Chris Monte of shayre: 5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS

I have to believe, in my gut, that what I am doing makes sense and that I’m surrounded by good people who share that belief. My subconscious mind will nag at me if a pursuit or person doesn’t feel right. It’s one thing to be bull-headed and just keep pushing ahead, but as hard as it is sometimes, I need to listen to myself, with inputs of experience from inside and outside, so that I make the right decisions to really succeed. I am a mindful unitasker in a sea of multi-taskers, who truly makes the time to listen, care, do, and follow-up.

As part of my series about the “5 Things You Need To Know To Create a Successful App or SaaS”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Chris Monte.

Chris Monte serves as Co-Founder and CEO of shayre. Since the company’s inception in 2018, Monte has been integral to establishing shayre’s roadmap to bring the secure file sharing application to life, spearheading its full-scale launch in 2020. In this capacity, he oversees product development, creative strategy, sales and marketing, operations, and beyond.

Prior to founding shayre, Monte was the owner and CEO of Magic Hair Studios, a Hollywood-based post- production facility serving major studios and networks. Monte successfully sold the business to focus on shayre full-time and remains highly attuned to the multimedia arena.

A life-long entrepreneur with decades of experience in the entertainment industry, the former producer has an award-winning editorial background in broadcast television, corporate communications and theatrical releases. Monte is an expert in high-level content production, workflow management, data processing and file sharing. He is passionate about helping businesses remain competitive and efficient in the modern digital era, currently introducing shayre as the most effective way to transfer files and data to and from anywhere in the world.

When not leading shayre, he enjoys fine films, food, drinks and conversation. Monte holds a Bachelor of Arts degree with a double major in Television Production and Theater from Temple University in Philadelphia. He resides in Los Angeles with his wife and son.

Thank you so much for joining us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you tell us a bit about your ‘backstory’ and how you got started?

How far back do you want to go? My rise beyond the clouds is grounded in a lifetime of entrepreneurial adventures stemming from age 10. I started pumping gas and cleaning windshields for an Italian, named Tony, who had just arrived in the U.S. He used to say to me, “You gotta go fast. Fly. Now! We’re going to lose our shirt.” Those were impressionable words. And so, this husky little Philadelphia native “meatball” would take off running as fast as he could to the auto parts store across the street to pick up what was needed for the next job. Tony exemplified the work ethic that was needed to achieve the “American Dream”. He told me, “One day, all of my relatives in this country will be working for me.” And a few years later, I was working the day that statement became true — it was an immigrant that taught me how to seize the American dream and I still embody that hustle today.

Since then, I worked for myself in a variety of businesses through the years: disc jockey, ballet instructor, massage therapist, singer, actor, then, I got an invitation from a personal manager in LA to follow my dreams out west. While pursuing “talent” work in Hollywood, I found that I also had skills in producing and editing and quickly realized that there was a whole lot more of that work available, so I pivoted. For the next 25 plus years, I told stories in many forms — from commercials and corporate videos to TV shows and feature films. I built and ran a state-of-the-art post-production facility in Los Angeles. Although successful, I realized I had bigger story to tell.

What was the “Aha Moment” that led you to think of the idea for your current company? Can you share that story with us?

The fact that I began doing more Reality TV than Filmmaking, and I wasn’t a huge fan, wasn’t enough (for me). I started looking for new opportunities. Then, just like the classic joke begins, “a guy walks into a bar…” Well actually, in this case, a guy walks into my studio…. to sell me file transfer services. This was a big industry problem I had fixed by installing a 1Gbps internet connection, which in those days, was pretty fast, but that solution was temporary, and I knew it. He was a really smart guy and we shared the desire to find a sustainable solution to this growing problem. I hired him as a consultant for a few months and then invited him to create a company, shayre, with me. He is one of our co-founders and the rest is history.

Can you tell us a story about the hard times that you faced when you first started your journey? Did you ever consider giving up? Where did you get the drive to continue even though things were so hard?

My first wife died of ovarian cancer after a 3-year battle. I was on my own raising my 5-year old son — driving to and from school, soccer practice, football practice, making dinner, doing laundry, and running a studio… I was a single Dad/Business Owner/ Lead Editor. I’d worked hard in every role and loved each, but the balancing act was a daily challenge.

Give up? What option did I have? I gave over to it. What other employer would afford me the flexibility that I needed to fulfill all of my responsibilities and dreams? This Capricorn put his head down and barreled through.

My father was a salesman his whole life with over 20 jobs. He and my mother raised 6 kids and never let us think we didn’t have enough. They both worked very hard and never complained. Then, when my Dad turned 60, he started his own business and within 6 months, he bought the beach house he always talked about. My parents continue to offer fantastic inspiration in life and love.

So, how are things going today? How did your grit and resilience lead to your eventual success?

I still strive for balance and my priorities have not shifted so I’m fortunate to say that things are going very well today. The reward of raising my son pays dividends daily and the challenge of creating a successful business still drives me. We are gaining more and more traction and market share and really helping people get work done efficiently and securely. shayre’s ability to automate workflow and eliminate manual uploading and downloading of files without a cloud is proving to be even more valuable than ever before. Work from home culture is now the norm and our limitless, effortless, firewall friendly application extends from entertainment to healthcare to finance and beyond. More than ever, we need to create networks of connections to “shayre” the data that we all need to get our work done. People just need to connect with each other — literally and figuratively. That is what shayre does best.

I have to believe, in my gut, that what I am doing makes sense and that I’m surrounded by good people who share that belief. My subconscious mind will nag at me if a pursuit or person doesn’t feel right. It’s one thing to be bull-headed and just keep pushing ahead, but as hard as it is sometimes, I need to listen to myself, with inputs of experience from inside and outside, so that I make the right decisions to really succeed. I am a mindful unitasker in a sea of multi-taskers, who truly makes the time to listen, care, do, and follow-up.

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lessons or ‘take aways’ you learned from that?

OK, here’s a little behind-the-scenes story for you. I felt tremendous pressure to get the tutorial videos done for the launch of our website. Afterall, they were in my wheelhouse — I’m the guy with on-camera experience and I know how to write, produce and edit. I rushed to get all the voiceovers done in my bedroom closet — the best acoustics in the house, while my friend Sam drove over to record the video of me doing the live demos. I got the videos banged out in no time, but, during that time, the development team had added some great new features to shayre that we were excited to include. I scrambled back to the closet to record the new voiceovers. I got the fixes recorded and edited into the videos and they were ready to post. I made the deadline and the site went live.

What’s funny about that? I sound like Porky Pig! I got a call from my audio engineer friend. He said to me, “Dude, what’s the deal with your voice on the tutorials? Were you sick!!?? Have I taught you nothing?” He was right. I had a cold when I recorded the first voiceovers. He could hear it in my voice. The real problem is that when I recorded the new VOs, my cold was gone and I sounded totally normal. So, to this day, if you go to the shayre.com website to watch the tutorials, if you listen closely, you’ll hear the differences.

The takeaway? Don’t be a Looney Tune. Make sure you give your team the opportunity to watch your back, up front, and never sacrifice your health for what usually ends up being a short-sighted win. “Th-th-th-that’s all folks.”

What do you think makes your company stand out? Can you share a story?

shayre helps doers do. Our application is a tool that directly connects people and places. shayre helps move data effortlessly and securely. We have a major TV Network whose affiliate stations now save over 2 hours of manual labor every day because they use shayre.

Which tips would you recommend to your colleagues in your industry to help them to thrive and not “burn out”?

That’s hard. I often feel like Sisyphus pushing the rock up the hill. In a start-up, you never know when you are going to get to the top of the hill, over the tipping point and down the other side. So, you just keep pushing. You have to keep asking yourself, “Is this going to help people?”, “Do people need this?”, “Can we really make this happen?” But then the real hard part comes, at least for me — you need to take some time to rest and reflect so you can mount the charge again.

None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story?

My parents encouraged us to pursue our dreams. Being the 4th of 6 kids, I learned that all I had to do was get good grades and I could pretty much do whatever I wanted. I had the added benefit that I was gifted with a singing voice and my parents both were singers so; they were happy to see me perform. I did a lot of musicals and pursued an acting career for a long time. I was pretty good. I think my Dad has lived vicariously through me, and at 95 years old, I think he still does just a little bit on this tech journey. Both Mom and Dad are very proud of all of my brothers and sisters and me. And now, my wife. She shares in every aspect of our lives — she has brought home the bacon, is helping to raise a socially conscious and respectful young man and she walks beside me through every step of our journey challenging and supporting us every step of the way.

Ok thank you for all that. Now let’s shift to the main focus of this interview. Approximately how many users or subscribers does your app or software currently have? Can you share with our readers three of the main steps you’ve taken to build such a large community?

shayre has approximately 1000 enterprise users and is aggressively expanding its adoption. Building our community of users to date includes a combination of grass roots networking, a new website, and a social media strategy. We are excited to later this year significantly increase marketing efforts to exponentially build our database and engagement beyond B2B to B2C.

What is your monetization model? How do you monetize your community of users? Have you considered other monetization options? Why did you not use those?

shayre is primarily a subscription fee service that benefits from a recurring revenue model. We also monetize usage based on data throughput and files transferred. We have considered traditional website ad supported monetization models but have held off at this point in favor of focusing on building our community with an optimal, customer-centric user experience for at least the near term.

Based on your experience and success, what are the five most important things one should know in order to create a very successful app or a SaaS? Please share a story or an example for each.

1. Simplicity of use. Users command ease of use. With shayre, you simply drag and drop a file into a folder and it automatically goes to where it is intended to go. It works reliably and there is never timeouts or re-dos on file transfers.
2. Highly encrypted security. Trusting an application with your own personal or sensitive data is absolutely critical. Most applications are cloud-based and therefore, by default, are subject to hacking and other security vulnerabilities. shayre is a unique military-grade encrypted point-to-point protocol that avoids having data stored in the cloud altogether. This is good for security of mind and money.
3. Robust file/data size limits. In the entertainment video world, and many other industries, the data transfer technology must allow for large file/data sizes. shayre is unlimited and takes that constraint out of the equation.
4. Augment and streamline workflows. Everyone strives for efficiency. A good SaaS like shayre can easily integrate with existing technology systems and replace manual processes to make things much more efficient.
5. Cost effective. At $5 / month for the shayre Basic plan, we provide a better solution at a better price than any big name file transfer company out there. More value, less stress.

You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. :-)

As a socially conscious, white male, in these times, I feel challenged. I don’t know exactly what to do or how to behave or sometimes even what to think but the one constant is my belief in basic human kindness. If everyone would simply consider going back to basics — be kind, be polite, be attentive, listen to one another, and see one another — no matter where they are from, what they look like, how they think, or who they take as their partner. Hold the door for whomever is behind you. Look people in the eyes. Smile and say hello to a stranger. Don’t worry, even with a facemask on, others will see the smile in your eyes. It will positively impact their day, I assure you. Try it for yourself. See what happens…

How can our readers follow you on social media?

IG: https://www.instagram.com/monte.chris/

FB: https://www.facebook.com/chris.monte.777

Personal Twitter: https://twitter.com/chrismonte7

Company Twitter: https://twitter.com/shayreIt

Personal LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-monte-5202575/

Company LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/shayre

Website: www.shayre.com

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!