Adapting to rapid technology change, with Marion Duchesne, CEO and founder, Mediaclip

Gary Pageau of the Dead Pixels Society talks with Marion Duchesne, CEO and founder of Mediaclip, a Montreal, Canada, leader in the photo personalization software market. Duchesne has lead the company through numerous technological, marketing, and strategic changes over the 15-year-life of the company. 

Duchesne also talks about her experience as a woman founder in the photo technology industry and her efforts to expand opportunities for young women in tech.

Mediaclip is the leading developer of white-label product personalization software that allows organizations to create and sell an endless variety of products on their online store, including photobooks, calendars, cards, photo gifts, home décor, promotional products, and much more. We offer the most flexible solution that addresses the specific needs of our customers’ market strategy, allowing them to control their processes and shopping experience while offering end-users a best-in-class user experience.

A privately-held company with headquarters in Montreal, Canada, Mediaclip’s software is currently integrated with hundreds of leading websites around the world.

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Transcript

Gary Pageau  0:03  
Hello again and welcome to the Dead Pixels Society podcast. I'm your host, Gary Pageau. And today we're joined by the CEO and founder of Montreal-based company Mediaclip. Marion Duschene. Marion, how are you today?

Marion Duchesne  0:17  
Hey, fine. Thank you. Thanks for the invitation.

Gary Pageau  0:20  
Well, it's great to have you. Listen, a lot of people know the Mediaclip name. They're aware of the company, but they may not know about the founding of the company where it started and what drove you specifically to found the company? What was the driving force?

Marion Duchesne  0:37  
Yeah, um, what's kind of by accident. I've done my master's degree in strategic planning. So I work in strategic planning at Bell Canada, which is a major telco there. And I had a lot of fun. It was the telco golden years, the launch of the CDMA cable companies and internet providers acquisition, it was really exciting. But then boom, the voice over IP came. And for people who know me, I'm a passionate person. And obviously, Voice over IP was boring. So I've decided that the Yeah, it was kind of the same product just delivered in a different way. Right. So yeah, so I've decided that it was time for me to have kids. So I went in maternity leave. And this is where in 2005, I was looking to put pictures of my kids on product. And I didn't find anything. And designers were either, you know, too complex, or not enough flexible. So for various products. So I made a business case. And for fun, I was invited to maternity leave. So I had some times.

 I got meeting with Costco, Walmart, Loblaws in Toronto, which I was surprised because, you know, I, I thought it was an opportunity if they accept to, to my meeting requests. So I got there. And I finally lounge, a DVD service with low loss. So people were going on photo lab website, upload their pictures, choose music and teens, I was doing burning the DVDs and in back to the stores. But obviously, after a few months, you can imagine there was not a lot of volume. So

Gary Pageau  2:38  
What was that? I mean, one of the things that people always talk about with Mediaclip is sort of the design aesthetic, how well things look how well it's designed. Did you have that even in that first version of the product?

Marion Duchesne  2:50  
And yet, but because no, I designed the a it was really a simple html5 form. This is not where we really started what we're doing, right? Yeah, it was my first baby step in intrapreneurship. You but it just yourself? Yeah, Yeah, I did. But there was not a lot of volume. So I was going back to bit work to add them. But the thing is, my younger son has a physical disability. So my job as bill could not sustain three or four, you know, therapy appointments per week. So I was pretty lucky because just before I was going back, Fujifilm, Canada gave me a call and say, Hey, would Did you know someone who can develop a photobook software. So I thought it was my chance, I decided to launch a company. And so I was able to manage my schedule, and also grab the opportunity officially quit my job. So I went to a friend's who had company of service of developments. And we build the first version of the photo book. And we've been asked then for calendar and a corn module. And I put all my money in my savings on the first photo book module. So I've decided that, you know, we would throw away everything what we've done and start a new solution to support any type of product. And you're right, DDD, we put a lot of effort on the user experience. I would say most fidessa reason I think the first one I was the user, right? So I have a development team to build something that I would like to use. While usually you have developers, you know doing things and not listening to the consumer. So this was the first thing the second one is we develop in Flash. And my developers, the first one worked on but today, most of them still with me, and by now I'm lucky but they came from the graphic From the graphic side of the of the programmation. So we work together and really it was a really cool application, our first module in Flash, it was really awesome. However, yeah, we had to change everything in 2013. And moving to html5.

Gary Pageau  5:23  
Because flash today is I mean, there was sunsetted, you know, years ago, but now it's officially dead.

Marion Duchesne  5:29  
Yeah, so I started a company and but you know, as a mom, at the very beginning, I need to be surrounded by people why could rely on so this is where Christian and Philip came on board at the very beginning. And a little bit later, Matthew have joined us.

Gary Pageau  5:48  
So how big is your team right now?

Marion Duchesne  5:51  
Right now in Montreal, we have 29 persons. We have someone in India, someone in Philippines. And we are expanding the team. It's pretty hard to find developers in Montreal. 11 job opening right now?

Gary Pageau  6:11  
Well, there's a lot of here Montreal is becoming quite the tech hub these days. And so there's a lot of competition for talent there.

Marion Duchesne  6:18  
Yeah, for sure. We have all the gaming industry in Montreal, we have Facebook is here. Google is here. All and you know, all this to do for gaming and taking so much, you know, place so yeah, it's pretty tough. To find developers right now. I'm looking to hire in France.

Gary Pageau  6:38  
Wow.

Marion Duchesne  6:39  
Yeah. Yeah. So I met I have a mission right now we are posting jobs. And I'm doing we're doing interviews with, with French people that want to come in Montreal. So we need to find other ways.

Gary Pageau  6:53  
So tell me a little bit about you know, you as the customer, because it seems to me like a lot of the photo book companies are kind of created from I don't know, the technical side from the marketing side, but not from the user side. And I think, you know, nowadays, that's more the case, I think, you know, these days, but back then that was a pretty, that was a different business proposition. Do you have a hard time communicating that to your customers?

Marion Duchesne  7:20  
And I would say, you know, it's that when they played with the software, they understood, I think that was, I would say, our main USP. And I think we had a really, really special UI at that time. It was really user friendly. And everyone could play with it find easily all the options. And yeah, it was a pretty cool solution. Yeah, that that I think that's what put us put us on the map, obviously.

Gary Pageau  7:55  
Yeah, yeah. Now, one of the other things that's kind of put you on the map, from a technology standpoint has been the ability to, you know, map pictures onto objects. And if you're going to make a mug or a keychain or whatever, you're really among the first companies to offer that.

Marion Duchesne  8:13  
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, like I said, after the photo, calendars, and, and cards, all the fuego, photo gifts were pretty popular. And so we wanted to develop software that was able to support all those products. So

Gary Pageau  8:34  
it's crazy than just the amount of products available now you must be just updating all that must be flying, that must take 29 people,

Marion Duchesne  8:43  
that's for sure there's 1000s of products within the software. We provide the product to our customers, but they build their own as well. Right. So we have someone selling you know, Converse shoes. My examples are he's building his own shoes in the software. Okay, which is pretty easy. We provide tools for that. So I would say there is no product that now we cannot support. So very complex product can be supported into the software. So we got trophy with all the transparencies, then it's pretty cool. I think we did a great job.

Gary Pageau  9:20  
So one of the things that you mentioned before was was the pivoting right, you pivoted off of, you know, HTML and your flash, you had to get an html5 and things like that. We've also made it some other pivots that I think are interesting in the sense that, you know, one time you tried to offer everything in the value chain, including the shopping cart, and everything and you've ended a few years ago, you pivoted away from that to more of a a hub approach. Can you talk a little bit about that decision process?

Marion Duchesne  9:53  
Yeah, sure. You know, there was changing the industry were at some point Consumer consumer were more matcher. Online, they wanted to have the best shopping experience, even when they were buying personalized product. At the same time, we had retailers who were looking to leverage all the digital marketing tools that were available to grow their business. So, you know, the homemade e commerce platform, like we tend to use in the forestry industry for several years. We're not efficient anymore. Right. So we had to find a way to have a cloud solution. And we've decided to put that on Azur so it was really scalable, and you know, all the security and all that stuff. So the which scan the Mediaclip could be integrated into any commerce platform. So then we developed a Magento, Shopify nopcommerce plugin, right, and coming next week, we're gonna launch the new WooCommerce extension as well. So okay, meaning that the integration of the technology takes three clicks,

Unknown Speaker  11:04  
right.

Marion Duchesne  11:04  
So anyone I mean, anyone can now sell for the products on their website. And that was the vision that I had. So obviously, we had to make the change from the on premise to a cloud version. Right. And now with the you know, the scaling of it, we take we have so much volume last Christmas is was like crazy. We will we relied on absolute infrastructure. So we had no problems dealing with all those volumes. So it was a good decision. But it all happened at the same time. Because when we changed from flash to html5, it just be tough on us, because it was hard selling an old technology. But the new one was much ready. So yeah, it was tough. And in this crisis, and that was an opportunity for us to rethink the way we're doing things. And this is where we come up with the cloud solution. And I think it was the best decision we've taken up to now.

Gary Pageau  12:08  
Yeah, because I mean, in some ways, like, I've been talking to your staff, they've opened up a completely new customer base in some areas, like non photo companies, like you said, like, exactly, somebody's making sneakers, they may be doing all kinds of other things, but they want to offer add Personalized Products to their portfolio. And now they don't have to redo their and the commerce side or the shopping cart, right? Or the marketing. They can just plug your, your, your platform in. Yeah,

Marion Duchesne  12:38  
yeah, we we got into markets where the photo is use as a media more than a souvenir or funnel analogy, right? Yeah, so we got customers, and, you know, except party supplies, in there in many areas. So and personalization, obviously, I think that with the COVID, we've seen a lot, I'll give you an example. Masks. You know, last year, everyone, it was mandatory to buy mask a lot of people, but personalized mask, and I think that the people realized that they could personalize objects of their everyday life. Right. So I feel like the personalization and the mass customization trends, I've left the awareness market phase, and are now more getting to a growth phase reaching out the mass market. So I think it's an important step, especially for a photo industry, because we already, you know, producing and having all those products, but, you know, we think we need to think, you know, over the, you know, traditional photo website and market there are so much opportunities beyond that.

Gary Pageau  13:58  
Right. It is interesting, because, you know, the traditional photo market, you know, especially for the personalized photo gifting products, you know, continues to grow. But it is interesting to see where, you know, different items like golf balls and different things like that are can be also personalized. And for many businesses, you know, it's a huge growth area. I mean, when I look at some of the new printing platforms that are coming out, you know, UV printers and things like that, it's really unlimited what you can print on. And, you know, just think back in the day when, you know, you started it was how do we make something on a flat sheet of paper. And it's really that's it's really an unlimited market now. So I also want to touch base a little bit about some of the activities that Mediaclip and yourself have been involved in to help the next generation of tech know the word I want to use there? I'm going to rephrase the question. The next generation of tech entrepreneurs, is going to tell me a little bit about some of the the mentorship activities you've been involved in.

Marion Duchesne  15:17  
Yeah, I think it's really important to support and mentor, woman so they can access investment and grow their business. But before getting there, we need to encourage young young woman at early stage to catch the entrepreneurship virus, I would say. Yeah, but we need first to change mentalities toward risk, by example, right? life balance, open opportunities, we need to provide them role models. Sure. But there are not many right now. Just to give you an example, in Canada, there's, you know, 21% of all the board seats of the TSX listed company, or woman, and woman only represent 4% of CEOs. And I think in us, it's a little bit better, but not much. I think it's only 6%. Yeah, the s&p 500, that woman on the CEO position. So I've been myself a life goal to spread the world, the word, you know, to invest in scholarships and mentor, young young woman, so I make conference in school, to tell them that there are many types of intrapreneurship many type of business, I tried to remove the cultural and sexual barriers, right. And, you know, just tell them that you can have a business and you know, I have a family at the same time. It's just an example. Because they're all, you know, they, there's some stereotype around the entrepreneurship, I think that blocks young woman to move toward starting their own business, and also try to push young girls to move towards and scientific professions, right? Yeah, because, you know, women in tech are less represented. And in the menu industry, and just myself, I have a hard time hiring woman and my development team. And I think no major part of the future will pass by technology. So as a CEO of a tech company, I think it's my duty to change things. Like I said, at the very beginning, I started my company in a software development, without knowing you know how to write a line of code, I just seize an opportunity to solve a problem and meet the need. And let's be honest, if I did it, every woman can do it. It's just we just need to tell to tell those girls what to do and give them the tools and so we really need need a model on in that sense. So that's why I'm you know, giving scholarships,

Gary Pageau  17:55  
more about the scholarships that you've made some announcement. Yeah. But I,

Marion Duchesne  17:58  
it's part on the FEMA and free margin is an organism, nonprofit organism that LP young ladies, in regarding secondary five, which is like a school in us wants to go to their prom, but they don't have the money to buy, you know, the dress shoes and everything. So every year, we collect dresses, and we got sponsorship from L'Oreal and big brands. So the young girls get their dress, get their shoes, they get the makeups and so on. Right? In the past two years, there were no from night because of the COVID last year, and this year, it won't be a any either. So instead, we've decided to give scholarship and in seven years that was thinking about it. And because, you know, like I said, I really want to help young young woman to go into the scientific, you know, professions. And I've launched a $1,000 scholarship. And I will give, you know, mentorship to the to the young girl not gonna be selected I did that last year, and it went pretty well because those girls usually that don't have access to the tools and sometimes they are immigrant so they need some help, you know, over over the over school just you know to find job and understand how things work and you know, really see the opportunities that are in front of her or maybe just seeing you as an example.

Gary Pageau  19:35  
Right can help just having your visibility because you've been recognized by the province of Quebec various entities for the company's success.

Marion Duchesne  19:45  
Yeah, yeah. But I don't see myself that I'm not there yet.

Gary Pageau  19:51  
Well, I don't know you've, you

Marion Duchesne  19:53  
know, I might be what I've done. I might be what I've done, you know, the business is going well. We have good reputation. I have great guests. Farmers my employees are happy. And above all, you know, my kids seems normal. And as IPS teenagers can be

Gary Pageau  20:09  
yes, if you started this company when what 2005 and they were young, you're you're in the herd years now you're in teenager world.

Marion Duchesne  20:16  
Yeah. Deanna within my older son is 18 now, so it's going to school guys, first girlfriend. But yeah, he dropped school last at the beginning of the COVID. Because he didn't like the, you know, the online learning, online learning. It's really tough. And my two kids has ADHD, just like me. So it's pretty tough to get organized. And he didn't know you know, where to go what he wanted to do. So yeah, I took few months off, and I was scared and and go back to school, but finally did so

Gary Pageau  20:51  
great. Yeah, COVID has been tough on just students in general, I can't imagine what what it's like in houses where they don't have a parent who's as committed to education as you are. I mean, I mentioned it's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of stories coming out, I think over the next few months over the impact of COVID. On school aged kids.

Marion Duchesne  21:12  
Yeah, in college, they hear the dropout is near fit. I think it's 51%. It's huge. It's huge. Yeah. It's unfortunate.

Gary Pageau  21:22  
So going forward, assuming that the world returns to some sort of normality in 21, or, certainly 2022. What do you see are some of the future positive trends for the industry and for Mediaclip.

Marion Duchesne  21:42  
Like I said, previously, I think mass customization trend is huge. And we're getting a lot of, you know, requests from retailers that are in various segments. I think it's very promising. And I think that, you know, my first idea to get everything, you know, personalized. We're getting there. So now we have the technology. For the production, we have the, you know, the online technology as well. So we I've been waiting for the consumer to just realize everything that it can do with it. So, but now it's happening. And it's pretty exciting. So

Gary Pageau  22:27  
I think what's gonna be interesting is when personalization becomes more of a baseline expectation of consumers, like when they buy, let's say, you know, a USB stick, and there's an option to customize it just automatically. That's one of the options. I think, you know, that's gonna be where I think the industry is gonna have another inflection point upward.

Marion Duchesne  22:54  
Exactly. And this is how I envisioned the will. So I hope we get there. I hope we get there. Yeah, obviously, but on the core as well, when you think about all the possibilities, you know, to get curtains to get duvet, so you want to redecorate your your room. Right now you have to find all matches all together, you know, you have to do a lot of shoppings. Right. But now, you know, it's the same thing with the software I'm working hard right now to you know, our software is really photo centric. But photo can be used as a texture by example, or patterns or whatsoever. So we can use the software and we need to change a little bit the user experience. But this is something we're looking at right now is just to let you know, the user choose from colors, patterns to apply on tissue on whatsoever. So people can you know, redecorate the way they want and just sit in front of the computer and just be creative. So yeah, we're getting there.

Gary Pageau  23:57  
Okay, well, thank you very much for your time. and best wishes for a great 2021

Marion Duchesne  24:03  
Thank you very much. It's gonna be good. It's exciting. I'm starting a bit. I feel I'm starting a business right now, obviously. So and I think 2021 will be good for you know, all of the industry. We just need to open a little bit. Alright, yeah.

Unknown Speaker  24:22  
Thanks.