Reliving family memories with photos, with Lisa McCabe, Capture

Gary Pageau talks with Lisa McCabe, president of Capture. In this interview, McCabe talks about the rebranding of YesVideo to Capture, how technology has changed the company’s offerings and how memories are the core of the consumer photography business. Capture (formerly YesVideo) is one of the leading photo and video media transfer companies. Capture helps users digitize all formats of older media so they can easily view and share them with friends and family forever, and from any device.

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Transcript

Erin Manning  0:02  
Welcome to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast, the photo imaging industry's leading news source. Here's your host, Gary Pageau. The Dead Pixels Society Podcast is brought to you by Mediaclip, Advertek Printing, and School Photographers of America.

Gary Pageau  0:19  
Hello again, and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by Lisa McCabe, the CEO of Capture. Hi, Lisa, how are you today?

Lisa McCabe  0:29  
Hey, Gary, I'm good. It's so glad to be on with you talking about business today.

Gary Pageau  0:35  
For those who may not be aware, capture is in the photo scanning business, the memory retention business, as we say, but that's a relatively new brand to a long-established company. Can you talk a little bit about the company's history?

Lisa McCabe  0:51  
Absolutely, yeah. So we've been around since 1999, as a YesVideo. And, we started off as an online business. And our position was, let's digitize long-form video and put it up and help allow people to webcast it, which was back in back in 1999-2000. That's, that's kind of the name we gave it. So that's where we started. And then we very quickly evolved into service and for Qualex, Fuji, and the retail business as it's evolved. And so we've been in the space a long, long time. And a couple of years ago, we started looking at, you know, time to refresh. YesVideo just talks about video, we do so much more than video. So we worked with a great branding team to come up with the "Capture" brand, which we feel is a broader term. And it describes exactly what we do we capture memories, right? We digitize memory to people so we brought up that brand we love it. I love the colors, I love the aperture lens of the see everything. It's a really exciting brand for us. And we've had that out in the wild now for some time. And we will eventually stop using YesVideo and go completely to the capture brands. So it's pretty exciting. It's nice to do something new and fresh. 

Gary Pageau  2:25  
 I mean, it's the service out there. I mean, are you still calling it YesVideo for some of your customers? Or is it just I do a clean switch?

Lisa McCabe  2:34  
You can still I mean, you can still order on the YesVideo site. And you can order on the capture site. And so both are still around. There's a big loyal following to the YesVideo. Sure. Yeah, brand and site. And there are a lot of repeat customers that still use that. So we've got both to ƒgo in at this time.

Gary Pageau  2:52  
Because that's one of the things is like, you know, there's sort of a tension there. And the dynamics of a marketing company because it's like, okay, we want to refresh not sure if video really talks about what we want to do. But on the other hand, it's an established brand, almost everyone knows, because you had such a strong retail presence for years you had, you know, YesVideo was in PLP for YesVideo and almost every major retailer for years,

Lisa McCabe  3:19  
right? I mean, in our business, as you know, trust is so important, and people are trusting us with memories. So you've got to build that trust with the new brand. And that's what we've been working on is really building that trust that we've got with our long-term YesVideo brand.

Gary Pageau  3:35  
What is there any service differential between the new brand and YesVideos are the same services, but rebranded if you will.

Lisa McCabe  3:42  
It's same services, rebranded, so we offer custom services, we do have a box product called the Time Capsule that is on the Capture site. It's a great gift-giving piece, you know, you put it under the tree, but the same great services are available. Same team, same team service in the orders. So it's the same.

Gary Pageau  4:08  
And you've got a facility here, right in North America doing this. Yeah, it's in Norcross just outside of Atlanta. Okay. Yeah. Tell me about your experience with the company because you've worked your way up to be the CEO and that's kind of an interesting story itself.

Lisa McCabe  4:25  
It's, it's, uh, yeah, I think it's a unique story. I mean, I came out of college, I was a film student and university in the UK. I didn't know what I wanted to do. I was 21. And I don't want to be spending 18 hours on set every day, but that's where it was going. And then I looked at an opportunity for a marketing internship in the Bay Area inside Well, Silicon Valley Bay Area. I'm gonna go check it out. So I said you know, I'll just go for six months. Try this out, see what I want to do. Just fell in love with the company and And and what we do and continue to grow. And, you know, certainly I could have had five, six jobs at this point. But I've always been interested and always learning something from someone. I mean, I'm surrounded by incredible people. And I've learned an immense amount and I just the interest there the passions there to to take care of these memories. I mean, it's really special what we do, and I've never looked back and grown all the way up. And then Michael handed me the reins a few years ago, and it's been wild. It's been it's been a lot of fun. And that was Michael, Michael Chang. Okay, yeah, he's the he's our company owner. Well, that's

Gary Pageau  5:44  
great. So you had the opportunity, then to kind of see all facets of the company as you worked your way out? That's kind of interesting, because you've had to adapt to new service offerings, even though the changing of the digitization process hasn't really changed that much. A lot of the ways you're delivering the memories have changed.

Lisa McCabe  6:09  
Right? Exactly. So I mean, going from working with quality and Fuji to directly with retailers to put in many lab systems and Ritz camera, right, we were we were transferring video and images right there in store with Ritz camera. And then, you know, continuing online, so it's as it's evolved as the customer has evolved, and how they want to receive drop off, pick up their orders, we've evolved with it. And you know, obviously, the retailers have evolved over time, too. So, lots changing all the time. And you've got to be adaptable, and meet the needs of your customer

Gary Pageau  6:47  
used to be able to send things back and DVDs and no people don't even have DVD players anymore.

Lisa McCabe  6:54  
Yeah, I mean, we started, we started with CDs. And we started like stamping CD labels with a stamping machine a sticker, because they didn't print on them yet. Like that's how early it was. Right? Yeah. And it's all digital. Like it's

Gary Pageau  7:14  
just think of the of the residue from those labels as they fall off. Oh, yeah,

Lisa McCabe  7:20  
that's Oh, getting the, you know, it's not quite aligned and the labels not on and you gotta you got to do it again. Yeah, we've come a long way from CDs, all the way through to you know, obviously, now we deliver the content to your cloud account to to Google Photos account. So it's seamless. It goes from analog piece of media into your Google Photos account.

Gary Pageau  7:43  
Right. So talk a little bit about that, because that's a relatively new enhancement, you've announced you've gone away from your own locked in albums, which some people do. And now you're just basically have partnered with Google to transfer in another Google Photos account, which, honestly, that's probably where most people's stuff ends up anyway.

Lisa McCabe  8:04  
Yeah, I mean, Google Photos is is unreal. I mean, we could talk forever on the features. But more importantly, we really looked at where's our place in the in the industry. And we said, you know, what, we're not publishers, we're not going to compete with these publishers, Google Apple, they do an amazing job of publishing content, allowing you to view it, enjoy it and do more with it. Right? There's plenty of gifting opportunities out there with with retailers, in store and online. And we just said, you know, we're not publishers. So let's pass the content to publishers. Because if you think about the journey we're on with all of our images and our videos through, they're scattered right there on different places. I've got some probably on Shutterfly in a Costco account on my on my laptop and Google Photos. So ultimately, to be able to enjoy your memories, all of your memories, you need them in one place, right? And that you're old and you're new, right, complete that timeline, and have your content that's pre 2007, when we all started collecting digital content, right, put your old and your new together in one place so that it's more powerful. And you can do more with it.

Gary Pageau  9:21  
No. Is there anyone else other than Google Photos do you work with for this? Or is that your primary album making recommendation?

Lisa McCabe  9:29  
Yeah, we work with Google Photos primarily. But you can also get a digital copy and download it and move it to wherever you want to. So you can join the process, authenticate your Google Photos account, and we'll put it right in there in an album for you. If you give us any metadata will add that along. So if you think about if you label your content with the date, when we pass it to Google Photos will pass that metadata along as well, so that we those images and videos don't drop into yesterday's date, right? They drop into the date of the memory, right? Or the rough time of the memory. So that I think is really powerful. And it's really about completing that timeline. If you want to use a different service, no problem, you just download and move your content,

Gary Pageau  10:24  
because that's one of the things I think that people struggle with the digitization business is, you know, it's generally ID ID for the date of scanning, and it's not in the proper date. So there's that whole photo manager, a subset of people who have organized people's pictures, right? So that's very, you know, kind of a growing market, because it is an interesting challenge, right? Because do you have a lot of people who provide you with relatively copious metadata or references on their images coming in, or are they just dropping off? You know, sending it boxes and boxes and stuff, but it's a very well organized, typically.

Lisa McCabe  11:06  
It's, I mean, people take care, because it's their memory. So they know what's on it. And they know roughly when it is they are going to make that effort, because it's an investment. But you do get people that will just drop have no clue what's on it, I don't know. But if you see a date on a tape, you can typically the consumer will add it and put it on there. Because they're like, Okay, yeah, let's put this date on. And it really helps. It's really impactful when you get it on your timeline. I mean, if you think about the timeline with Google Photos, I'm sorry, I could talk about it forever. And then you add facial recognition. So think about when you've spent any time and energy identify and all your family members, even with your you know, your current content, when you put your old content in Google ghost. Oh, that's Dad, that's mom, all the way through. It's incredible, because you just shockingly accurate. I use it all the time for locations figuring things out. It's it's really powerful.

Gary Pageau  12:07  
And you didn't have to develop it, which is nice.

Lisa McCabe  12:09  
And that's exactly it. That's smart, right? Why go develop something that this genius team have already developed? Why compete when you can help and assist,

Gary Pageau  12:19  
but that doesn't mean that you're not coming up with new ways of doing things. And for example, you just recently announced album scanning, which is kind of interesting. You talk a little bit about that because that is one of the challenges people have with the scanning business is the disassembling of albums, which can be a quite laborious process.

Lisa McCabe  12:42  
It totally can. So if you think about, we've got you know, we've been transferring tape, film images and slides for a very long time. The one thing that's always been a challenge is album scanning, because arguably, it's more precious than the videotape. Because people have curated it. It's basically the best images that someone sat down and they've put together they've prepared a timeline. And they've put it pride and place on the shelf, right? It's not stuffed under, under in a closet or under a bed in a box. It's right there. And so it's there. And it's pride and place. And so it's hard to part with. But you know, when you go to somebody's house, like a family party or something, the album always comes out. And everybody always reminisces right? But you'll always have these disagreements about Well, I wish I had the album in my house because my baby pictures are in there too. Right? Yeah. So there's this one copy. And it's so precious, that people are reluctant to part with it. But everybody wants a copy. Right? Everyone wants a copy of it. The shift for us was during COVID COVID got people comfortable with shipping. Right? My mom never shipped before COVID. But she ships all the time now returns orders things online. I mean, life changed in so many ways. Shipping was pivotal, that people are more comfortable, more familiar with shipping. So that's when we said you know what, now's the time to get this out there. So we we developed a service and album scanning service. But the challenge, as you said is it's it's got to be touchless. You cannot remove these photographs because they're fused to pages as magnetic sticky backing, there's, there's plastic over the front, it's fused. So it's too delicate to remove, and that's the risk, right? So it's got to be touchless. But when it's touchless, you're dealing with glare, and you're dealing with warping and all of that. So we developed patented technology to tackle all of that and our goal is we provide you with Have a side by side like copy of that image. And it's amazing. And Gary, you should try the service. And if you've got a photo album, most people do, you should try the service because it's, it's not only convenient, but it eliminates the warping and the glare, which is that is pretty special. Yeah, because you've

Gary Pageau  15:20  
got some before and after examples on your website. So do you send back both so that people can see the before and after? Is that part of the service?

Lisa McCabe  15:30  
So you send in your album, we will, we will capture your album, and then we'll send you back your album, and then we'll send you back the extracted images. So you can look at your image, and you can look at your album and take a look. And you'll see the side by side we've been doing some incredible captures we had an album last week, I think it was there was photographs in there from 1907. Right? Unbelievable stuff, you know that, that we're able to digitize and people can, you know, they can now view and share easily.

Gary Pageau  16:07  
Is this a standard service? Or is as a premium service? How are you rolling this out as part of your portfolio?

Lisa McCabe  16:13  
It's a standard offering, it's 35 cents per image that we extract. And we give you back a digital copy for that. And you can add a USB on you can even add in DVD. I don't know why. But people still order DVDs. And we'll provide you back your your album and the images. If you authenticate your Google Photos account, will put it in your Google Photos account for you as well.

Gary Pageau  16:39  
The process would be people would get a box from you or just send you I mean, do you do you have like prepaid shipping boxes that you send to people? How does this I'm trying to walk through myself the process of Yeah,

Lisa McCabe  16:50  
so you've got you go online, place an order for approximately how many images you think you have in your album, you can decide to ship yourself or you can select to get a shipping label that you print out. Albums are all shapes and sizes, right? People have a ton of boxes at home now. So we encourage people to to pack themselves in a box that's suitable for their album, and then they send it in,

Gary Pageau  17:18  
I guess what I was getting, that's what I was getting into. Because I mean, the vast majority of the weight on that package is the album that you're that's kind of the part you want to get rid of. Right. I mean, the binding the pagers, I mean, that's most of the cost of the shipping. Whereas if somebody's sending you a box filled with loose prints, almost all of those are scannable content. So it's kind of a, you know, it's going to be an interesting value proposition for people, right? Do I want to pay for sending this heavy thing, which I'm assuming you send back to right you don't keep keep the media unless people say just Do people ever say just get rid of it?

Lisa McCabe  17:57  
It's very rare. And we would never encourage that. Because we'd want everybody to get their hands back on everything, check. Everything's right. There are still humans in the process. Sure, right. So you want to make sure that you're happy with it. And if you're not, we'll absolutely redo it. But just going back to shipping, it's the same shipping charges as we always charge. So we've built shipping into our price. So it's, it's better to use our label than to go to, you know, UPS or USPS yourselves take advantage of our rates.

Gary Pageau  18:31  
Okay? Because I mean, that is a very different, like I said, a very different value proposition because for that size, you're and you're not unfortunately, you know, because of the size of the album itself, you're not going to get as many pictures just because there are fewer pictures than a box full of loose prints. But like you said, it's a better value in another way because that those prints have already been pre-curated rites and pre-selected. So you will have some context cues and information that will help make it easier to organize.

Lisa McCabe  19:03  
Totally, they're the best of the best, right? You spent your time putting them in the album.

Gary Pageau  19:07  
So are there any trends in the you're seeing happening with as we come out of COVID with people like are they are they more likely to do this now? Because I've heard some different things over the last couple of years about how, you know, people are really getting into their families now more because of the COVID and all that and I'm not sure if that's the case, but have you seen an increase in interest in the scanning business? Do you think because of that?

Lisa McCabe  19:34  
Yeah, absolutely. You've got definitely a renewed interest in family memories. And people are becoming more comfortable online, right and sharing so if you think about like, a great gift at the moment is these digital picture frames or like a Google nest right? And all family members contribute memories to that frame. So There's definitely comfort from the older, older demographic, with technology and just getting the most out of it and seeing these cool, cool things, you know, seeing the latest memories or some past memories on a photo frame, it's, it's definitely becoming more comfortable and more familiar with everybody.

Gary Pageau  20:21  
You know, it's really funny to say that because I don't want to go on a tangent, but I just heard some ads, I guess for the holidays, because of the season we're in for photo frames. And I remember when they were like the hot thing, right, you know, and used to put in a media card, and you know, Kodak and everybody had them, and then it kind of went out. But they actually never went away, they just became web enabled. And there's a lot it's actually, I think, a fairly sizable business. For people, like you said, to have entire families who are maybe dispersed now across the country or across the world to be able to share pictures. To a parent or grandparent,

Lisa McCabe  20:59  
we do it all the time. So when I was back in the UK a couple of weeks ago with my family, my parents have got theirs on in the living room on the side. And it's got all of the family pictures, and we just, you know, you look over and you have a giggle at oh my god, look at you in the bathtub. Or while looking at wedding day picture there and everybody can contribute to it with an app, right, everybody can upload in the family, to the to the frame. And when you have that experience in person, it encourages you to add more pictures, you're like, wow, I want to make them smile. Let me let me put a few more pictures on so I think it's it's definitely becoming a common part of the family way of life as well. With all the tech like, you've got like the Google nest or Alexa, you've now got these screens that can house photographs as well. And these digital images that are transferred, so that you it's in the kitchen, it's on you know, the digital wallboard that they're everywhere now. So it's great.

Gary Pageau  22:00  
You're just now rolling out the album, transfer service album scanning service. What are you doing to get the word out to the general consumer about this? What's the besides obviously being on this very exciting podcast? What are you doing to get the word out?

Lisa McCabe  22:20  
We've got an email marketing, the usually paid media, we're also doing some, some press some PR, working on add some consumer-type appearances,

Gary Pageau  22:33  
because I think there's gonna be a lot of interest in this because I know for a fact there are people who would dearly love to have their images digitized, but they don't want to take the albums apart.

Lisa McCabe  22:43  
Right, exactly. And there are probably people sit in listening now saying, but there are apps out there that do it. Right. So there are there are some great apps out there. There are two challenges with the app. One, it's the consumer operating the app, right, not a trained professional. And the other is convenience. One of the reasons our business exists is for convenience, because yes, there are some aspects of our business that you can do yourself, right. But do you really want to, you know, so there's that as well. And so our goal is to, you know, it's a tech approach to solving the problem. It's touchless. And we want to give the best possible output. And we've got a great roadmap ahead, and we'll continue to evolve the service, listen to consumers, and see what they want. So we're really excited to be able to do this now. And we think now's the time, with the comfort levels changing with shipping that's always been the barrier.

Gary Pageau  23:44  
So where can people go to get more information about Capture and your new service? So you can go to

Lisa McCabe  23:53  
the homepage, so capture.com and you'll you can learn more about the album scanning service there's a promotion on there right now. And you can learn more there will greatly so good to see you again. 

Gary Pageau  24:05  
And thank you so much for your time. Best of luck with the launch of the album-scanning service. And look forward to talking to you soon again.

Lisa McCabe  24:14  
Thanks, Gary. It was a pleasure.

Erin Manning  24:17  
Thank you for listening to the Dead Pixels Society Podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.thedeadpixelssociety.com

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