How to stream a music festival over dial-up with Owner and MD of Reactor15 and Re-flow, Michael Saunders #11
With the advent of website creation tools like Wix and Squarespace, making an impact online now is far easier than in the late 90s, where a young Michael Saunders - fresh from a degree in Film & Video Directing and Producing - began a ‘side job’ which formed the basis for an incredibly prolific digital agency celebrating its 16th year in business.
Besides his more explicitly successful fiscal endeavours, on episode 11 of Extrology we hear how Michael was a part of what may have been the first multicam music festival live stream, the lessons he’s picked up from running a business with a large number of freelancers, and why learning to handle problems by yourself can be simultaneously a blessing and a curse.
Lee & MICHAEL discuss:
Michael’s early passion for music and film
Developing a revolutionary multicam festival livestream
The challenges of managing lots of freelancers
Pros and cons of learning to tackle issues yourself
Overcoming traditional issues with business scaling
Picking the right business partners/investors
Links & references:
Lee Cooper: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leecooperrecruiter/
Michael Saunders: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikesaunders/
Re-flow: https://www.linkedin.com/company/re-flow/
Reactor15: https://www.linkedin.com/company/reactor-design/about/
Get in touch: lee@extrology.com
Episode highlights:
“Dad had a 16 millimeter projector in the loft that I've got very fond memories of. He's got home cinema now that he's built up, with 16mm and 35mm projectors in it.” - 4:00 - Michael Saunders
“My dad absolutely got me into films, and by the time I was 10 I wanted to act and I wanted to make movies.” - 5:28 - Michael Saunders
“If you look at the way that we now - broad sweeping statement here - but generally consume content, whether that be film, whether that be music. Everything seems to have been condensed into bite sized chunks.” - 7:57 - Lee Cooper
“We were pretty much broke and in a lot of debt after doing this very expensive film course. Then - being 1997 - there’s this thing called the internet, which seemed to offer this way for us to easily talk about what we wanted to do, and maybe even raise some funds. So we learned how to build websites, just on the side.” - 12:30 - Michael Saunders
“We decided that we were going to attempt to broadcast live from all 10 stages for the whole five days at Lizard Eclipse Festival, which if I think back to this now, that's pretty ambitious for 1999.” - 16:10 - Michael Saunders
“I think that managing a bunch of freelancers for the first 5-6 years was very complex. I ended up hiring from 2011, and that was definitely a better road to go down. But then I made a lot of mistakes managing people.” - 24:14 - Michael Saunders
“The challenge for most of the people with whom I've engaged, is that most of them recognize, at least intellectually, that in order that they might scale at some point, they're going to have to involve others. Whether that's in the form of a business partner, external investment, senior management - whatever form it may take.” - 38:13 - Lee Cooper
“When you want to attract an investor, you don't get an opportunity to pick, unless you’re very, very lucky! If somebody comes on board and says they'll give you that money, it doesn't matter who they are - I guess I've been really lucky to pick up the right kind of people.” - 41:59 - Michael Saunders
Extrology is sponsored by Progresso Talent Partners who for more than 25 years have successfully delivered interim and permanent leadership talent to transform businesses and to hire the talent you need to enable your business to thrive: https://www.progressotalent.com/