Founder Of VideoBlocks Talks Strategy, Success, And Traveling On The Road While Running A Multimillion Dollar Company
Joel Holland has made a few decisions in his young life that have made people wonder what he was thinking, but as he tools down the highway in his RV running his multimillion dollar company VideoBlocks, he knows he has discovered the perfect life/work balance for him.
“In the last two years, I’ve traveled more than 20,000 miles and seen 28 states, with some unbelievably awesome stuff along the way,” said Holland whose company states that they have crossed over the $20 million mark in revenues and reached growth of 214 percent in the last three years. “And after some epic hiking, biking, camping, and exploring, I can say this has been one of the greatest decisions I’ve made in my 31 years.”
A turning point in his company came on one of his most recent trips as he was driving taking his fifth-wheel down a long stretch of desert when he came up with the idea of creating a market place for buyers and sellers of the stock video industry. It completely changed his business and it's what has helped him scale his company to where it is today — one of the hottest digital media startups that's challenging Shutterstock, Getty and Pond5.
"I find the easiest way to clear my mind is on an open road," he said. "There's something soothing and therapeutic about watching the blur of towns, mountains and landscape fly past."
The inspiration for launching his company came in 2009 when he was working as a video editor on a small television show. They landed an interview with Arnold Schwarzenegger and it went so well that the actor offered advice but Holland's employer didn't have a budget for stock media. "The production quality was complete s**t," Holland said. "So that's why I started VideoBlocks — to solve that problem."
VideoBlocks has a couple of million stock video clips available to everyone from all over the world. It's geared more towards the mass creative class so people can afford to make their artistic pieces have more production quality. Members can download unlimited clips for $99 a year. And the videographers who submit their footage to the open marketplace receive 100 percent of their sales because VideoBlocks only makes money from their clients who pay the annual subscription, but the business was growing too fast for Holland.
In 2014, he had reached a low point in terms of motivation.
"I was working 80 hour weeks and reaching burnout pretty fast. “I had to get out of the office and into the woods."
That's when he saw an RV dealership on a random weekend while attending a wedding and walked on the lot and bought it.
“I didn't overthink it,” he said. “I have hundreds of hours of alone time for reflection—just me and the white lines dancing under my truck. Eventually busy thoughts quiet down, and calm sets in. That’s when I can “zoom out” and think about what we’re trying to build at VideoBlocks.
While he still spends a time on airplanes for work, he’s been disciplined about scheduling road trips in his RV monthly, usually taking a week or more to explore completely new places with absolutely no real plan of attack.
“This exploration of the unknown matched with uninterrupted driving time has been instrumental in not only keeping me sane, but also fueling some incredible creative planning for VideoBlocks,” he said. “Much of the ideation for our radical marketplace where we give 100 percent of the money back to contributors happened on the road after I visited Bentonville, Ark. to see the home of Sam Walton’s first Walmart. Inspired by Sam, we flipped our industry on its head, and it worked.”
Holland isn’t tired of the miles he’s racking up traveling around the country, doing what he loves and shooting video content for VideoBlocks.
“We have over 9,000 videographers who shoot stock footage for the company, and I’m fortunate to be one of them,” he said. “At first, fitting so much travel into my busy schedule as an entrepreneur proved to be a challenge. But once I realized the extreme benefits of being on the road, for both my state of mind and the health of our business, it was a no-brainer that this was the right decision.”
Candice Reed
A graduate of Kelsey-Jenny College in Communications as well as a certified grant writer, Candice has written for The Los Angeles Times & The New York Times. She loves entertaining and all things French.
Make Sure To Stay At:
Antelope Valley Fairgrounds RV Park, having everything one needs, from full hookups (water, electricity, and sewer), to the ability to bring pets, and reasonable rates.