Len Markidan, CMO at Podia, on the future of business video

Video isn’t just another function on your smartphone. Through the pandemic-propelled remote-work and learning conditions, the world relied heavily on video capabilities; it became a saving grace, the one semblance of reality— the next best thing to being physically present! Naturally, a video boom followed.

In this context, The Chief Marketing Officer of Podia, Len Markidan, tugs on both the pragmatic and philosophical use cases of video. Len also talks about the build vs. buy dilemma around online video as well as how the explosive growth of video, with its high expenses, is affecting the economics of running a platform that hosts video. Read on to understand more about consumers’ needs for creator content, the opportunities and risks in the digital avenues that facilitate them, and the motivating factors behind why Podia does what they do. For more company information, find Podia featured in our creator economy industry.

Explore how the fusion of emerging technologies like creator economy, remote-work tools, and Edtech creates solutions.

The following interview was conducted by Sacra — November 2021

Questions

Let’s talk about video as a part of online courses, what part video has to play, and why it's important.

Diving into Podia specifically, could you talk about how Podia uses video hosting and streaming and how you monetize off of it?

Let’s go in deeper on the point about video being the largest line item, how do you guys think about how that affects pricing at scale and how do you approach that?

Could you go through the use cases of video within Podia, both hosting and streaming, and then talk about what the integration points are with the product and where users will touch video?

How does the streaming end work? Do creators embed a YouTube live stream or Zoom links on a page that they can share with their folks?

Are there any aspects of this where you could imagine building something different on your end versus going to one of these vendors?

Would you say that, between Udemy and Coursera and Podia, the video aspect of the experience is going to be very similar?

What are some of the things you think about in choosing a hosted video provider?

Have you given thought to the two different kinds of video providers, like Cloudflare and Wistia on the one hand, and on the other hand, like Mux and Cloudinary that are a little more about building a video experience versus using one off the shelf?

It's interesting that video is so pivotal and important as a technology to connect people over the internet, and yet it doesn't matter which hosting provider you go with, in a way, because creators don't really care.

How do you think about switching costs with video? Have you done anything to make it easier to potentially switch away from Wistia in the future?

I'm curious about your take on video more broadly and how you see it evolving. If I look at the Podia website, there are a couple different forms of video under features: there's the more direct hosting of video and live video, and then there's stuff like webinars where you're serving as the ticketing booth for people to access videos. Do you have thoughts on where this is going and how you see expansion of those use cases?

As far as picking partners, how are you thinking about getting prepared for an explosion of live video or short form video?

A lot of things seem to point towards this potentially being a commodity space, but I'd be curious to hear your thoughts.

You mentioned integrating with Podia and having a video provider that “plays nice” as being a key differentiator. I'd love some more color on what some of the advantages for you all would be of having a video platform that has — I don't know if it's a better API or just deeper integration into Podia. How do you think that would change the product experience?

What other roadblocks are there besides editing for people who want to make videos?

I can imagine shooting video on an iPhone was controversial at some point, but as I was watching the Apple event the other day, I thought, "It really feels like they've just dedicated themselves to making this thing an insane video camera every year."

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