Butterfly Frenzy

Launching Lytro - A Marketer's Eye View

Have you missed me? I've missed you. Really I have!

Where have I been? I've been in stealth mode the last few months to bring to life something truly exciting. Today, I launched my new company, Lytro. Lytro is revolutionizing the world of photography and visual storytelling with an amazing new camera. If you’re interested, here’s what the New York Times had to say about us today!

I joined Lytro as its VP of Marketing in mid-February after much soul-searching. I truly loved the work I was doing at Ant’s Eye View. But, the opportunity to create a marketing and product management organization from scratch for such an amazing company was too good to pass up. I am hugely appreciative of the team at Ant’s Eye View, in particular Sean O’Driscoll and Jake McKee, for being so supportive of my decision and for providing ongoing guidance as my professional journey continues.

So why was I so excited about the company? Lytro contains what I consider to be the  magic formulation: super smart people + really hard problems + really big opportunities + core human insight + did I mention super smart people? = Kira’s fired up.

• Smart people: Our founder and CEO, Dr. Ren Ng, is the mastermind behind Lytro’s light field technology. Stanford PhD, winner of the ACM dissertation of the year award, all-around brilliant and nice too! Charles Chi is our executive chairman, and one of the smartest, most humble and most successful entrepreneurs I know. Our engineers blow my mind nearly every day, and I’ve been blessed to build the most fabulous team of marketers and product managers.
• Really hard problems: Conventional cameras haven’t fundamentally changed in years. And, that lack of innovation shows up with marketing trickery like “give mom the zoom she wants for Mother’s Day” and pet detection in birthday mode. Innovating in visual storytelling is no small task, and the team at Lytro is doing it. Capturing and harnessing the light field to take never-before-possible pictures is truly revolutionary, in my humble opinion.
• Really big opportunities: Despite this lack of innovation, the dedicated camera market garners $38B in revenue annually. That's $38 billion with a B! And, in the preaching to my choir department, nearly 100 billion photos have been shared on Facebook so far in 2011. All that despite the fact that taking, sharing and experiencing pictures is still a massive PITA. As one gal put it to me after she saw these amazing pictures of baby Kai, “I have a roll full of heartache” from shooting pictures of her niece at a playground the week before. And, she’s a semi-professional photographer! It should just not be this hard to tell our stories visually.
• Core human insight: Telling our story visually is hard-wired into humans. From cave paintings to the daguerroetypes in Paris in the 1800s to Instagram, we have an insatiable desire to capture our lives in a visual way and share that with others.

Roll all of this together, and you’re probably getting as giddy as I did when I started at Lytro. And, as I remain today.

All of this said, this role and the opportunity with Lytro could not have happened without the experiences, support and guidance I’ve received from each of you. From coffee chats that helped me overcome my own insecurities to late nights working on valuation projects at Fuqua to the day-to-day joy of learning from the best at Intuit to the myriad tweets, FB status updates and blog posts full of wisdom, I cannot thank you enough!

Last but not least, huge thanks to Jeff and the kids. These last few months have put the phrase “work/life balance” to a serious test, and, without the flexibility and love from home, I could not have made it.

So, please, go take a look at Lytro.com. A labor of love for everyone involved, including me. And, if you’re so willing, share it with the folks you know who care about taking great pictures and capturing the decisive moments in their lives.

 

Animal Assisted Happiness - An Amazing Organization

Ponies, a pig, a donkey...oh my! That aptly describes our Saturday morning recently as Intuit alumni joined Vicki Amon-Higa at her farm in Los Altos. There we learned the amazing story of Animal Assisted Happiness.

The story started with Lollipop, the pony. Vicki and Peter were contacted by a family with a terminally-ill teenager who loved horses and ponies. The family wanted to know if Lollipop could come for a visit. And come she did, spending an hour at the bedside of this child and launching Vicki and Peter into their dream to help children and families across the Bay Area by bringing them together with loving animals.

Today, Animal Assisted Happiness has delivered over 1100 "smiles" connecting children with Bella the pot-bellied pig, Flicka the brand-new baby pony and the myriad other animals on the farm. Services are completely free-of-charge for families and if children are unable to travel, Vicki and Peter make it work.

 

As always, I am humbled by the people in my life who give back to the community so deeply and passionately. Huge kudos to Vicki, Peter and their family for starting and growing this wonderful organization.

My next adventure

Since I joined Intuit almost six years ago, I’ve really grown up. From learning how to sell accounting software to very practical accountants to being Intuit’s first word of mouth marketing manager to growing a social media, community and support team truly delivering value to our division, I’ve had an unbelievable number of adventures.

Now I’m ready for my next one. I’m joining Ant’s Eye View to open its Silicon Valley office, starting in mid-April. 

 
I joined Intuit after business school because I wanted to learn how to innovate and drive growth at scale and in a large, complex environment. But, I also joined Intuit because I would get to serve the customers who mean so much to me – small business owners. Having grown up in a family of entrepreneurs and having been one myself, small business owners have been near and dear to my heart.

By opening Ant’s Eye View Silicon Valley, I return to my roots, starting a new practice within a young but growing company. At the same time, I’ll continue to innovate and drive results at scale in complex environments by partnering with Ant’s Eye View’s clients to help them achieve success with social media, community and influencer efforts.

This is a major milestone for Ant’s Eye View, having been founded by Sean O’Driscoll and Jake McKee only 15 short months ago. Their growth to a third office in such a dynamic place in such a short time is testament to the fantastic work they’ve done for their clients and with their team. I am lucky and thrilled to join them.

At the same time, I’m sad to leave Intuit. I'm so grateful for the people who challenged me, supported me, made me laugh, made me smarter and, above all, who became some of my closest friends. I could blog, tweet and update my Facebook status for days and still not have enough time to acknowledge everyone. Suffice it to say, you know who you are, you’ll be missed and, unless you un-friend me, I won’t be far away!

 

Good lovin'

I'm really proud to work at Intuit. And, I'm really proud of the great work that my team does. Over the last six months, my team's been testing a new, cool effort called Love a Local Business.

Love a Local Business is all about...you guessed it...love. Fans, friends and family members can, with a couple pieces of info, put a heart on the map along with comments about why they love this business so much. Besides knowing they've been loved, local businesses have the opportunity to win small business grants worth up to $35,000 in January and February.

Part of that $35,000 top small business grant is something especially cool - $25,000 in local radio spots. How cool is that?

So, if you're a local business owner, spread the word and get a little love. More importantly, if you're a fan of local businesses, take a couple minutes and shower them with adoration!

Small business grants from Intuit

In late January, we launched the Small Business United effort at Intuit. Many months in the making with a village of Intuit folks and partners required to bring it to life, the effort is all about helping small business owners succeed. Music to my ears!

One of the key elements of the effort has been a small business grant competition. In the first part of the grant competition, close to 2000 small businesses submitted written stories about their businesses along with some excellent tips for others. Out of 2000 entries, 50 finalists were selected...no small task for the community of raters and our expert judges.

Now, the second part of the competition is coming to a close. The 50 finalists submitted videos about two weeks ago and have been getting the word out about their video and their business. Thousands of people have been rating the videos and sharing insightful or encouraging comments with the entrepreneurs. Ratings close tonight, so if you have a favorite business or video, be sure to get your ratings in!

On Thursday, after the judges have reviewed all of the videos and after the calculations have been completed, we'll announce the winners. All 50 business owners received $5k in grants along with a Flip video camera. The grand prize winner gets $25K and four runners-up receive $10K. All in all, we'll have given out over $300K in small business grants!

Seattle Just Start event - 1000s Inspired to Leave the Rat Race Behind

Seattle, oh Seattle. How do I love thee? The city welcomed us with open arms yesterday as our first "Just Start" event kicked off in front of Westlake Center.

Thousands of folks interacted with the live event! Our JumpUp members did an amazing job of answering questions for people who want to leave the rat race. Every time I looked around, I saw people getting help to start a business. So cool!

We also had quite a few people enter the contest to win $50K in startup funds and expert help. Some of the business ideas were just incredible, and they reminded me of why we've been working so hard over these last few weeks. One of my favorites was the gal from the National Guard who is planning to start a gym for seniors.

Seattle, being Seattle, It did rain a bit yesterday. The clear tent was a genius last-minute addition. The tent actually helped draw attention to the event. And, the warm coffee and cookies brought the crowd in too.

It's supposed to be a sunnier day today here in Seattle, but cold. I'm excited get over to the event in a couple of hours. It should be a lot of fun!

More to come and more pics from the other events in Chicago and New York in the coming weeks.