Interview with Graydon Gordian, Head of Marketing, Fractal

“Elemmir has been an excellent creative partner. They've helped us develop terrific videos that have been incredibly effective for our business.”

-Graydon Gordian, Head of Marketing, Fractal Software

The following interview was conducted by filmmaker Aukai Ligairi in a remote interview setting. Some of the responses have been abbreviated for clarity and efficiency.

Filmmaker Aukai Ligairi: Thanks for doing this today. To get started, can you tell me a bit about Fractal?

Graydon Gordian: We are what you might characterize as a venture capital studio. Fractal partners with prospective entrepreneurs, individuals who are eager to found and fund vertical SaaS companies. And by vertical SaaS, I mean industry specific software solutions. We provide them with a business idea, a co-founder . . . and then with capital to launch the business, as well as a wide variety of support in the early days of launching that company.

Aukai: What problems were you running into at Fractal that Elemmir’s videos helped you solve?

Graydon: For us, the biggest thing we can do is connect people considering founding a company with Fractal with those who already have [founded a company at Fractal]. That's who they want to talk to. They don't want to talk to us . . . We obviously are very proud of what we provide founders, but nothing speaks to that more than a current founder, who is incredibly happy with their experience.

We can't just put them on the phone. It's not their job to talk to the people who are candidates for our program all day long, it's their job to grow their business. I can't ask that of them day in and day out, but I can ask them to sit down for 30 or 45 minutes, talk to Elemmir and me about their experience, and then with what we capture there, share that widely.

Aukai: So, ease and convenience had previously been an issue. How did Elemmir’s videos address that issue?

Graydon: So for us, you know, we're trying to find a way to capture content, speak to them, you know? Give them a platform to tell their story but do so in a way that's kind of the lowest level of effort for them and the least intrusive in their day. These individuals are the CEOs and CTOs of startups, right? They are incredibly busy. They are working incredibly hard. They have incredibly long days. And asking them to travel across town to a set, deal with all of that, you know instead of it being a 45-minute interview, it becomes a three-hour ordeal. And these are people for whom time is very precious. So [working with Elemmir] is a much more efficient way for us to effectively capture the same level of storytelling that we would in that context. Elemmir is a remote video production platform. It’s a team of filmmakers, enabled by technology solutions that they utilize that allows them to capture very high-quality video in a remote context. And for us, that was a very acute need.

Aukai: Did you have any hesitancies when making the switch to Elemmir?

Graydon: To be frank, there were hesitancies. I have a fair amount of video production experience. You know, I'm not a filmmaker, but I ran the video team at my old agency. So I have been on set countless times. I've done big productions. [I’ve] produced broadcast ads all the way down to social video and kind of everything in between. And so I had certain expectations around quality and certain expectations around storytelling that made me skeptical because I thought, no, you know, what I want to do is I want to get these founders in a room. I want to get two cameras. I want to do a two camera shoot so we can edit around stuff. And I want it to look really polished and really high quality here. And I was like, I just don't think we're going to get that like shooting people in their living rooms. You know? So I actually was fairly skeptical and initially was a little bit hesitant, but the reality is converts are the biggest believers.

I have kind of come around to see the value of it. The videos that we've created with Elemmir have been really excellent. They've been very compelling and they've been very effective, but the reality is it’s not about what I think of them. It's about what our audience thinks of them and about the people we're showing them to. And they found them to be incredibly useful and incredibly compelling . . the truth is the feedback is overwhelmingly positive for the videos we've made with Elemmir. So we're super excited to continue to work with them and to continue to produce content in this manner.

Aukai: What were some of the biggest obstacles you found in making videos, previous to working with Elemmir, and how did Elemmir’s unique production model help you overcome them?

Graydon: As somebody who's produced a lot of videos, I'm just painfully familiar with how expensive it can be to produce videos. Elemmir produces terrific video at a cost that is significantly less than traditional video production companies . . . even just a one-day shoot [in a traditional production model] is still an expensive shoot. There's still a lot of people on set. A lot of very expensive equipment goes into it. In the cities where we tend to operate, which is New York and San Francisco, primarily renting a studio in those cities is incredibly costly for the day. When Elemmir stepped in, that was hugely helpful, you're talking about producing a lot of video content for a fraction of the cost.

Aukai: So cost was a major consideration. Were there other benefits you noticed? I know you’d mentioned turn around time.

Graydon: Turn around [time] is always a challenge when it comes to videos. Even a very fast-moving video production timeline is comparatively slow, especially in my business where speed is of the essence. Turning around things in a week versus a month is a huge difference, right? Being able to deliver usable video within a fraction of the time is a huge benefit. I've worked with a lot of production companies over the years and they're super talented people and I've loved working with them, but at the end of the day, they follow a pace and pattern of traditional production. There is a certain inherent flexibility and speed to the way that Elemmir goes about making videos. Elemmir works at the pace of our business.

Aukai: Yeah, turn around time is a big one. I’m glad to hear that’s been a help. And I hope it’s been a good experience for you, working with the Elemmir team, as well.

Graydon: It's been wonderful to work with the team. Everybody's very friendly and nice as a baseline, it's just always a pleasure to see and talk with them. But also they've been easy to work with as we've had bumps in the road, as we've had to pivot, they've been very supportive, very eager to help, very eager to help us think through the challenges that we're facing and find a solution that works for our company.