Meet the Startup Mastering Social Media Marketing One Video at a Time

Conversation with Michael Cheng, CEO and Co-Founder of Lumen5

Since launching his first startup some seven years ago, Michael Cheng has accumulated more accolades than some entrepreneurs do in a lifetime, including mentions in Maclean’s Magazine’s Future Leaders of Canada and BCBusiness Magazine’s Top 30 Under 30, and — most recently — a Fundica Roadshow city winner trophy. Yet despite these accomplishments, Michael remains humble, acutely aware of the roles others have played in his success.

“As the talking head of my company, sometimes it can feel like I just show up and claim credit for building the whole thing. However, in truth, it’s the countless hours that our engineers and designers have poured into the product that got us to where we are today […] I feel a great sense of responsibility to do their work justice, so my goal with any event is always simply to communicate the work that we’ve done and share our technological accomplishments with pride.”

In this instance, the company in question is Lumen5, Michael’s latest endeavour, a video creation platform that brands and businesses use to produce engaging social video content at scale. When Michael speaks about “showing up”, he is speaking specifically about showing up at the Vancouver Fundica Roadshow, which took place May 31st. At the event, Michael successfully pitched Lumen5 to a panel of nine investors, garnering the aforementioned city winner trophy and earning a spot at the finale.

With over 100,000 brands using Lumen5 to generate new content, including IBM, Disney, UNESCO, and Shopify, there is no arguing that the young company has established a solid foundation. But their base becomes even more impressive once you learn it was achieved exclusively through bootstrapping.

“I love bootstrapping because it forces us to take responsibility for delivering value to our customers,” said Michael. “We only get paid if we deliver value, and if we don’t build something awesome, we starve. Building a company on a shoe string budget also forces you to aggressively prioritize. Resources are never wasted, ideas are cut on the regular, and focus becomes natural.”

Though it is evident that Michael favours a hands-on, knee-deep approach to entrepreneurship, he nevertheless acknowledges that there are some goals Lumen5 can’t achieve without help.

“Although we felt that bootstrapping was a great way to build a company, we’re starting to realize that it works well for seeking product market fit, but not quite as effectively when it comes to scaling up a company. We have a product that people want, but now the challenge is how we’re going to get this product into the hands of millions.

The scale-up phase is less art and more science. There are best practices to building sales teams and scaling up engineering resources. We want to grow as quickly as possible, and part of that calls for aligning ourselves with partners and investors who can bring the scale-up experience we need to reach our maximum potential.”

This desire to scale-up marks a turning point for a company that has spent the past few years honing their product and mission. In 2015, Lumen5 pivoted — or, as Michael would put it, evolved — away from their original product, which facilitated link sharing on social media. Though link sharing was popular when they first launched, they quickly realized it was a fad. Multimedia content would define the future, and they adjusted accordingly.

“Pivots are never easy,” Michael acknowledged when we asked him what advice he would give other companies trying to gage whether they should make such a drastic change. “You spend years developing something, and it’s never easy to just let it go. In design school, they called this “being married to an idea”, and it’s not a good thing. What separates art from design is that art can be about you, but design is about others. The idea is that you never design anything for yourself. There’s always a user that you’re designing for. As the needs of your users change, your design must, too, change. So rather than asking yourself whether or not you should pivot, it can help to talk to your customers about it.”

Of course, even after talking to customers, this change may not be simple or immediate. Michael noted that an “ah-ha moment” can take many years to form. In Lumen5’s case, this epiphany occurred in the unlikeliest of places: under the Edinburgh Castle in Scotland. Michael and some of his colleagues wanted to see the world, but rather than finding respite from their working lives, the creativity and inspiration that came with travelling allowed them to see their previous ideas about the content marking in new light.

Since revamping their brand, Lumen5 has looked to companies like Buffer for examples of how to run a trustworthy and transparent company:

“[Buffer] often publicize[s] their team compositions, salaries, financials, general thoughts, and so much more. The resources they produce serve as a compass to help us navigate our own growth.”

And though Lumen5 overcame substantial obstacles in the past, they don’t belabour these successes. Instead, they plan their future.

“I believe the work we’re doing with artificial intelligence and machine learning can be applied to more than just video. Although we expect to be building a video product for the foreseeable future, I wouldn’t be surprised if at one point we take the A.I. we’ve developed and apply it to something completely different.

At its core, we’re developing our A.I. to be able to tell and re-tell stories in new and interesting ways. Today it’s turning blog posts into videos, but tomorrow, it could be transforming thought patterns into virtual reality experiences. Who knows?

The foundation of the technology we’re building is quite exciting, and I think building a video tool is just scratching the surface of what we can do. Fortunately for us, the content space is always changing, and I’m sure we’ll have plenty of opportunities to experiment with different ways to utilize our technology.”

When we concluded our conversation with Michael by asking him what one thing he’d hope to see fifty years from now, he was all-insight.

“I’d hope to see entrepreneurship become “a real job”. It’s great to see that universities are starting to offer courses in entrepreneurship, and with programs like SFU’s Venture Connection and Next Canada’s Next 36, the ecosystem for supporting entrepreneurship is constantly growing stronger. With more education, government funding, and general awareness, I think entrepreneurship can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with more traditional occupations such as becoming a doctor or lawyer. Turning an idea into a business is one of the most exciting things that I’ve done, and it’s something I’d want my kids, grandkids, and great grandkids to experience for themselves.”

We’re very excited to Michael with us for the duration of the Roadshow, and we look forward to hearing more of his astute thoughts at our finale. To see Michael in action and learn more about Lumen5, purchase your tickets to the Roadshow here.