number of people who watch the video, opt in for more information, watch related videos, and fill out an online contact form that sales teams can use to follow up.
“Video is very hot in terms of being able to drive business and engage people,” Folsom says. “We’re well-positioned because our expertise in this area can help drive business for small to medium business customers.”
The new Web-based service is not that much of a leap from ShowUhow’s initial focus on improving customer satisfaction and retention through its online technology platform for hosting manufacturers’ “how to” and “do-it-yourself” videos. It enables the company to target both consumers and business customers. Folsom says she has no plans to give up the consumer side, saying the company has deployed more than 1,800 video product manuals and assembly guides that have been viewed by nearly 5 million users.
“We’re leveraging our expertise and technology for using video in a wider market,” she says. The company now has 20 employees and about 50 certified contract workers. Folsom says ShowUhow has raised a little more capital from individual investors since mid-2010, when the startup raised $3 million in a Series A round from Syncom Venture Partners of Silver Springs, MD. But with the new strategic initiative underway, she says she intends to raise another $3 million in a Series B round in coming months.
All that will have to wait, however, until after ShowUhow finishes its run at the Dreamforce Expo.
Author: Bruce V. Bigelow
In Memoriam: Our dear friend Bruce V. Bigelow passed away on June 29, 2018. He was the editor of Xconomy San Diego from 2008 to 2018. Read more about his life and work here.
Bruce Bigelow joined Xconomy from the business desk of the San Diego Union-Tribune. He was a member of the team of reporters who were awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize in National Reporting for uncovering bribes paid to San Diego Republican Rep. Randy “Duke” Cunningham in exchange for special legislation earmarks. He also shared a 2006 award for enterprise reporting from the Society of Business Editors and Writers for “In Harm’s Way,” an article about the extraordinary casualty rate among employees working in Iraq for San Diego’s Titan Corp. He has written extensively about the 2002 corporate accounting scandal at software goliath Peregrine Systems. He also was a Gerald Loeb Award finalist and National Headline Award winner for “The Toymaker,” a 14-part chronicle of a San Diego start-up company. He takes special satisfaction, though, that the series was included in the library for nonfiction narrative journalism at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.
Bigelow graduated from U.C. Berkeley in 1977 with a degree in English Literature and from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1979. Before joining the Union-Tribune in 1990, he worked for the Associated Press in Los Angeles and The Kansas City Times.
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