Canva. Adobe – where werest thou? Part 1.
If you can’t keep up with the phenomenal growth of Canva, you’re not alone. Last week the company announced it has raised $200M at a $40 billion valuation. Wasn’t it only a few months ago the counter stood at $15B?
And it is not because investors are going overboard because of FOMO. Well, maybe a little, but still... Canva expects to exceed $1 billion in annual revenue by the end of this year. More than 500,000 teams at various organizations are paying for the product in some capacity.
Keys to success? Quantity and quality of templates, stock assets, collaborative team features, and a broad range of design features for photos, videos, animations, page layout, print – you name it (note: Canva acquired last year's Visual 1st presenter Kaleido, maker of removebg and unscreen). But most importantly, or at least the thing we’ll zoom in on during this year's Visual 1st and the DIY Video Summit: Canva offers easy and versatile solutions for businesses of all sizes who care to create visual products “DIY.”
And yes, this could have been Adobe’s turf, but they mostly missed out on the SMB DIY creation market by continuing to focus on the professional and enterprise design and advertising markets.
Adobe might very well acquire Canva at some point in the future, but at that time, it will be too much, too late.
Lightricks. Adobe – where werest thou? Part 2.
If you can’t keep up with the phenomenal growth of Lightricks, you’re not alone. If you missed their presentations at Visual 1st in 2017 (when Itai Tsidon discussed their app subscription plans, which he expected them to get above the $10M annual revenue level) and at Visual 1st last year (when Ophir Abitbol participated in our Visual 1st Start Performer Alumni Check-in panel): Lightricks is the developer behind the best-selling Facetune selfie retouching app, and several other use case-specific photo and video smartphone apps, including its fast growing Facetune Video app.
And yes, this could have been Adobe’s turf, but they mostly missed out on the smartphone native photo and video app market by continuing to focus on the professional and enterprise design and advertising markets, and the perceived need to integrate smartphone apps with their desktop-based brothers and sisters.
Adobe might very well acquire Lightricks at some point in the future, but at that time, it will be too much, too late.
Apple. Going Cinematic and “post”.
In other words: shoot once and you use the footage for different purposes; or shoot once – for a quick shot without needing to worry about the intricacies of your camera settings – and make things right in “post.”
It’s the same premise of the Lytro camera for those who can remember, which got a lot of praise among observers, but the company could never get it quite right and was eventually acquired by Google for their IP in 2018.
Xiaomi. Going Cinemagic and “resolution”.
Xiaomi calls its boosted filmmaking capabilities “Cinemagic,” i.e. the Xiaomi marketing folks beating their Apple peers on their own turf with a cutesy new buzzword.
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Virtual interactive conference
Covering photo and broader imaging innovation topics.
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Oct. 21:
Virtual interactive conference
Covering trends in enabling video creation by non-video professionals – consumers, SMBs and enterprises.
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Visual 1st & the DIY Video Summit
kick off in just 28 days!
The earlier you register, the earlier you can participate in our pre-conference networking LinkedIn Events site to connect with fellow attendees.
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Newly added speakers:
(Spread the work by Liking or Sharing
on the LinkedIn links below!)
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Visual 1st
Panel Highlight
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Michal Czaicki, CEO, Printbox
Lina Andersson, CEO and Founder, Once Upon
Sean Doherty, General Manager, Mimeo Photos
Click here for complete speaker lineup Visual 1st.
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DIY Video Summit
Panel Highlight
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Appu Shaji, CEO and Chief Scientist, Mobius Labs
Yong Tang, VP & Founder, PicUP.Ai
Julia Enthoven, CEO and Co-Founder, Kapwing
Click here for complete speaker lineup
DIY Video Summit.
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