does VSCO need? And it was very clear to me, VSCO needed fresh leadership for the next decade. And I think it is one of my lessons learned from executives in hiring, if you wait till it's too late, it's infinitely more disruptive. You always want to end on a high. And so one of the things that I consistently learned to start asking executives as I was hiring them is, what are you going to leave VSCO for?
Joel(42:05):
And people in the interview are like, what do you mean? What are you asking? What I'm going to leave for? I'm like, no, seriously. What are your career goals? And it's like Katie, Katie Shields is a great example. It's like, I want to be a chief people officer, a company going public global with thousands upon thousands of people, and I need to scale that even more. And when that opportunity kind of arose, it was one where it was like, this is a success. I feel like a success like VSCO played a
Vas(42:37):
Role right in
Joel(42:38):
Playing that. But it's not holding back from that career
Vas(42:42):
Trajectory.
Joel(42:42):
I take it as a challenge to grow VSCO and to grow the opportunity for that individual and that exec within VSCO. But if it's not, be afraid of it, because I think that misalignment of expectations and desires and opportunity, no one wins in that. And ultimately, the photographers that are paying us lose due to our inability to find that alignment.
Vas(43:11):
I've been really impressed with how you've had to set aside in some ways your founding story and your identity as the leader of VSCO to do what's right for the company and its community long term. So tell us where we are going. I mean, we are in a really interesting point in time right now with Gen AI and what that means for creativity at large. It has pulled in so many new creators. I mean, people can now create at the speed at which they think. If you think about what a text prompt does and how it effectively encodes your own creativity, but then generate something on the screen, what is VSCO place in all of that going forward?
Joel(44:00):
In one way, everything's changed and in another, nothing has changed. One would've said the same thing from the way mobile photography disrupted professional photography. I mean, if you were to tell a professional photographer a decade ago that newsrooms would not be hiring photographers and be relying upon people and their cell phone photos to be using for coverage, it'd tell you you're crazy or cover. I remember when the cover of Billboard magazine was of Justin Bieber, and it was shot on an iPhone, and it was like, man, if you would've told me as a professional photographer that I would've said, no way. I think the tools and the technology are speeding up the ability for really the workflow and the process, but the need for the vision, the storytelling really at the heart of what I, in my opinion, means to kind of be creative, is to look at a situation and come up with a solution that is not standard or to see something in a way that no one else does. One of my favorite photographers, nav Patel, I worked with him and we were shooting at this event, and afterwards I saw his photos and I was like, where was this?
Joel(45:36):
I was like, we were in the same place, and I never saw this. And he's like, well, I just saw it. And he literally can see the world in a way that I physically can't. And I think the need for that for creatives and for storytellers will not go away. And in fact, as gen AI and other things only enable others and everything to kind of look the same, it's kind of replacing what stock photography was. You could tell the stock photography that looked the same of people shaking hands in a high rise conference room with glass. It was like, oh, that's just like a stock image, not original or not creative. I think you'll see the same thing, and it might be different, and it's probably a lot harder to tell the difference now, but I think what we'll see is that the need for creative storytelling is going to be needed in everything, not just photography, but I think for photographers in particular, the need for community, the need for tools to run a business and be successful, all these things that I think are really big opportunities for us to tackle. And I think that default of VSCO is the home, the hub for photographers, the community where they can learn their craft, where they can find mentorship, find support.
Joel(47:06):
I think all of these are areas for us to build solutions and move beyond tools and move beyond community. And really, I think the big unlock is to make a living. And I think that's kind of like Greg and I would always say, I don't think we'd rest knowing that it was like that unfinished business. And I think it's something that Eric has really latched onto. And I think we're just starting to see that opportunity of the ways a photographer can make it on VSCO, find business, get paid, get their career started, go from just being an aspiring to an actual professional and that journey. I think what you will find is that for some, VSCO has played a role and in and out or been there, but we don't always grow with the photographer in the past. I think what you'll see over the next decade will really be to find that VSCO will be that critical piece that I can't imagine life without. And for those photographers, it will be, they'll look back on it and say, this was the critical tool piece, community support, encouragement, portfolio site. It's where I found my business. And so the more that we play into that, I look back at the founding vision has a greater chance of success today. And I think the needs' even greater. I,
Vas(48:36):
I totally agree with you. I think it is never been more important to feel the humanity and creativity than it is right now and going forward and inspiration. It's a very human emotion that I think is never going to be replaced by gen ai. And that's the one thing when you look through VSCO users on Twitter or on Reddit that they continually come back to. It's this idea of humanity at the center of the creative spirit. And I think VSCO is going to play a really important role in capturing that sentiment and that spirit going forward. And so for me, I think Gen AI has created this immense opportunity to take on an even more important role in this ecosystem. And I couldn't be more excited for what the next five, 10 years hold.
Joel(49:31):
Yeah, I agree. I mean, if you go back to the first product of VSCO with VSCO film that cut my editing time from 12 hours to six hours, I think what's most important, what I look forward to with AI is this AI assistance, human-centric AI assistance to great, take it from six to 30 minutes, give me back more time with family and friends, give me more time to be out into the world, to find inspiration and creativity and to explore and to create. And I think I'm all for, I mean, think about the time spent. I started in film, from film to the Dark room, the span of the workflow improvements that have happened over the years. I'm all for that. And I think that that's something that I can get behind the replacement. And it will be for some, there's always been some people are unwilling to pay for photos. They're scraping 'em off the internet. But for real storytelling and creativity and the importance of capturing a moment, I think there's real opportunity.
Vas(50:43):
Yeah. Awesome. Yeah, thanks for having us on the journey for the last 10 years and hopefully for many, many more years to come. It's been an honor.
Joel(50:51):
Oh, it really has been a critical piece of it. And I'm excited for the future.
