Michael Kaplan. He’s the CEO and founder of Taivaco which is a media technology company. He’s also the former director of marketing at Sanyo and was appointed at San Francisco Water Bay Front Committee. Michael speaks Chinese, French and Japanese. He attended The University of Redlands, Waseda University in Tokyo, George Mason University and Chinese Culture University. Famous Five: Favorite Book? – It’s Not My Department What CEO do you follow? –  John Cleese and Ken Okuyama Favorite online tool? — Any.do Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No If you could let your 20-year old self, know one thing, what would it be? – “The more you listen to other people, the more success finds you” and  “Be a nice person”   Time Stamped Show Notes: 01:28 – Nathan introduces Michael to the show 02:07 – Michael shares why January 20th is a special day 03:15 – Taivaco was set out to solve an invisible problem and ended up solving more problems 03:47 – An archive isn’t an accurate description 03:50 – Organizations are struggling to manage their media 04:17 – One of Taivaco’s original ideas was to digitize media 05:08 – Taivaco helps companies find their content within their media or discover what DAM (Digital Asset Management) software does 05:50 – Taivaco incorporates both software and manual work 06:01 – “This is not a software that we sell, this is a service that we do” 06:15 – Taivaco is a service-only company 06:26 – Taivaco was launched in 2016 06:33 – Taivaco is currently on pre-revenue 06:49 – Taivaco has done under 10K in pre-revenue 07:00 – Taivaco version 1.0 will be available in April 07:12 – Taivaco was originally self-funded 07:20 – Michael put in 20K in Taivaco 07:27 – Taivaco just closed their “seedling” round for less than 50K 07:43 – Long term plan is to have another round 07:56 – Michael shares how they actually make a sale 08:32 – Sabra Design is one of Taivaco’s paying customers 08:39 – Sabra Design came to Taivaco to ask for their service 09:04 – Taivaco got less than a thousand for the job 09:10 – Taivaco has already reached out to potential clients to scale up 10:17 – Michael explains why it is taking them more time to close a deal 10:50 – Taivaco doesn’t specialize in digitizing and they do it for a minimal cost 11:23 – Taivaco annotates content which nobody has done before 12:12 – Michael shares their annotation process 12:46 – The charge for annotation will depend on the volume 13:20 – Taivaco will have a subscription model for the annotation 14:10 – Taivaco’s goal is to make their service as easy and possible for their clients 15:34 – Taivaco is making money through annotation 16:27 – The metrics that Taivaco is measuring in pricing 17:09 – “We have to provide the whole thing” 18:21 – The Famous Five   3 Key Points: Try to solve one problem and you might end up solving more problems. Do something that is new in the market to stand apart. Take things at your own pace and don’t rush.   Resources Mentioned: Acuity Scheduling – Nathan uses Acuity to schedule his podcast interviews and appointments Drip – Nathan uses Drip’s email automation platform and visual campaign builder to build his sales funnel Toptal – Nathan found his development team using Toptal for his new business Send Later. He was able to keep 100% equity and didn’t have to hire a co-founder due to the quality of Toptal Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for the cheapest price possible. Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he’s driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5-hour drive) to listen to audio books. The Top Inbox  – The site Nathan uses to schedule emails to be sent later, set reminders in inbox, track opens, and follow-up with email sequences Jamf – Jamf helped Nathan keep his Macbook Air 11” secure even when he left it in the airplane’s back seat pocket Freshbooks – Nathan doesn’t waste time so he uses Freshbooks to send out invoices and collect his money. Get your free month NOW Show Notes provide