In 2014, When Anjali Sud joined Vimeo, the company was losing money. The company had annual revenue of under $40 million and was trying to build a subscription service to rival the likes of Netflix and Youtube.
Anjali had previously worked as a consultant and helped entrepreneurs to come up with ideas to grow their SMEs. This experience really helped, when she was placed in charge of Vimeo’s creator-services division, which provides Software as a Service (SaaS) tools designed to help filmmakers with post-production.
Sud had a different idea. Instead of thinking on the entertainment side of things, her focus was on silicon-valley plumbing, aka entrepreneurs. Her idea was to create a single-stop platform for businesses to record, edit, store, and distribute videos.
Sud’s idea was accepted by the management and she was assigned a small team to test the idea. The idea was soon a success, and within 3 years, in 2017, Anjali Sud was promoted to the CEO of Vimeo.
“One of the reasons I was given ownership of the creator side of the business is because it wasn’t, at the time, the area that was getting all the focus and attention, so they could take more of a chance on me. That’s not a bad strategy. It gives you an opportunity to own something yourself – especially if you’re passionate about it – and maybe get an experience that you wouldn’t normally get if you just went down the standard track.” – Anjali Sud
Under the leadership of Sud, Vimeo reached great heights and as of November 2022, Vimeo has about 1.6 million subscribers.
If you’re a business owner or manager, you should take note of this story and consider implementing an idea-capture tool or process within your organization. By doing so, you can tap into the collective creativity and expertise of your employees, foster a culture of innovation, and drive growth and success for your business. So don’t wait, start capturing those ideas today!
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