The Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series is supported by Diet Coke®. Now, the drink that helps you stay extraordinary brings you extraordinary people. Find Diet Coke® on Facebook for access to a whole lot of extraordinary.
For the last six years, Eileen Gittins has made it her mission to help anyone and everyone become an author via Blurb. What started as a self-publishing startup for do-it-yourself bookmakers has become a multi-platform storytelling service, adding an app for iPhone and iPod Touch in April, and most recently, an iPad iteration. Mashable spoke with Gittins about the conception and evolution of the company, her inspirations and, of course, cowboy boots.
Name: Eileen Gittins
Company: Blurb
Blurb’s Net Worth: $19 million invested
Fun Fact: I love cowboy boots and I have many pairs, vintage and new. And I wear them inappropriately, with crazy outfits where they don’t necessarily go together.
What inspires you?
In this particular company and in general, people who can get passionate about anything, I just love that. I just get energized by ideas and by people who are committed wholeheartedly to whatever it is they’re doing.
Our customers are like that, and our employees are like that. We interview people specifically for that [quality]: Tell me about something you love, something you care very deeply about. And if they pass that test, then the interview continues. If they don’t, then the interview kind of stops.
And the reason we do that is because that’s our customer base. Our customers are people who are taking the time and the energy and the creative juices to create a book — of some kind. It can just be a book of their photos, it could be something really special to them, a cookbook, their blog, whatever. But they’re pouring their heart out, right? They’re pouring their soul, their heart, the brand of them into this book. And it’s a privilege every day, and an inspiration every day to see the range of creative expression in the books that people make from all over the world.
What is your vision of success?
Blurb is already a winner, because every day we’re giving voice to people all over the world — the ability to produce something of great beauty that you could never do before as a normal person if you weren’t a published author. You could never produce a truly high quality book like this and just order one copy before. You could never do that. So that’s its own reward already; that’s on the “soulful selling” side.
On the business side, we want to change the world one story at a time. We want to have that kind of worldwide impact: in the 21st century, what it means to [publish] a book and how people tell stories. And what’s behind that for us is images: Photographs are the new lingua franca. It used to be the way that people communicated was almost exclusively through words, either spoken like we are now or written. Increasingly, people are communicating via pictures, images. We think that’s a really important shift. And we want to enable that kind of communication storytelling through physical books and through digital books and through mobile media.
What about your idea was game-changing?
We’re in the business of enabling people to create a story once and then publish it wherever. And this is a big differentiator.
Let me take you into where we’ve been over the last few years when it comes to enabling people to make a book. Now historically, a book meant a printed book, but we’ve known for a long time that that wasn’t always going to be the case. So as the iPad came out, we really learned all about it. Because the iPad, unlike the Kindle or Nook, enables a rich media experience: color, two-page layout, etc. So right now, our beta [iPad app] — which will be out later this year publicly — will let you create your book once using any of Blurb’s tools. We offer three options for book making: 1) a browser-based book-making tool; 2) a downloadable client that works on a Mac or a PC called BookSmart; and 3) if you’re a designer and you want to use Adobe InDesign, we’ve got a template generator that will enable you to use InDesign and then just upload a PDF directly to us. So you can use any of those tools to make a book.
Now here’s the kicker: You will then be able to output that book from the same file to any medium. You can purchase an iPad version, you can purchase a hardcover or softcover, and in our bookstore (because we’re not only about “you can make it” — we’re also about “you can market it, and you can sell it”), you can then make it available to your fans, your family, your friends and your customers in whatever form they want to purchase it, whether that’s in iPad form or a printed book.
Right now, to get that done is a custom development job, and that’s what publishing houses are doing. What Blurb is doing is saying, “No, no, no, you should be able to make it once and then publish it to whatever medium.” That’s the ticket — that push for distribution, which is all about social. Because we think social is the new way to distribute books — meaning you can let the world know that you’ve just created something. Instead of going the old way — through physical bookstores and distributions — we think the new way is all through online, viral, word-of-mouth and social networks.
What was the pivotal point in your early startup days?
There was one question for the company before we actually got funded, and I think I will call out that as pivotal. And that was: Could we make money as a business on a book of one? Meaning if somebody made a book, and they only ever ordered one copy, could we have a viable business? And the reason why that was so important was that’s the opposite of traditional book publishing.
In traditional book publishing, they take a bunch of risk on an author and spend a bunch of money up front. They invest, they put in all this time and energy, they put editorial on it, they put marketing, PR, publicity, distribution and then they hope on the other end that that book will sell 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 copies worldwide. So they make it up on volume. And so they recoup all their investments on all their books that actually become bestsellers.
We said, “That may not work, because our audience may never want to sell books at all.” In fact, a lot of the books may not have any commercial value. It’s a book of your vacation, or your family’s cookbook. They may be a gift you’re giving. You’re not going to sell them at all. So we couldn’t have a business model that presumed sales. So we had to think, “Okay, how will we create a business [based on] one copy?” And that was the pivotal question. That drove 50 other decisions for the company in terms of, “How can you do that?”
What was the biggest challenge you faced while launching Blurb?
[Establishing the business model] was the first challenge. The second challenge was that when I went out to raise money in 2005, everything was going online. So the blogosphere was going crazy, online gaming, Wiki, Flickr, publish your photos online, all that was happening.
The venture community thought I was a little insane to be looking to take those digital photos back to analog form, into digital books. Even though back in 2005 our vision was always that they wouldn’t be physical forever. In fact, that’s why we have the name Blurb — it sounds very online-y and webby.
But to the venture community at that time, the idea of taking everyone’s images and content back into digital books was a little bit crazy. But we did get funded, and since then we’ve been usually successful.
What are the biggest influences on your business model?
The rise of the creative professional within our market. And by the way, when I say “creative professional” I mean the higher-end enthusiast to the professional. These are people who have a DSLR, these are people who are really into it. In fact, we just launched our Instagram book. I would include the rabid, passionate Instagram user in this category.
These are people who really want to create; they want their stuff to look beautiful. And what that means is they’re very discerning about quality. Because if they’ve just spent all this time applying filters and bringing it into Photoshop, and getting it just right — man, when you print that book, it better look as close to what that thing looked like on the screen as possible because they actually really, really care.
What that has meant for us is we have had to really focus on color, print quality, binder quality in a way different than if we were just addressing someone who wants to send her mother a picture book of the baby’s second birthday party.
So what is now happening with us is we are seeing work come in from famous, high-end working photographers, from big brands like Lexus, and Honda, and Ralph Lauren and Pixar and others. We’re seeing a lot of brand books come through ad agencies. And the reason for it is because, while these people could make books previously, they used to need a big budget. Now your budget as an agency is the cost of one book. Presumably you have in-house creative people who do this, so it’s people-time, but literally your budget can be 30 bucks.
How did your social network of peers influence your business?
I meet up with people all the time. I’m a big LinkedIn user — I use it all the time to get connected. And this is how people now can get connected to me. So I hear from people all the time. Now the bad side of this, of course, is as a CEO, you’re visible and people reach out to you all the time with all kinds of crazy stuff. You just don’t have time to respond to every single thing.
But I do get LinkedIn messages now from people that I actually do want to meet. Same thing with Facebook. Pretty much every day I’ll get a message in from either LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, from somebody who wants to connect up with me or the company. And I’ll say at least half of the time, it’s really interesting.
How does your startup utilize social media? (Any excellent case studies?)
Blurb itself has a Facebook Page, we have a YouTube channel, we have a dedicated person in our marketing department who is our community manager and whose job it is to be engaged in our conversation — not to be a marketer in those mediums, because that just doesn’t work and it’s not appropriate, but to participate in the conversation.
When we launched the Instagram book, Twitter just lit up like you can’t believe. It was unbelievable — and worldwide — the amount of tweets about Blurb’s new Instagram book. Ditto when we launched the social version of Blurb mobile. The number of folks who were tweeting about it and Facebooking their mobile stories onto their accounts — because you can do that within the app — it just exploded. So as a business, we’re very conscious.
It used to be your website where people could connect with you, but that’s still a wall — it’s your corporate site. These other mediums (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) are a more personal connection, and given the nature of what we do, and how personal people’s stories are, it’s critical that we pay attention, that we’re in the conversation. One of the things that we’re looking to do later this year is a camera-phone conference. We’re partnering up with folks like Instagram and Bolt Peters and some others to put on a day where we talk about how you can use social media to get your visual stories out there. So we’re looking to sponsor things like that to really progress the notion of an imaging workflow for camera phones.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?
Do something you love, because when you’re starting a company, especially for an early-stage entrepreneur, it’s marginally taxing. There will be dark times. If you don’t have that passion behind it personally, if it’s not something that you just believe in and you love, then it’s hard to sustain yourself through the moments when it’s really, really hard.
The second piece of advice is get friends to be a sounding board in your network, and that can be online or offline or both. Because the hardest thing that will happen when you’re an entrepreneur is you’ll get tunnel vision unless you get people around you who will see your psyche and your soul, and they’ll keep you honest.
Series Supported by Diet Coke®
The Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series is supported by Diet Coke®. Now, the drink that helps you stay extraordinary brings you extraordinary people. Find Diet Coke® on Facebook for access to a whole lot of extraordinary.
More About: blurb, books, eileen gittins, extra, Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series, features, instagram, ipad, iphone, startupFor more Startups coverage:Follow Mashable Startups on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Startups channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:00:28 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/7zKUgb2oxHo/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/11/blurb-eileen-gittins-interview/#comments
For the last six years, Eileen Gittins has made it her mission to help anyone and everyone become an author via Blurb. What started as a self-publishing startup for do-it-yourself bookmakers has become a multi-platform storytelling service, adding an app for iPhone and iPod Touch in April, and most recently, an iPad iteration. Mashable spoke with Gittins about the conception and evolution of the company, her inspirations and, of course, cowboy boots.
Name: Eileen Gittins
Company: Blurb
Blurb’s Net Worth: $19 million invested
Fun Fact: I love cowboy boots and I have many pairs, vintage and new. And I wear them inappropriately, with crazy outfits where they don’t necessarily go together.
What inspires you?
In this particular company and in general, people who can get passionate about anything, I just love that. I just get energized by ideas and by people who are committed wholeheartedly to whatever it is they’re doing.
Our customers are like that, and our employees are like that. We interview people specifically for that [quality]: Tell me about something you love, something you care very deeply about. And if they pass that test, then the interview continues. If they don’t, then the interview kind of stops.
And the reason we do that is because that’s our customer base. Our customers are people who are taking the time and the energy and the creative juices to create a book — of some kind. It can just be a book of their photos, it could be something really special to them, a cookbook, their blog, whatever. But they’re pouring their heart out, right? They’re pouring their soul, their heart, the brand of them into this book. And it’s a privilege every day, and an inspiration every day to see the range of creative expression in the books that people make from all over the world.
What is your vision of success?
Blurb is already a winner, because every day we’re giving voice to people all over the world — the ability to produce something of great beauty that you could never do before as a normal person if you weren’t a published author. You could never produce a truly high quality book like this and just order one copy before. You could never do that. So that’s its own reward already; that’s on the “soulful selling” side.
On the business side, we want to change the world one story at a time. We want to have that kind of worldwide impact: in the 21st century, what it means to [publish] a book and how people tell stories. And what’s behind that for us is images: Photographs are the new lingua franca. It used to be the way that people communicated was almost exclusively through words, either spoken like we are now or written. Increasingly, people are communicating via pictures, images. We think that’s a really important shift. And we want to enable that kind of communication storytelling through physical books and through digital books and through mobile media.
What about your idea was game-changing?
We’re in the business of enabling people to create a story once and then publish it wherever. And this is a big differentiator.
Let me take you into where we’ve been over the last few years when it comes to enabling people to make a book. Now historically, a book meant a printed book, but we’ve known for a long time that that wasn’t always going to be the case. So as the iPad came out, we really learned all about it. Because the iPad, unlike the Kindle or Nook, enables a rich media experience: color, two-page layout, etc. So right now, our beta [iPad app] — which will be out later this year publicly — will let you create your book once using any of Blurb’s tools. We offer three options for book making: 1) a browser-based book-making tool; 2) a downloadable client that works on a Mac or a PC called BookSmart; and 3) if you’re a designer and you want to use Adobe InDesign, we’ve got a template generator that will enable you to use InDesign and then just upload a PDF directly to us. So you can use any of those tools to make a book.
Now here’s the kicker: You will then be able to output that book from the same file to any medium. You can purchase an iPad version, you can purchase a hardcover or softcover, and in our bookstore (because we’re not only about “you can make it” — we’re also about “you can market it, and you can sell it”), you can then make it available to your fans, your family, your friends and your customers in whatever form they want to purchase it, whether that’s in iPad form or a printed book.
Right now, to get that done is a custom development job, and that’s what publishing houses are doing. What Blurb is doing is saying, “No, no, no, you should be able to make it once and then publish it to whatever medium.” That’s the ticket — that push for distribution, which is all about social. Because we think social is the new way to distribute books — meaning you can let the world know that you’ve just created something. Instead of going the old way — through physical bookstores and distributions — we think the new way is all through online, viral, word-of-mouth and social networks.
What was the pivotal point in your early startup days?
There was one question for the company before we actually got funded, and I think I will call out that as pivotal. And that was: Could we make money as a business on a book of one? Meaning if somebody made a book, and they only ever ordered one copy, could we have a viable business? And the reason why that was so important was that’s the opposite of traditional book publishing.
In traditional book publishing, they take a bunch of risk on an author and spend a bunch of money up front. They invest, they put in all this time and energy, they put editorial on it, they put marketing, PR, publicity, distribution and then they hope on the other end that that book will sell 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 copies worldwide. So they make it up on volume. And so they recoup all their investments on all their books that actually become bestsellers.
We said, “That may not work, because our audience may never want to sell books at all.” In fact, a lot of the books may not have any commercial value. It’s a book of your vacation, or your family’s cookbook. They may be a gift you’re giving. You’re not going to sell them at all. So we couldn’t have a business model that presumed sales. So we had to think, “Okay, how will we create a business [based on] one copy?” And that was the pivotal question. That drove 50 other decisions for the company in terms of, “How can you do that?”
What was the biggest challenge you faced while launching Blurb?
[Establishing the business model] was the first challenge. The second challenge was that when I went out to raise money in 2005, everything was going online. So the blogosphere was going crazy, online gaming, Wiki, Flickr, publish your photos online, all that was happening.
The venture community thought I was a little insane to be looking to take those digital photos back to analog form, into digital books. Even though back in 2005 our vision was always that they wouldn’t be physical forever. In fact, that’s why we have the name Blurb — it sounds very online-y and webby.
But to the venture community at that time, the idea of taking everyone’s images and content back into digital books was a little bit crazy. But we did get funded, and since then we’ve been usually successful.
What are the biggest influences on your business model?
The rise of the creative professional within our market. And by the way, when I say “creative professional” I mean the higher-end enthusiast to the professional. These are people who have a DSLR, these are people who are really into it. In fact, we just launched our Instagram book. I would include the rabid, passionate Instagram user in this category.
These are people who really want to create; they want their stuff to look beautiful. And what that means is they’re very discerning about quality. Because if they’ve just spent all this time applying filters and bringing it into Photoshop, and getting it just right — man, when you print that book, it better look as close to what that thing looked like on the screen as possible because they actually really, really care.
What that has meant for us is we have had to really focus on color, print quality, binder quality in a way different than if we were just addressing someone who wants to send her mother a picture book of the baby’s second birthday party.
So what is now happening with us is we are seeing work come in from famous, high-end working photographers, from big brands like Lexus, and Honda, and Ralph Lauren and Pixar and others. We’re seeing a lot of brand books come through ad agencies. And the reason for it is because, while these people could make books previously, they used to need a big budget. Now your budget as an agency is the cost of one book. Presumably you have in-house creative people who do this, so it’s people-time, but literally your budget can be 30 bucks.
How did your social network of peers influence your business?
I meet up with people all the time. I’m a big LinkedIn user — I use it all the time to get connected. And this is how people now can get connected to me. So I hear from people all the time. Now the bad side of this, of course, is as a CEO, you’re visible and people reach out to you all the time with all kinds of crazy stuff. You just don’t have time to respond to every single thing.
But I do get LinkedIn messages now from people that I actually do want to meet. Same thing with Facebook. Pretty much every day I’ll get a message in from either LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter, from somebody who wants to connect up with me or the company. And I’ll say at least half of the time, it’s really interesting.
How does your startup utilize social media? (Any excellent case studies?)
Blurb itself has a Facebook Page, we have a YouTube channel, we have a dedicated person in our marketing department who is our community manager and whose job it is to be engaged in our conversation — not to be a marketer in those mediums, because that just doesn’t work and it’s not appropriate, but to participate in the conversation.
When we launched the Instagram book, Twitter just lit up like you can’t believe. It was unbelievable — and worldwide — the amount of tweets about Blurb’s new Instagram book. Ditto when we launched the social version of Blurb mobile. The number of folks who were tweeting about it and Facebooking their mobile stories onto their accounts — because you can do that within the app — it just exploded. So as a business, we’re very conscious.
It used to be your website where people could connect with you, but that’s still a wall — it’s your corporate site. These other mediums (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn) are a more personal connection, and given the nature of what we do, and how personal people’s stories are, it’s critical that we pay attention, that we’re in the conversation. One of the things that we’re looking to do later this year is a camera-phone conference. We’re partnering up with folks like Instagram and Bolt Peters and some others to put on a day where we talk about how you can use social media to get your visual stories out there. So we’re looking to sponsor things like that to really progress the notion of an imaging workflow for camera phones.
What advice do you have for other entrepreneurs?
Do something you love, because when you’re starting a company, especially for an early-stage entrepreneur, it’s marginally taxing. There will be dark times. If you don’t have that passion behind it personally, if it’s not something that you just believe in and you love, then it’s hard to sustain yourself through the moments when it’s really, really hard.
The second piece of advice is get friends to be a sounding board in your network, and that can be online or offline or both. Because the hardest thing that will happen when you’re an entrepreneur is you’ll get tunnel vision unless you get people around you who will see your psyche and your soul, and they’ll keep you honest.
Series Supported by Diet Coke®
The Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series is supported by Diet Coke®. Now, the drink that helps you stay extraordinary brings you extraordinary people. Find Diet Coke® on Facebook for access to a whole lot of extraordinary.
More About: blurb, books, eileen gittins, extra, Extraordinary Entrepreneurs Series, features, instagram, ipad, iphone, startupFor more Startups coverage:Follow Mashable Startups on TwitterBecome a Fan on FacebookSubscribe to the Startups channelDownload our free apps for Android, Mac, iPhone and iPad
Posted on Thu, 11 Aug 2011 17:00:28 +0000 at http://feeds.mashable.com/~r/Mashable/~3/7zKUgb2oxHo/
Comments: http://mashable.com/2011/08/11/blurb-eileen-gittins-interview/#comments
