Culture of a Startup: the making of QuickGuide

Posted on March 18th, 2009 (1)

QuickGuide Storyboard

Inside the Quick.tv office, the team works together on a multitude of simultaneous projects. The phones ring, calls are made, viewpoints are addressed, and moments of epiphany pop up out of thin air. The act of juggling is the daily grind at Quick.tv. As one project finds an answer, another project suddenly requires immediate attention. A quick auto-dial phone call to an agency in London calms the storm, just enough to allow a quick break for lunch.

I feel the need to run down the stairs from our second story office. I take the elevator. I want to pick up my pace as I walk for a quick bite and latte. It’s my third latte of the day, and it’s only lunchtime. I calm myself. I know I have time. I’m waiting for our server to upload a critical update, so I can finish splicing a screen-grab from a section of our interactive video platform. I’m making the first video tutorial of a series called QuickGuide. I take my lunch to go.

I want to get back into the office. I got ideas running through my head like a firestorm. I think they’re brilliant ideas waiting to be put to action—already in their sixth draft. First a run through on the whiteboard, then story-boarded on paper, audio transcribed across the backside, transferred to a word document and printed, let’s begin: I’m recording. Uh oh, start over. My voice is wrong. That cursor movement is off. Make it quicker. That’s too fast. Hey, that’s a graphical glitch. Get London on the phone!

It’s 6:15pm. I want to keep working. Where did the eight hours go? I unplug and join the team to show off my first video tutorial for QuickGuide. Everyone is enjoying my American accent. I can’t tell a difference. It sounds normal to me. I upload the first video draft to the server for the team to pick it apart. QuickGuide is coming alive.

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