Discovering Skylum's Marketing Secrets in the Age of AI Photo Editing, with Juliana Chyzhova, Skylum

Join Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society for an insightful conversation with Juliana Chyzhova, the Chief Marketing Officer of Skylum, as we explore the evolution of their company and their flagship product, Luminar Neo. Discover how Skylum's dedication to photography apps and cutting-edge AI technology has led to the creation of this powerful and versatile platform. Chyzhova also shares the company's approach to offering both one-time licenses and subscription models, catering to different user preferences.

We also discuss Skylum's expansion into organizing captivating photography expeditions and the challenges of crafting successful photo walks. Chyzhova provides valuable insights into regional differences in the adoption of subscription models and Skylum's commitment to balancing the addition of new features without overwhelming users. 

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Chapters

• 0:27 Luminar AI Photo Editing Platform
• 13:28 [Ad] The Best Pizza Franchise Opportunity
• 14:17 (Cont.) Luminar AI Photo Editing Platform
• 16:59 Skylum's Iceland Photo Tours

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 IP labs.

Gary Pageau  0:17  
Hello again, and welcome to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by Juliana Chyzhova, the Chief Marketing Officer of Skylum. And she's coming to us from Lisbon today. Hi, Juliana, how are you today?

Juliana Chyzhova  0:33  
Hi, Gary doing amazing. It's sunny, and it's warm in Lisbon. And I'm happy to be here.

Gary Pageau  0:39  
Well, it's cold and kind of gloomy here in Michigan. So hope you send that sunshine our way. First, can you talk a little bit about Skylum as a company kind of where it started and how it evolved into the desktop photo manipulation space?

Juliana Chyzhova  0:57  
Sure. Skylum is over 15 years old and we've started as a developer of IOS apps. And we were one of the first developers on App Store. After that, we were one of the first developers for Mac App Store when Apple launched that. We've tested multiple apps. And because of one of our co-founders' interest in photography, we started developing photography apps. And we realized that we were doing so much medical wisdom, specifically on desktop. That's why the company decided to focus just on that. At the time, we were developing single feature-focused apps like intensify or finality for object removal, or black and white conversion, or for working with colors. And at some point that so much feedback from our community. Why don't we just develop a single app so we don't have wheat? And that is how Luminar was born.

Gary Pageau  1:59  
You've had from numerous years under the Skylum brand. You've had several apps that have had like sort of single function and like, you know, a noise reduction app and intensive Asia. And you've kind of rolled that into a single platform. What was that like? Because that was most of them like herding cats, trying to take these various nuggets of technology and making them usable in one place.

Juliana Chyzhova  2:24  
So our current flagship product is Luminar Neo, and it's a product we intend on developing and supporting for years. And right now, we wanted two years ago, and we've been developing everything, we're focusing on developing the platform, we're focusing on improving the speed, improving the user experience, as well as bringing new AI technology. And basically, the story behind Luminar Neo  was that at some point, we realized that our older platform was, would not be able to support all of the new technologies that we wanted to introduce. Right? So four years ago in summer, like, earlier, isn't that what we realized? Okay, so in order to keep delivering this amazing user experience, and to keep innovating, because innovation is, is in our DNA, we want to keep introducing new AI stuff, because they've been one of the pioneers in that field. So we actually had developed Luminar, from spread. That's why it's called Luminar Neo, and we really have rewritten our whole called our whole platform, and made Luminar media is a platform, which scales with your skills, and offers you additional tools that you might need on your photography journey. But it can take as simple and as easy to use.

Gary Pageau  3:57  
So let's talk a little bit about that piece. Because you've got this core application, which it's available as a subscription, right? It's a subscription model. And then that has all of the goodness that I'm looking at the site here you've got, you know, enhancement, you've got the sky, you got real light, you can erase unwanted parts of an image. But you also have plugins or other features that can go and look up tables that is that an open marketplace? Or is that stuff that you develop?

Juliana Chyzhova  4:31  
So at the moment, we call them extensions, and they're being developed by us. So there is no open marketplace, we might get there eventually. But right now, we're still focusing on the platform development. And the way we think about it is that if something operates higher value for large audience, it will become part of the major of main platform. Some feature got immense value for a narrow or hence, we will introduce it as attention. Because not everyone needs Asia on earth, not everyone needs to talk a second. So if you have our one-time license, you're able to just buy one or two or three extensions on top of that. But if you have our decryption, you will have everything. Or if you have a lower-tier subscription, you will just stay with the basic version of Luminar. People get all the updates and stuff. But so we try to make the platform as flexible as we could. And, again, keep it simple and easy to use.

Gary Pageau  5:37  
So it's kind of available as both, right? If you can buy the basics, and then add on or subscribe and get everything so. So I'm curious. I mean, you're a global company, you know, you're based around the world, do you see different regional models for the acceptance of different things? Are there regions more desirous of the subscription model versus the buy-once model? I'm just going to be curious how it's received. Because I know over here, when there's been a move to subscription, sometimes there's been a resistance to that.

Juliana Chyzhova  6:11  
I'd say there is always resistance when you move to a subscription. But in the end, it's a business model of the future. And there are original effects. So for example, in the US, people are a much more favorable picture that which we easily, I'd say, just because they're so USA, and in Europe, people are less inclined to switch to subscription. But in general, the rate are kind of consistent. It might be like, I know, I'm taking like numbers out of my head. So it's not real. But and yeah, so for example, let's imagine in in the States, 60% of users will be subscribed. And in Germany, 50% of fees will be subscriptions. So there is a difference, but it's not dramatic. Definitely people in that region, Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, they're more inclined to own products. And there is a trend that why we keep to option. So basically, when you give multiple options, multiple price options, you're able to serve more customers, who will prefer a specific theory for that. 

Gary Pageau  7:21  
And so one of the challenges you've got has developed, I think, why people, software developers went to a subscription model was to fund ongoing development. It's a challenge, I imagine with all the AI that's being introduced, and all these things, you know, this is not, you know, inexpensive technology. So I mentioned over time, subscriptions, you know, are going to be necessary.

Juliana Chyzhova  7:43  
Yes. So from a business perspective, subscriptions, allows us to build a more sustainable business, because we're able to predict revenue streams easier. But at the same time, it allows us to develop better products, because when we see how many people are subscribed, we're able to allocate resources needed to support the user base. And we are able to invest more into development on the platform, which is always a good idea from my standpoint. And we do have an amazing rhetorical development team. And we're proud of them. They are researching new technologies all the time, we have multiple technologies in research, not all of them will make it to the final product. But we keep reading papers, we keep looking, we keep researching the market to see what's new, what's interesting, what, but also what, what is in line with our vision, because in no way we want to overcomplicate the product, to start developing something that would be very difficult to understand and to use.

Gary Pageau  8:50  
So that's one of the things I think is a challenge for any developer is, you know, the UI expectations of users now is, you know, very clean, very sparse, very, you know, buttoning, not a lot of drop downs and things like that, which, you know, I go back to days when you know, menus is to cascade and cascade and cascade across the screen. So that's going to be a challenge because you always want to, you know, enhance the product and add features, but you don't want to overwhelm him with features is that part of why the extension was created was so that people could keep it as simple as they want to, but add features as they go.

Juliana Chyzhova  9:37  
Exactly, exactly. That's one of the reasons why we introduced extensions. All I can say it's a challenge. It's, you cannot imagine the battle we have when we decide to we add this because when we select features that will make it to our roadmap. It's always a question will we be better if we add it? Or if we do not, right, we get like we can keep editing. That's absolutely not an issue it. The question is what should not be there? What? And the question we constantly asked what they can remove? What is actually, you have to look at it from the fresh perspective from like this new angle of trying to figure out how we can make it better how we can make it simpler, and that the question would be

Gary Pageau  10:27  
plus, you have to keep on going improvements on the existing tools, right? Because, you know, obviously, there's as the clone tool, you can always, always ways to improve that and all that. Where do feature innovations come from? Are they staff-driven? Or do you have users providing requests on boy, I'd really like to have a better D noise tool or something like that.

Juliana Chyzhova  10:51  
We try to source ideas from, from everywhere. So we obviously have our universe, or feature request, we have our product team constantly researching the market, constantly retort chain, what trending on YouTube, what people like, the way we try to frame our solutions is to take a process that tap tap, and tap and turn it into one tap are two separate, we try to see what is difficult to you in other tools, we can make it simpler in Luminar. So that's one thing in other ways. The first thing here is we started doing this internal hackathon, when a team will have to in 24 hours, they will have to ideate and ship their solution. And some of those will make it to the final product. And our team is incredibly creative. So you can always source a yes from within the team. But usually, that is the privilege of product team or product marketing team. But if you open it to the whole team, you will be surprised how many cool idea you can have, you can find and, and people are able to develop them really, really fast. And they're not limited by usual processes. So that's our constant inspiration. And third thing is our many people on our team are photographers. So many improvements come from our own experience. So we just use Luminar and refine something, well, it doesn't work for me, can we improve that. And we are constantly looking for these improvements as well.

Gary Pageau  12:38  
You also have an opportunity to get feedback directly from users, because you do in-person events, which I think is a very interesting approach. I don't know of any other major software company that is doing the type of things you're doing. Can you talk about that? Why did you choose to actually get into physical in-person events?

Juliana Chyzhova  13:04  
Absolutely. So we as a team, we are incredibly passionate about photography, and many people on the team are landscape photographers, and to be able to take landscape photos you have to travel. And when we look at the market, we constantly ask ourselves, how we can be different, how we can approach our audience differently. And we realize that all other major software companies, they mostly compete in digital or they go to the conferences, but where people do actually take for us that's on their trips, and their specific kind of trip where you can, where you can go where you can get a quick shot where you can develop your photography, learn new skills, and find find new friends, right because traveling for photography with your family is a nightmare. But prevalent for for photography with your friends, is the best experience of your life. So we started doing this photography camp, we already held two camps in Iceland. And this was one of the most amazing experience I've ever had, and I hope our participants so we will usually be five or six, photography matters. We work with our brands and partners at icon quality awards, and we invite our friends are also our ambassadors and influencers and affiliates. And we go together to vote for iPhone, you can buy the ticket to the trip and we do that one per year. And we've also started doing for the works and smaller event. So check out our website for upcoming events in your city. So we've just done our first this year in in Lisbon, but we intend on doing more Europe where we are. So we want to connect with with Communicating because before pictures get into Luminar, but you actually have to make them. And we want to be with our team. In a moment when they make them, inspire them, close them, the best applications be together on this amazing adventure. And in the end, the picker will make it to Luminar. And that's where we will see the amazing before and after effect. So the end picture will actually match what you thought and not something that captured your camera.

Gary Pageau  15:32  
Why I slammed because it's a bucket list

Juliana Chyzhova  15:35  
destination for more for for all

Gary Pageau  15:39  
that came for. It wasn't just because you guys like Iceland, it's that that was something that people want. So is is that going to be on the rotation? Or do you plan on going to other regions around the world? Is this? How is this going to work?

Juliana Chyzhova  15:54  
I'd say Iceland will still be one of our key destinations. Because that's just something that you have to stay if you're a photographer, if you're into landscape photography, there is no place like Iceland. So we also were also thinking about doing a photography expedition to Antarctica. And that's another bucket list. Destination. So we want it but we definitely feel like we are going to explore and expand,

Gary Pageau  16:24  
no place warmer than this are very close is this one now, because you're in Lisbon, and it's warm there.

Juliana Chyzhova  16:38  
And I know from here, the cold places. No, but the reason is, you know photographers, they wake up for sunrise and they go for sunset. In Iceland in winter, it's much easier because sunrise is at 11. So it might be easier to wake up. But other than that, we are definitely going to look for other locations warmer. So for example, we have done a partner event where we invited our influencers and this amazing creator and photographers for more also, our partners to Madeira. And Madera was an amazing destination for photography.

Gary Pageau  17:20  
Okay, I'm just curious. So what is it? What will it take to get a photo walk in your area? Is there a number of people, or a size of a group or what's what is your vision for a photo walk, because clearly, you know, not everyone has the capability to drop everything and do the bucket list trips. So but obviously, if you want to expose people to your product as much as possible, photowalk is great.

Juliana Chyzhova  17:47  
So we've just done further work for 50 people here in Lisbon, and 50 people is kind of difficult to manage. Yeah. And we are thinking about doing small groups in multiple locations, we're going to work with our influencers, and ambassadors and affiliates to do this for the works in multiple locations. So we envision it to be a global movement. And we want to want to inspire people to explore. And because sometimes you don't have to travel overseas for an amazing shot. Sometimes you can take iconic picture somewhere very close to your house. And we want to inspire that as well.

Gary Pageau  18:32  
So one of the things that I find interesting about this approach is I don't know a lot of people doing this with software, obviously, photo walks are very popular with gear people, because you want to sell a lens, you want to be able to show the person what the lens will do with a picture. So so how does this work? Do they people? Do they go out and shoot and then go back to a central location to tweak the pictures on how does this I'm just curious what the format of the event is.

Juliana Chyzhova  19:05  
So basically, people will just meet in one location, we will, we'll have a master or a guide, who will go with them on a roll. And then they just follow the roll. The guy who is playing them, show them the back frame told them the best possible shot. And in the end, we'll just gather past what they've got through experience. And we will also continue to communication we email on social but we do not do classes. We just want to create an opportunity for everyone and use for everyone to go out to meet other people experience photography. And in the end they just they're free to go home and edit their thoughts in Luminar.

Gary Pageau  19:56  
So setting a workshop format it is literally just a next experience thing, which I hope, you know, at the end that at some point someone buy something, right. I mean, that's certainly what you want the outcome to be, are you seeing positive results? And that side of it?

Juliana Chyzhova  20:12  
Would that was the see it helping our exposure alone. And that's what we're focusing right now. So we want to introduce to Luminar to as many people as we can, because we definitely know that not everyone knows about Luminar yet, but we want so many more new people just to learn about it, give it a try and see for themselves, is it better for us that they would like to use or not? We hope they will.

Gary Pageau  20:43  
So one of the things and I've talked about the market a little bit, I want to talk a little bit about the product just for a second, specifically, because you've integrated AI into a lot of what you're doing. And that's sort of a buzzword, even though you've been using it for years, as far as I've been able to demonstrate, I think some of the previous versions that I personally use have had some AI, what does aI mean, in the context of skylum? In the sense that, you know, some people think AI means it's fabricating an image, it's creating it out of nothing, or it's creating something that isn't there. But that's not really what you guys are doing.

Juliana Chyzhova  21:24  
Yeah, so we've, we've released our first AI tool in 2017. And we were one of the pioneers to bring it to the consumer market. Right? For us AI was always a tool to get your vision of simplifying photography of making it accessible to everyone. As I explained this process of like something that takes you 20 steps can take you just one step. Wow. Right. That's why we're using AI for so our first AI tool, which is now enhanced VI, in basically tackle multiple multiple staring with just one old fighter. And it was so important for us to simplify the process. So it's not just like simple autobahn, right? So and we kept developing new tools, for the same purpose of simplifying for everything for everyone. And we want to make it simple, fast and enjoyable, and not tear people off with complexity. So for us, AI helps us it's like something that helps you write not something that replaces you, or something that creates something out of nowhere, but we take your picture, and you're able to get to your vision much faster with the help of AI.

Gary Pageau  22:50  
Like I said, in today's world, there's a lot of talk about AI and what it is when in what you're doing is really more of a traditional trying to get you capture the vision of what you see or what you'd like to see in a picture as opposed to, you know, I'm going to create something crazy, like, you know, a lunar surface or something like that. So very cool. So what's coming down the pike for skylum? On this product? I mean it because it's, you're not really versioning it anymore, right? It's just you're just adding and adding. So what's the development cycle? Like? Is it ongoing? Is that every month every every two months, every six months? What? How often can people expect to see the product updated.

Juliana Chyzhova  23:34  
So right now, our cadence of updates is every three weeks, three to four weeks. So we deliver new updates, we might slow it down a bit because we want to deliver more meaningful updates, but we will see how it goes. So but right now, and this updates are dedicated to improvements of user experience and to the speed and to the performance. And we are constantly focused on improvement of user experience in general. And at the same time, we're also working on the new AI tool that will be included in the basic version and as well as will be released in form of extension. So right now we're focusing on on finding in UMTS into but that will benefit our audience a lot. So what will happen we will continue to help in Luminar and we will continue improving it and we will continue developing new AI tools for unlocking your creativity or for assist in your creativity. That's pretty much it.

Gary Pageau  24:43  
So where can someone go for more information about skylum and the Luminar Neal product line and on how they may want to be checking that out.

Juliana Chyzhova  24:54  
You can check Luminar New York skyline.com/luminar Or at Luminar labo in Instagram, and that's where you will get latest news. We will always keep you updated. You can make your email so we can share some updates. We can stay in touch regarding our upcoming events. You will find everything about us there.

Gary Pageau  25:17  
Well, thank you, Juliana. It's been great to meet you and best wishes for continued success and especially with your photo walks and tours. That sounds very exciting.

Juliana Chyzhova  25:27  
Thank you so much, Gary. And thank you so much for having us.

Erin Manning  25:32  
Thank you for listening to The Dead Pixels Society Podcast. Read more great stories and sign up for the newsletter at www.thedeadpixelssociety.com

Transcribed by https://otter.ai