Below is the full video conversations between Jared Brick founder of Brick House Media Co, Blockchain Media and Gryp Media speaking with Andrew Devlin the co-founder of PitchHub, a new business focused video platform. The video player you see above is their very own PitchHub technology and click the three lines icon button to jump between video chapters of our interview!
Learn more about PitchHub’s professional business video platform click the image above.
JARED: Hello everybody, this is Jared from Brick House Media and today, we’re interviewing Andrew Devlin. Andrew is the co-founder of PitchHub, a new innovative video software platform. I'm really excited to hear about what you got to tell us about PitchHub. I've heard about it now, I want to hear it from the, from the co founder.
ANDREW: Thanks, Jared. Appreciate that. So PitchHub is a business video platform, primarily right now. It's used for sales and marketing folks, help people get video online, help organize it, and then help also put a call to action (CTAs) on those videos, which is not really done today. So we see so important Yeah, we see a lot of value, adding value, being able to put a call to actions on videos and organize videos on your website.
JARED: And actually, there's a statistic out there that says over 65% of people, if they were just asked to do something, they would actually take an action but no one actually asked them to do something. So that call to action button is so important to actually get to them. Watch the video great, but take an action step.
ANDREW: Yeah. What's that next step the great things about software and being able to, you know, produce different types of applications are that if somebody watches this specific video. Like, say, for real estate, yeah, you know you have an introduction video, here's I'm a real estate agent, but right after that video, are you going to buy or sell a home or at least going to view the home, get download a proposal, something about that next step, maybe it's not by the home next, but like, at least get them down the ladder of the funnel to that potential conversion of sale. So if you've ever had to use an RFP or request for proposal, it's a long text based typical process and it's not very human. So I love what you guys have done with this, tell me what you guys have done with it. So when we built the platform, we wanted to help buyers look at more sellers in a shorter period of time. And then also give the opportunity for sellers to be actually looked at been from buyers. So you created the pitch up platform. Yeah, and we actually found that wasn't really us, so we trademarked that, RFV. So we've got that.
ANDREW: PitchHub is the new home of the request for video. And so what we've created is this platform where buyers can potentially go out and look at more sellers in a short period of time, request them to create a video, right a video and send it back based on the response from their specific requirements. And we expect that we're going to save about 50% of time both on the buyer side and on the seller side. 50% of time. Yeah, like, you know, we're talking about days and weeks and months of time going through proposals and reviews. And if I'm as much incredible. Yeah, that's incredible and evaluate not only saving time, but you're seeing more potential candidates and buyers in that condensed amount of time. That's right. That's right. So we are the biggest challenges that we're seeing the two caveats really that we're seeing from the RFV and kind of getting this thing off the ground. Yeah, people are just slow to change and they got a process Yeah, people love it. So we're we are moving towards that. The other thing is, as you know very well.
JARED: Many people believe that video is very hard, so you can be hard to produce.
ANDREW: Yeah, we're trying to help lower the barriers around that. But yeah, like people get intimidated they get intimidated with the gear they get intimidated with the script, they get intimidated being on camera and then there's editing and then there's posting there's so many different steps in the process that really when you're in the field it doesn't seem like intimidation but when you're not in the field it's really a lot of hurdles to get over the first step is actually getting on video yeah putting yourself, put yourself on camera and yeah you know take a teleprompter read through teleprompter.
ANDREW: Write a script yet word for word. I mean, literally word for word and then start reading it to yourself. I'm not the presenter. I'm not the type of guy I never thought I was. But I think you're good actually. But I needed to do it obviously for the business. Yeah, so I had to do and I forced myself to do it. Yeah, I'm telling you that once you start to do better videos, it's a game changer, you start to get really excited. Yeah. And you really kind of start to really get better at producing the content. The first thing you need to do is get yourself on camera and start producing video. Start by getting used to yourself and in front of it. That's what I always tell people just put your camera up, put it on video, be alone, so you don't have any judgment and just start shooting video. No one ever has to see these videos. But you have to learn think of an athlete or an Olympian, they watch themselves do their process and they pick up the arms, the ‘ahhhs’ and ‘uhhms’, the all this stutters that we all have these facial tics that we have, it's really critically important that you watch yourself and learn well, how am I being presented on video because this is the future I mean, we're going to be moving. There's some statistics that 70% to 90% of the web will be video at some point. Yeah, because why should we read if we could just talk to us?
JARED: Yeah, we've been sitting around a campfire, having people talk to us for hundreds of thousands of years. This is the human way so that's what I love about video and it literally is the future. Let's talk a little bit more about you too.
ANDREW: Why we really feel like it's not a super business focus platform when I think of YouTube I think of entertainment education celebrities now they're moving more into the TV space they're probably going to have a TV channel that we all watch all the time yeah why do you think it's not very valuable so I mean I'm right there with yeah I think YouTube is great, honest it's my entertainment if I see a video especially a website video that somebody is using from business and they have their video in their business video on that platform yeah I automatically I'm starting to think about what I watch on YouTube. I'm watching their content but you are distracted completely destroyed got it got even worse is a lot of people at the end of the videos you'd like YouTube kind of take over and say we've all seen those nine windows of new videos and sometimes they're just totally random shows by that algorithm of YouTube have nothing to do with your business. You could even see a competitors videos! business right after your video. And so you spend all this time and money getting people to get eyeballs on your website to look at your website yeah first thing they're going to do is they're going to watch a video and now you know they're going to be then taken away to to a different channel yeah which if you think about it, you know oh well it's free well that's not free. It's not really expensive because you spent all this money getting people to your website and now they're distracted and they're potentially gone.
JARED: Yeah, so you'd like to actually put a video menu on there so but other videos you can suggest other videos to your audience and then also have a call to action. So at the end of the video, say, Would you like more information? Or would you know if you watch this video, you can watch this. Yeah, give me an example. You said I think you said you had a real estate example of how this works.
ANDREW: Absolutely. So we're working with a real estate company that has an intro video so when you come to their website, you have some of the agents actually introduced the company and kind of get more familiar with them as a company but then afterwards they'll say, you know. They'll give me within the video menu. Would you like to buy all? Or do you like to sell out? Yeah. Or what are you here for?
JARED: It's just taking people through that journey. Again, it's similar. If you're familiar with the email marketing process, you get one email. It directs you do one path where it takes you a landing page. This is really following people through video process so they can keep getting value and value where they feel. I mean, basically, a lot of people feel once you've given a lot of value, they really want to start working with you. They feel somewhat indebted to want to work with you. They've gotten so much value out of the video that you've given them for free, by their time and your time, recreate it and they were like, you know what, this is someone I really want to work with. You start building that trust and rapport before you know you've got a call or an email or meeting set up. There's a call to action right there at the end of the video. Yeah, no, I love that. Yeah, and it's really clear buttons. That's what I love. It's like, click here, big buttons. There's not a lot of visual distractions. It's just like, what do you want people to do?
ANDREW: So I'm seeing a lot in the market now where people are trying to use video for recruitment they're asking candidates to send in a video. As an interview or as an early stage in the process, so you guys are also getting into this too. With the videos in the recruitment. Yeah, we created the platform, more for procurement. We had a lot of people by like, eight out of 10 people saying, Wow, I can really use this for recruiting. Yeah, because what you can do is you can have 100 resumes you get the resumes come in, then you like to 20 candidates. Yeah, instead of having executives and other people that interview those 20 candidates. Yeah, you can then make it more specific and even give a video about this is the team. This is how we work within the organization. This is what you're getting yourself in for but then after that video, then ask them to send in a video so now that we've rationalize it for you, yeah.
Now, tell us about yourself, do you see yourself working here? Yeah, and here's a couple questions for you to answer. So they answer those videos and then everybody within the team that's going to hire gets to watch these videos and then say, do we see this person actually being fit here again, the evolution is really like who are you? How can you tell us about yourself and an official amount of time I can we get a sense of you working together?
JARED: Because culture fit, at least for millennials has become a huge game changer. They want to know if there's a good culture fit. The company wants to know, and the candidate wants to know, and video is a great way to actually feel. Do these people feel like they have a good culture fit for organization?
ANDREW: It's really expensive for the organization if they're wrong, and if they know hiring, they get hired. They go to the company and just even the interview process costs a lot of money to go through all that time. Yeah, that's exactly so I love that for candidates and hiring and all these recruitment processes. I'm sure HR managers are they don't even know yet but they're gonna be excited to try pitch up. So when you're when you're going for a job and you want to really convey a lot of information, a small amount of time this is where I really think video is so critical. How do you guys do that with the RFP process now? So when we asked the the buyer Yeah, or the business to create a video or create a lot of context around what they're trying to solve for goals. What we found is that the vendor the the business that wants to respond to that they really you know they they see a fit within the requirements from the proposal yeah proposal they will you know and they've got five minutes do so. They put a lot of effort into that yeah within five minutes you can pack in a lot of information saying yes we do this with testimonials your experience all that and again.
JARED: People make this I think this is one of the key things I want to lens like people make decisions in their heart. First they want to feel something and then it moves up to their head and they go oh this might be a business I want to work with and that comes through video a lot of times that comes through video first then you want to meet with them and you want to shake their hand and set up a in person meeting or video meeting. Even if you're if you're a remote yeah so I think that video is the first step is really important it can leap frog you a lot faster to the other over the other candidates that are going for these positions people buy from people.
ANDREW: Video is really hard to produce, what do you recommend?
JARED: Well, my background was in photo and video. And then once I got an MBA, I added strategy and marketing and all these other core business aspects to it. But my heart was in photo and video. So I've been doing this since I was in my teens, basically. And I've seen the whole evolution from film to digital now into your smartphone, basically. And the great thing about this is like, everyone can play now everyone can now play if you own a smartphone, you're in this game. You don't need a lot of high quality production gear anymore. It doesn't have to cost you thousands of dollars. If you have a computer and a smartphone. You can do some editing and you can record and you might want to get a little mic that's about it. And maybe some lights, it's really not a lot of gear as that was the hurdle originally. So now it comes down to content, what's the content you want to create? What's the value you want to give educational, motivational, inspirational content that builds that report that builds that trust and have nice backgrounds like this!
JARED: We use a background we're not in a skyscraper now. We're trying to figure out what see this is, my guess, is Chicago. But yeah, you want to put yourself in a place that actually adds value as far as a background, some decent lighting, so you can be well lit some good clean audio in a quiet room, and then a camera that's on a tripod that's going to be shaky and weird. And then you cut it and then you edit it up. And once you do that, though, once you have this little beauty of content, right, you've created this little beautiful piece, don't just throw it out to the world actually… be strategic! And I think this is where my business is really about how you going to strategically leverage the time and effort you put into these content assets. So we have a blog it's called Check Your Assets (this blog) because it's like you really need to be careful what you're doing with your assets that you put time and money into. So I love the PitchHub model because it's like it's very strategic. It's very call to action focused and there are some applications for YouTube there's some applications for smartphone and Instagram and social media, but then when it gets down like the b2b model, and the b2c model, I think actually picked up as a really great potential avenue for people and businesses to try now.
“Once you have this little beauty of content... you’ve created this little beautiful piece, don’t just throw it out to the world actually… be strategic!”
ANDREW: And where I found out later, I'm like, oh, gosh, what I'm wearing is not conducive to the background. Yeah, or the camera in general. Yeah. lighting. How do you solve for that?
JARED: So a couple of tips I always say were solid colors that are not distracting. There's not a lot of wild patterns and designs because the basic overall message is anything that's distracting is taking away from the message. Anything that's visually distracting out of focus backgrounds, moving things that don't add value, get rid of them. Yeah, if this wasn't helpful background, we would shoot with a white wall we would shoot with nothing. So you want to control for sound light and background. So with clothing, we just want high contrast so dark clothing with a lighter background, dark background, lighter clothing, and if you have dark skin you want to wear lighter clothing, light skin, dark clothing, you just want to add contrast. It's kind of like black and white photography. It's black and white. It's not gray. You don't want gray monotone. You want highs and lows. That's good visual interest that you want to create on camera. Awesome. Thanks.
ANDREW: I've heard a lot about Gryp Media and want to know a little bit more.
JARED: We spell Gryp with a ‘y’ as I used to work with Lyft back in 2012 and I put a Y and everything now and it was take on the film world of the film grips, some of the hardest working people on the film set that are running cables and lights and running all these different jobs and what we've done is create Gryp Media creators and grip media studios, the great media creators as a meetup community now over 230 people in the in the area and then also the grip media studios are these collaborative plug and play dropping studios.
ANDREW: You’re supporting the coworking community, why is that?
JARED: There's a lot of entrepreneurs in a small space, and they need to create assets. They need to create interviews, testimonials, product demos. So if we build studios in those spaces, they can just come in, bring a camera, bring a smartphone, the lights are there, the backgrounds are there, the tripods are there, and they can just shoot. And our goal is really, for people to create more media more frequently, don't wait to spend five to $10 to 20k plus on one video, we'd love to see you creating five videos a month and sending them out to your email list and your social media and posting to your blogs.
And so Gryp is really a collaborative way to empower entrepreneurs, small business owners in the community around coworking and just around creating more media more frequently you're supporting the gig-economy I mean, that's Yeah, that's really that's the way things are going and having a service like that I think will offer a lot of value. Yeah, Gryp is really just about having a place to go where you want to create media and not everybody can have a home studio with all the gear so we want to be able to support
ANDREW: People want to get them over those low barrier hurdles. Yeah. So they can create more and focus more on content and focus more on the value instead of some of the smaller hurdles are people relate to nowadays, they don't really care as long.
JARED: That they just want to know what you have to say they want it. They want to hear from you. They want to hear what you're passionate about what you're excited about. And the best way to do that is through photo and video and media and visual content. Awesome. Thanks,
JARED: So I've got a few more tips for you. If you're getting started in video. The first one is actually write out your script. So if you don't want to write it, word for word, at least make a bulleted list and put it under the camera right by the phone that you're recording on. Tape it to the wall wherever it is. So you can just pause look at your points and come back up and run through your points that keeps a little bit more authentic. Doesn't feel as strict and conformed because it is hard to read through a script. It can be challenging. Yeah, I would say as a so yeah. From experience and doing a lot of interviews and having people do pitches Yeah.
ANDREW: You're wasting your time. If you're not putting it all down on paper. Yeah. And if you're not practicing, you think you just practice in the perfect going to be terrible. And never be happy. Just going to redo it anyway, right it out, figure out how long you want the video to be in practice.
JARED: The beauty is that with digital, you can practice and practice and look at your takes, really refine the way you're speaking, how you're looking, your facial tics, your movements, focus on your language, are you using the keywords in the industry that you want to appeal to? And really, you know, get in there, but, but keep it authentic. Keep it real. If you're like, Hi, my name is Jared, I want to do this thing. It's going to not come through well. So yes, rehearse practice, be comfortable and it's going to take time we did not start today is not my first video. We've taken years to get to this comfort level and we're still got growth to go. I get Yeah, back all the time. I want to redo every video and we don't always have the chance to read your stuff. And sometimes you just have to go with what you've got. And don't go for perfectionism. It is the art what is the saying perfectionism is the bain of the world. It's like, if you're going for perfect, you're never going to get there. You just want to go for the best take, you can give it and then say, okay, submit it, get it in there, because time is also an issue.
Yeah, and people that will come through when you put a lot of effort into it, and it'll come through with video. Cool. So if you have any questions, you can reach out to my company, Brick House Media Co., if you want to learn more about Pitchhub.com and the innovative ways they're doing RFP to RFV pitch proposals.
ANDREW: At the very end of this video, you're going to see your call to action. But so what are we going to see at the end of this video? It's going to be a pop up like more information, or would you like to watch other videos and then press on contact and we'll contact you. Thanks.
JARED: Thank you, Andrew. Thanks for talking today. I really learned a lot from your platform and the some of the ways the markets are moving in the future of media and video and I think a platform like yours will have wide-scale usage potential that I'm excited to see out there.
Video is the future so thanks for watching. Thanks for watching. I'll take care.
Video transcription by otter.ai
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