Kyle
Startup America teamed up with American Airlines for a huge contest. The grand prize in Flights, Camera, Action is a prize package which includes 80 round trip flights. Of course for any startup or entrepreneur this would be a great prize. Most startups need flights to get to important conferences or investor meetings. Humanity.TV, a New York startup, has something else in mind.
Humanity.TV is a technology startup that’s using technology, specifically video, to travel around the country and around the world and show the human side of life in the 21st century. They take a brief look into the lives of fascinating people. Obviously that seems like a daunting task.
“Our messaging and overarching goal is authenticity. We try to find people that have intriguing lifestyles and live passionately, regardless of their popularity or fame. Ultimately, we want to inspire people to visit countries around the world and get off the beaten tourist path to encounter unique experiences with people that will have long-lasting impacts on them.” Humanity.tv co-founder Gaston Blanchet told nibletz.com in an interview.
Humanity.tv strives to capture the lives of fascinating people in obtrusive ways, for a more natural look at the world we live in today.
Of course with a startup like this the lack of capital to travel is definitely a hardship (we know about that first hand). They’re hoping that if they win the Startup America/American Airlines Flights, Camera, Action contest, they can use the flights to continue working on their story telling video platform.
The contest kicked off in July with a video from Startup America CEO Scott Case. The contesting period went through August 20th and the finalists were announced earlier this week.
We got a chance to interview Blanchet their startup as well as the contest and the Startup America partnership. Check out the interview below:
What is your startup, what does it do?
Humanity.TV aims to inspire authentic travel through short, captivating stories from around the world targeted to the connected generation. Humanity.TV’s HD videos offer a brief but intimate look into the lives of fascinating people. By connecting viewers with fascinating locals and destinations around the world, Humanity.TV hopes to inspire people not only to travel more, but to travel more authentically.
Who are the founders and what are their backgrounds?
Gaston Blanchet and Kerrin Sheldon met as early employees at the award-winning travel inspiration site Wanderfly in New York City in 2011, where they identified the emerging trends of experiential travel and short-form digital content that prompted them to launch Humanity.TV.
Where are you based?
We were founded in New York City but have filmmaking teams traveling around the world, based out of Bangkok, Buenos Aires, and South Africa.
What is the startup culture like in New York?
NYC has a vibrant startup community that’s enjoying a boom in new entrepreneurs, investors, and support communities. Specifically in the travel industry, NYC’s home to some of the most established brands and many exciting startups trying to shake up the space.
What problem does Humanity.TV solve?
Humanity.TV aims to fill a large market gap in short-form HD video content by highlighting experiential travel through fascinating local stories, rather than the old format of host-led shows and delivery through traditional publishing channels. The vision of Humanity.TV is to create a series of viral travel micro-documentaries and interactive media to reach audiences exclusively through social media channels and tablet applications.
What is one challenge that you’ve overcome in the startup process?
Funding. We’re attempting to circumvent the traditional venture capital model to maintain full creative control of our startup by seeking out co-branding sponsorships from leading lifestyle brands. We’re achieving this with the help of media agencies who have a need to find creative campaigns for their clients. Additionally, we fund our startup through custom video campaigns for top hotel brands around the world.
So we’re guessing if you win Flights Camera Action you’ll use the airfare for more filming?
Airfare is by far our biggest operating cost. Winning the contest would mean 80 roundtrip tickets for us to facilitate the addition of filmmaking teams all around the world, which is vital to our growth and ultimate success as a content business.
Who are your mentors and role models?
We’ve been fortunate to learn a great deal from the Wanderfly founders (Evan Schneyer, Christy Liu, Jorge Trujillo, Cezary Pietrzak) who’ve been successful in leading innovation in the travel industry and connecting with well-known names in the startup community. As far as role models, we’re big fans of Philip Bloom, who’s leading the DSLR revolution in creating high-quality video production with affordable equipment.
What’s one thing the world doesn’t know about Humanity.TV?
None of our filmmakers went to film school! We’re entrepreneurs and creatives foremost, and a product of the lifestyle design generation who engage in communities like Vimeo to continually learn and contribute new ideas by taking risks.
How did you make the move from entrepreneur to film maker?
Both Kerrin and I were always in to photography and had been shooting on DSLRs for several years. A video’s really just a collection of pictures so the photographer to filmmaker leap wasn’t too dramatic. I’d say the toughest part is the filmmaking and entrepreneurship simultaneously – it’s hard to manage our time between honing our filmmaking abilities and building a sustainable business.
Obviously you’re Startup America members, tell us what you’re getting out of the organization?
We’re new to Startup America and joined when we learned of the “Flights. Camera. Action.” contest. At the moment, we’re going through their resources section, specifically looking for information on company registration, taxes, and legal questions.
What’s next for Humanity.TV?
By December we’ll be wrapping up our first season in Southeast Asia and preparing for expanding our filmmaking teams.
In October, we’re launching a Kickstarter campaign in hopes of crowdfunding multiple teams to cover different regions of the world, starting with South America and Africa in the Spring, and Europe, North America, and Northern Asia scheduled for fall 2013.
We’re also developing a seamless system of audience engagement, in which viewers will be able to recommend and vote on the most interesting stories for our teams to feature, and working on development of mobile apps with interactive media.
Linkage:
Check out Humanity.tv here
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