030 Alex Collmer - Evolving Creativity for the Better

Alex Collmer is the Founder and CEO of VidMob, the world’s leading platform for data-driven, human creativity. Since founding the company in 2015, Alex has raised more than $95 million and led initiatives that earned VidMob official Marketing Partner badges from Facebook, Instagram, Google, YouTube, Snapchat, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn, and recognition by Apple as one of the best apps of the year.

Today, Alex joins the show to discuss the value he places on building a mission-driven business that has purpose and meaning, how he measures a company’s success, and how he is striking a balance between data and creativity at VidMob.

Episode Sponsor

Small Fish, Big Pond – https://smallfishbigpond.com/ Use the promo code ‘SaaSFuel’

Champion Leadership Group – https://championleadership.com/

Key Takeaways

01:18 – Jeff takes a moment to talk about his experience attending the Ascent Conference in New York City

03:01 – Jeff introduces today’s guest, Alex Collmer, who joins the show to discuss his journey from gaming to digital creative, the value of human creativity, and what inspired him to launch VidMob

13:19 – A mission-driven company

18:09 – Why data matters

20:18 – Artificial Intelligence and Creativity and surprising insights Alex has discovered

30:24 – The biggest lessons learned from Alex’s entrepreneurial journey

32:16 – The decision to leave Autumn Games

35:05 – Identifying ideal business partners and curating a creative culture

39:58 – Jeff takes a moment to thank one of today’s sponsor, Champion Leadership Group

40:30 – What Alex took away from the stories of WeWork and Uber

44:06 – Alex’s proudest accomplishments both personally and professionally

46:49 – Where listeners can go to connect with Alex and learn more about VidMob

40:00 – Jeff thanks Alex for joining the show and sharing his story

Tweetable Quotes

“I think it’s probably pretty evenly split. I definitely think like an engineer. For me, that idea of building and how do you actually structure a solution - that sort of systems approach to thinking- is always there. But, at the same time, I deeply appreciate the value and necessity of human creativity.”(07:33) (Alex)

“I knew, as an engineer, that technology would have to play a role in this solution. But the other side of my brain knew that technology alone wasn’t going to get it done.”(11:18) (Alex)

“And so, we actually changed the mission articulation and, for year, talked about VidMob’smission as ‘Evolving Creativity for the Better.’ And that, in many ways, is still where we are today. How do we build technology to evolve creativity for the better.”(14:35) (Alex)

“I think it means we need to get more sophisticated. We’ve lived in this world for the last number of years where we lost the thread on what sophistication was. And so a lot of marketers were able to literally just throw garbage at the wall. And, you throw enough garbage at the wall, something’s gonna stick. It’s sort of like you give a million monkeys a typewriter and one of them is gonna write The Iliad. That’s not going to be the definition of sophisticated anymore. Marketers are gonna have to be a lot more purposeful in their decision making and understand how creative aligns with target audience and moves them directionally in a way you want to go.”(19:38) (Alex)

“We’re trying to build a technology platform that can support and help the whole industry - the category as it sits - and be very collaborative with the existing industry infrastructure. And so, that requires having a number of folks I work with every day who actually have a lot of experience in this field and can help us navigate and basically collaborate with an existing ecosystem in a way that’s a net positive for everyone.”(29:57) (Alex)

“The first thing is that we care. That’s the first thing. It actually really matters to me that we have a culture that nods to both our creative side and our engineering side. Once we have that position of caring, then it’s just about doing the work of trying different ideas out. If something works, keep it. If something doesn’t work, throw it out and try something new.”(38:35) (Alex)