3 top tips from Kimberley Ramsay
1. Read Books
Audible! love it to pieces it’s really easy to devour a book in it two times speed.
So, I like I said I do 10 books a month and I and I’m sitting in my car listening to that book and other people are driving past and I just feel like I’m getting smarter! I feel a bit smug about myself. You know, I’m learning. So, absolutely listen to books or read books. I was actually never a reader but once I got onto audible it’s phenomenal.
2. Jump all in!
Don’t worry if you don’t know how to do something. I didn’t know how to start a tech company and I certainly didn’t wait to get the knowledge beforehand. I just jumped straight in.
So if you’re waiting for the perfect time or for the right answers or to do all the research, it’s not gonna happen and then it will change anyway. So, I think just just go for it. Be okay. Just jump all in.
I think if you weigh up the risks, so I said to my husband ‘okay, if this doesn’t work, we’ll lose 2 million. Are we okay with that?’ And I’m like, yeah, I could go back and live with my mum. I bet that my husband wouldn’t but if I’m okay with that, what a great learning opportunity would be and my son would learn heaps and you know, let’s go for it… I know what the worst thing is that could happen and I’ve weighed up all the risks and be okay with going this is what failure would look like if it didn’t happen.
3. Learn and pivot
You don’t fail until you stop so if this doesn’t work, then we’ll pivot and try some other tech business or something. Keep learning. Keep pivoting.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, cheerleading, business, content, tech, learning, called, company, bit, platform, niche, lockdown, sprint planning, stream, absolutely, run, week, technology, new zealand, payment gateway
SPEAKERS
Kimberley Ramsey, Debra Chantry-Taylor
Debra Chantry-Taylor 00:12
Welcome to another episode of Better Business, Better Life. I’m your host, Debra Chantry-Taylor. I’m passionate about helping entrepreneurs and their leadership teams get what they want at a business and life. On the show, I invite successful business owners and expert speakers to share their successes. They are open and honest about the highs and lows of business and also life as a business owner. We want to share those learnings with you to inspire you, but also to help you avoid some of the common mistakes. My hope is that you take something from each of these short episodes that you can put into action to help you get what you want, not only out of your business, but also your life. So Good morning, and welcome to another episode of better business better life. Today, I’m joined by Kimberley Ramsay, and Kimberley and I actually met in EO many years ago. She is the co founder of Vidzing which is a new technology company. It actually it started in February 2021. It got its first employee in April. And it’s now up to 10 employees and just launched last week. And the concept behind Vidzing is it’s basically like a YouTube channel where you can actually stream your content behind a payment gateway, which means you can set up your own YouTube channel and actually stream your content with people paying to view that content. And Kim will tell us more about why she came up with that idea because her original business was actually around cheerleading. Is that right, Kimberly?
Kimberley Ramsay 01:30
Yeah. Hi. Hi. So much for having me on. I’m really excited to be on your podcast.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 01:36
Great to have you here. Yeah. Tell us a little background.
Kimberley Ramsay 01:40
Yeah, so I’m actually a tax lawyer by trade, a tax lawyer and an accountant realized that wasn’t my passion and decided to start a business called cheerleading. So I actually started the sport of cheerleading in New Zealand. And that’s, that’s been going now for almost 19 years. So we’re a cheerleading company, we teach kids cheerleading classes, we run cheerleading, and dance events in apparel, and then over COVID, like everybody, we got stuck in the virtual world of zoom classes and in running events over live stream. And when we were trying to livestream our events, we realized that actually there was nothing that existed to let us live stream and get paid. for live streaming easy, you can live stream on Facebook or YouTube, but actually getting paid for that content is hard. Likewise, selling. Likewise, giving away your content on YouTube is easy, but it was the payment gateway that we found really difficult. And so we decided to pivot inside of tech company.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 02:37
And that is a huge pivot. So but I’m really interested to find out because you didn’t realize you were a tax lawyer. Actually, that’s really fascinating. So a tax lawyer come cheerleader who decides to get into technology. I’m assuming you don’t have much of a background in technology.
Kimberley Ramsay 02:51
Oh, zero. Yeah, so yeah, when you think of it, I actually have done some pretty big pivots from Tech store at Bell galley to cheerleading. And again, I knew nothing about cheerleading when I started that, too. So now I knew nothing about tech. We did go to a company to build it for us and then I didn’t think they were the right fit. So my son had just finished a computer science degree I went oh screw it actually, this is what ourselves and so that’s what we did. So knowing nothing we took the first month we started here February and YouTube to have a lot of staff we listened or read a lot of books on tech. Also I didn’t even know what my first employee needed to be or where were the start so that you know, with all with Google and everything, you can learn anything so I thought we’ll just figure it out. And we did sounds very cool.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 03:40
Fantastic. And when we talked just before the podcast you were saying to me that you actually approached somebody from TVNZ to get some help. Tell me about that.
Kimberley Ramsay 03:49
Yeah, so on my journey, listening I Audible if you don’t know at get Audible, I do 10 bucks a month on Audible while I’m driving on the shower or whenever, whenever I can. A lot of those books are talking about content and how to acquire content and I was like, holy crap, I didn’t even know what content is in the scheme of what we’re trying to do. So I went into LinkedIn and put in content acquisition person New Zealand and it just happened that that top content acquiring person for TVNZ was on there she had been furloughed or let go during the lockdown has had quite a few TVNZ people so I called her and said hey look, I’m starting this tech platform can you just talk to me about content and she was like, okay, that’s weird. But sure. And she goes i don’t know what i can add I said look just because just come on. Stick with me. I’m just going to ask you questions. I need to learn everything I can about content and broadcast thing and TV and you know, and channels and everything and she was amazing. And in she she had all of her knowledge and put me in touch with some other really cool TVNZ people and like I sold them on the vision and bought the I’m on my journey. And now we have some of the best media people from New Zealand working on, you know, on the little startup called fencing, you know, crazy mother and son team, so
Debra Chantry-Taylor 05:10
excellent. And so I mean, it’s not been a long time, but between February and now and there’s been a few run, speed bumps along the way, hasn’t there been there’s been another lockdown, there’s been a whole range of things going on, what are some of the challenges that you faced in that time?
Kimberley Ramsay 05:25
Well, look, I mean, our first challenge was finding the right technology, piecing it together. And look, our vision was to create a platform for people to sell video content. And if we were thinking that we wouldn’t be the first so we’re obviously in this huge rush to market speed is going to be the name of the game is huge mindset shift now with people because of COVID. So everyone now is thinking more virtually, and everyone’s a lot more open to doing, you know, Zooms and learning virtually and attending conferences virtually so we knew that there was a mindset shift happening, and we needed to be a part of it and fast. So getting people on board, I think, because you know, we there’s a huge tech shortage of people in New Zealand, and you the borders are closed, so you can’t have people come in. So it’s really about trying to convince or sell those first employees that you know, were the right place. And a few people just said, No, we don’t we don’t get it. And what are you at? Don’t you do cheerleading? Why would I give up my you know, my, the comfort of a job at sparks sport or, you know, the digital strategist of ASB and come and work for, you know, a cheerleading mom. And so, you know, we did a man, we managed to do a good job and got some really cool people. And then it was trying to convince people that we had a platform that would work. And indeed, opera took a took a punt on us. And when we had that first lockdown, we streamed their event, and it all went perfectly, they loved us, and they’ve just been a really great advocate for us since then. So the lockdowns are perfect for our, for our platform. So every time we have a lockdown, you know, more people start thinking about how to livestream and sell virtual content, not so great for the event business or the cheerleading, but definitely for Vidzing.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 07:18
That’s good. But you’re you’re using the platform for your cheerleading lessons and things too. Is that right?
Kimberley Ramsay 07:24
Yeah, so we use it to live stream our, our competition, so a lot of people think, is live streaming, or this virtual stuff, just a COVID thing. But what we’ve found is it’s actually a whole new revenue stream. So if you were to attend a conference, or if you were to attend, say, you know, the Six60 concert, where they offered in person and virtual, and that’s completely different experiences. So, you know, it’s, it’s for those people who can’t be there. So what we found was, we live streamed in 2020, when COVID hit, and then at the start of the year, our numbers doubled. For the virtual attendance, even though we weren’t in a lockdown. It was people from Australia, or Wellington or Christchurch that wanted to attend an Auckland event, but didn’t want to spend the expense of being there, but still wanted that opportunity to compete. So, you know, it basically doubled revenue. And I think that’s the thing, you know, there’s this whole new revenue opportunity out there for people, you know, to sell content. And I think that’s the other thing as well, I mean, contents always been free for so long. There’s a bit of a mind shift, mindset shift now and people go, I actually I will pay for good content. So
Debra Chantry-Taylor 08:32
yeah, no, it is really interesting. I know that I obviously also had to switch to doing things online. And I’ve worked with entire leadership teams. So getting, you know, six to eight to 10 people in a room together online to do a video conference, if you’d asked me a year ago, I just said No way, don’t enjoy it much prefer face to face. And to be fair, I do still prefer face to face. But that said, I can now work with teams that are in the US, or teams that are split across different locations as well. So I’ve got one company has got a team in the USA team in Australia, New Zealand, and I can work with all of them virtually. And I’ve got all those set up in the workshop to do that. So I think the whole COVID thing has definitely had to change. What has changed that mindset more than just the way that we do things.
Kimberley Ramsay 09:11
Yeah, absolutely. And I think I think has actually opened up the whole world to us. And I love that, you know, so we can, you know, have those distributed teams as well as you know, being able to experience things you wouldn’t normally experience. So I went to that I went to the tech disrupt conference there, you know, in the past, as you’d have to have traveled there, and it was an experience that now you can enjoy virtually So yeah, I think it’s I think it’s called there’s a lot of good things to come out of COVID if you look at the positives,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 09:40
yeah, absolutely right. EOS actually does a conference as well as always in the US. And as you said, it’s not as expensive but it’s actually the travel, it’s the time lost with travel. It’s the jet lag on all fad, whereas now anybody from anywhere in the world can actually join in which makes it great, and I’ve made some amazing friends now through you know, attending overseas conferences. So I’ve got friends in Holland I’ve got friends in the UK I’ve got friends anyways a lot of fun so in terms of you talked about you know finding the right people obviously it’s it’s tough in the tech industry and you said that you sort of sold them on coming and joining you, but what did you really do? How did you make sure that you actually did get the right people?
Kimberley Ramsay 10:17
Yeah that’s tough and I think it’s always a bit of a path that you know, as I’m sure many, many of your guests sort of said culture fits really important so aligning values and we were really lucky that we’ve had people who found people so we had a lot of recommendations so once people came in and started working for us in fact the culture and enjoyed it they were our best advocates to recommend other people so I’m terrible I did very few reference checks that I was like, okay, actually anyone I want to do it will take you so we were pretty open. But yeah, value value wise, make sure they were the right fit. And then also, you know, we’re just kind of really honest about what our vision was and what we wanted to achieve and how we’re doing really, you know, call in different things and I think we’re where we’ve kind of like the Netflix type thing, which is freedom and responsibility which means that we because I know nothing about tech and in the past I’ve been a bit of a micromanager I’m pretty much all hands off and you know so we it’s all about you know, discussion and people you know, bleeding and doing the you know, a lot of autonomy and learning from people’s experiences you know, they have a lot more than what what we know so
Debra Chantry-Taylor 11:34
it’s really interesting, isn’t it because you’ve almost had to take a hands off approach and not being micromanager. Because it’s not your forte What’s the difference? Because you’ve obviously I mean, I think you and I are a little bit similar we do like to keep control of things a lot of entrepreneurs do right? And so what’s the difference between working in a business where you are you know, really micromanaging and letting go What have you seen being the differences
Kimberley Ramsay 11:55
like I feel like I’m the dumbest person in the room so obviously I’m in the right room, that’s what they say. It’s amazing to work with people that know so much more than you do. And what I think I can bring is just a different view because I’m not constrained by what technology can do. I say to the team, can we do this? And they’re like, no, that’s not possible. I’m like, Why? Why is it not possible? You know, because I don’t come from that tech world, I think everything is possible. So I think we’ve got a lot of different experiences when we come together. The tech that we’re building is really difficult and there’s a lot of technical challenges. So we get everyone in the room and having zero tech knowledge, I think it helps people broaden their ideas.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 12:49
Fair enough. In terms of the team I mean, do you week do you meet weekly? How do you keep How do you keep the communication up? How do you make sure that you’re on the same page
Kimberley Ramsay 12:58
so we’ve got an amazing BA, who’s the business analyst and her job is to make sure we’re very organized it’s completely different to my other businesses. So we have a weekly they’re called sprint planning so we have a weekly sprint planning where we put out what the objectives are for the week and then everyone gets a ticket ticketed items of what needs to be completed by the week so that’s very very organized and we also have an amazing product manager as well who goes here’s what we need to build for for the team. I think for me what I’ve learned most is that I will just keep throwing things at the team and and the staff and we’ll just go yes and everyone’s a people pleaser was like yep all whereas this way we’re so accountable people I say if you want us to do this we have to drop something else what is it that you’d like us to drop so everyone is very accountable to how they need to you know do things so we make daily we have a sprint planning session every week and then we also do what they call a retrospective so we go how’s the week that’s been what can we do better start stop keep so yeah, I’ve never been in such an organized company and what’s so nice is I’ve had zero to do with it fabulous
Debra Chantry-Taylor 14:15
little bit everything by people around you, isn’t it? How do you how do you measure success like in the New company? What actually talked a little bit about the cheerleading and also about the technology company? How do you measure success in both of those companies?
Kimberley Ramsay 14:28
Okay, so for the tech company, it’s definitely not money because we’re losing money, like you wouldn’t believe. But success in that company is having happy customers. So on Friday, we ran a quiz night for lifeline. We raised $10,000. We did something that’s I don’t think it’s really being done. So we live streamed that quiz using a platform and then zoomed people in and then in real time people can answer. So solving really cool things like that looks like success. Problem solving. And coming up with a solution looks like Success to me. In the cheerleading, what I love is that our role isn’t to teach kids cheerleading our role is to teach kids life lessons. So discipline, hard work, drive, perseverance, all of those things that you get to learn safely in a sport, failure, learning from mistakes, so I love that we can make great people. So that’s what success looks like to me.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 15:25
Okay, and so I assume there are plans for the tech company to make money at some point.
Kimberley Ramsay 15:31
I would hope so.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 15:33
What What does the future look like? Do you think?
Kimberley Ramsay 15:36
Um, look, I I’m excited about what we’re doing. And I think you have to have a really big vision. So our like B hag, or 10 year goal, or five year goal is for the, for our company to pay, pay out content creators, you know, a billion dollars or $10 billion. And we were a commission based company. So we add a service fee on top of everything that gets paid out, so but if our content creators are successful, then our platform will be successful. So yeah, we’re hoping that we can help creators, build the businesses and make lots of money. So
Debra Chantry-Taylor 16:10
Perfect. And so of interest, who is your target market for that platform?
Kimberley Ramsay 16:15
Well, look, that’s a really tricky question. So and from every book I’ve read, they’ve said, You’ve got to be niche, and you’ve got to stay in a lane and then expand, you know, like Facebook, and Harvard and all of that. And I actually read a book called positioning and the lady is called April Dunford. She’s amazing. Anyway, I messaged her afterwards to say, I don’t know we don’t have a target market yet. And we’re really mushy. I don’t know if that’s the right word, but we’re kind of going after everybody, which is what they say you shouldn’t do. But we don’t know enough about our market yet. To be able to niche we certainly don’t want to niche down too quickly. And what my content acquisition person lady said is we don’t want to just show cheerleading and we don’t just want to be music because then we’ll be a platform that’s just music based or we’re just cheerleading and so we’ve we’re particularly going really wide and we’re opening up the platform to anyone who wants to sell content and within we’ve kind of choosing the right partners and then once we understand and get more data, then we’ll know who our target audiences but ideally, you know, we would love people who have audiences so if you’ve got content that you want to sell and you’ve got an audience to sell it to, then you’d be the right person for us. Yeah,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 17:29
so that is a niche itself I mean, I think you’re being a little bit unfair or a bit unkind to yourself. A niche doesn’t have to be it’s females who are this age it’s actually more about describing the demographics and it’s the fact that you know, people who’ve got an audience who’ve got content to want to sell that content in itself is actually a niche
Kimberley Ramsay 17:49
okay so then that’s our niche. We’re also we’re also like you know, we could be live stream we could be sports we could be music we could be you know, one off events and you know, just be a basically we want to like a YouTube really just you know, if you’ve if you’ve got content or you would like to start a content business or you’re an influencer that’s tired of getting paid you know, cents on the dollar, you know, YouTube then you know, come over to that saying bring the content and you know, give it a go and try and you know, sell you know, sell up so
Debra Chantry-Taylor 18:21
So tell me about your role in the business now. So what is it that what’s your role in the in the Vidzing business?
Kimberley Ramsay 18:27
It’s really good question. So, vision vision, so I’m the chief vision officer, if you will, so a lot around the product and what I think people need I’m a huge advocate for the Creator. And so that that’s big to me is making sure that like one of our values is created first. So we’ll always make sure that we’re doing best by the creators and then I’m the sales lead person just trying to and then in to get as many people on the platform so that we can learn and build what people like so
Debra Chantry-Taylor 19:02
tell me how your life has changed since having to make this sort of massive pivot.
Kimberley Ramsay 19:08
Oh, so it was actually I was up to like one or two in the morning last night doing stuff on the event business and just we extended our bubble and I came to my mum and yes so right now I’m running for businesses so it’s quite it’s quite a lot so it’s quite full on specially over COVID I think people are in for some reason I work a lot harder. In a lockdown and a non-lockdown, this is so much work to do. But I absolutely adore what I’m doing and love it. It’s means I’ve had to get better at managing the other businesses so that I can be more full time on the tech business. So a lot more systems and processes in place and just, yeah, busier, but funner I do. Enjoy what I’m doing. I enjoy the challenges that we have every day. I love working with cool people and I like building something that I think could change the world and help you out and help people.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 20:07
Yeah, and I can see that because of the passion that was fantastic. Hey, I completely forgot in the beginning of this interview to ask you about what your professional and personal best was. And I always ask my guests because I think it gives people a bit of an insight into you so what would you say your professional and personal bests are in your life so far?
Kimberley Ramsay 20:22
Professional best or so many, I think look like starting Vidzing with my son is cool like who gets to do that that’s just amazing. And then also getting out the crazy people to come and work for us, also. So that that’s pretty cool. And a lot we funding it ourselves as well. So the fact that I can I think the fact that I’ve had that cheerleading and the event company has been so awesome to be able to give me the lifestyle and to create wealth and value that the bank would loan me the money to run that thing is for me pretty cool. So I guess that’s probably my professional best and just be running really cool companies with cool people. Personal best, personal best. Probably about the same i think i think my lives are kind of entwined and I love that I love doing business. It doesn’t feel like work or professional. It just feels like you know, so again, doing that with my son is cool. Having three beautiful kids and being with my husband were coming up to 26 years. So I think I think personally having a happy home life and a loving family. Be my Yeah
Debra Chantry-Taylor 21:45
tell me Does your husband work in the business at all?
Kimberley Ramsay 21:48
Oh, no, that’s not gonna be. I love my husband debases but we certainly wouldn’t be together 26 years that that was a thing. No, he’s a happy sideline person who gives me lots and lots of really cool insights and and helps and helps Yeah, so that’s very secret.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 22:07
No, I concur with that there’s different different people in your field different horses different courses. I know I’ve got a couple of friends who actually work in the business for their husband and I love it but I can’t. I love my husband dearly but I could never work with him.
Kimberley Ramsay 22:17
I think I think I could work for my husband I doubt he could work for me.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 22:24
Hey, um, just in terms of being able to share some of the things that have been really important to you Do you have three top tips that you could share with our listeners Kimberly?
Kimberley Ramsay 22:31
Yeah, absolutely. So number one Audible love it to pieces it’s really easy to you know to devour a book in it two times speed. So you know like I like I said I do 10 books a month and I and I’m sitting in my car listening to you know, that book and I other people driving past and I just feel like I’m getting smarter I feel a bit smug about myself you know, I’m learning so absolutely listen to books or read books or whatever I was actually never a reader so I actually like very but once I got onto audible it’s phenomenal. Number two don’t worry if you don’t know how to do something so I didn’t know how to start a tech company and I certainly didn’t wait to get the knowledge beforehand I just jumped straight in so if you’re waiting for the perfect time or for the right answers or to do all the research it’s not gonna happen and then it will change anyway so I think just just go for it be okay. Just jump all in. I think if you weigh up the risks So I said to my husband and said okay, we’ll probably if this doesn’t work, we’ll lose $2 million. Are we okay with that? And I’m like, Yeah, I could go back and live with my mom. I bet that my husband wouldn’t but if I’m okay with that, what a great learning opportunity would be and my son would learn heaps and you know, let’s go for it. So I think that’d be number two and number three,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 23:54
just being really clear that So you knew your boundaries though, right? Because I did the same I lost a lot of money in a business but I knew what my boundaries were and this is a bit I will cut off that
Kimberley Ramsay 24:03
100% I’m I’m all in and I know what the worst thing is, that could happen and I’ve weighed up all the risks and be okay with going this is what failure Well, this is what it would look like if it didn’t happen. So yeah, just a really really expensive learning university degree in technology. Right? And then it’s not it’s not you know, it’s not lost and in third, I think you know, you don’t fail until you stop so if this doesn’t work, then we’ll pivot and try some other tech business or something so yeah,
Debra Chantry-Taylor 24:37
so just yeah, keep keep learning. Keep pivoting. Yeah, stuck in something that’s not working. Hey, so if people are interested in finding out more about financing, or even talking to you, where would they find information?
Kimberley Ramsay 24:49
So, so yeah, visiting vidzing.tv. Vidzing.tv
Debra Chantry-Taylor 24:58
fantastic. If they want to have a chat to you
25:00
Oh yeah, absolutely, um, my mom, Instagram and Kimberly Ramsay and or Facebook or, again, you can find me through vidzing.tv I answer all the emails. So
Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:11
hopefully not forever. I get it at some point. Fantastic. Hey, well look, Kimberly, it’s been really, really great to talk to you. I haven’t caught up in a long time. It’s been lovely to see how you’re going. And you’re just absolutely glowing. And it’s wonderful to see you know, how excited and how passionate you are. I think it’s wonderful that you’re doing a business with your son. I mean, I think that is, as you said, that is something that is pretty rare and pretty special. So congratulations. I hope it all goes really, really well for you. And I look forward to following your journey.
Kimberley Ramsay 25:38
Oh, well, thank you so much. I so appreciate you having me on. And I think this is a wonderful podcast. And so you know, so great for you to share other people’s stories. So appreciate it.
Debra Chantry-Taylor 25:47
Thank you. Thank you very much. You have an awesome rest of your day. And we’ll talk soon. Thank you. Thanks again for joining us some better business better life with me Your host Debra Chantry-Taylor. If you enjoy what you heard, then please subscribe to this podcast. And let us help you to get what you want out of business in life. Each week we release a new short episode which will give a success story and three takeouts to put into action immediately. These will help you take your business from good to great. The podcast is also supported by free resources, templates and useful tools, which you can find at Debra Chantry-Taylor dot com. I am a trained entrepreneur leadership and business coach, a professional ers implementer and an established business owner myself. I work with established businesses to help them get what they want. Feel free to contact me if you’d like to have a chat about how I might be to help you. Or if you’d like to join me as a guest on this podcast. Thanks again to NZ audio editors for producing this podcast. See you on the next episode.
Debra Chantry-Taylor
Professional EOS Implementer | Entrepreneurial Leadership & Business Coach | Business Owner
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