Entrepreneur Journal: Sanjay Raman, Howcast Co-founder

(Reuters) - The Web is full of user-generated video, but for Sanjay Raman's tastes most of it is too bland and poorly produced to actually watch. So last year he launched Howcast <www.howcast.com>, a video-sharing website dedicated to do-it-yourself content with former Google colleagues Jason Liebman and Dan Blackman. The following is a personal 5-day journal written by Sanjay Raman exclusively for Reuters.com on his work and life:

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Day 1 - Monday, June 8

It's a busy day at Howcast! Both in our San Francisco and New York offices, a great group of interns are starting to get hands-on startup experience and help grow Howcast in a variety of ways. In San Francisco, we have four interns joining our office; therefore I spent a good amount of time at IKEA - our furniture provider of choice - this past weekend picking out new desks and chairs for everyone. Luckily, they are planning on delivering the desks today, so if all goes well, my afternoon will be dedicated to putting desks together using odd-shaped IKEA tools and trying to decipher the odd diagrams they provide with each piece of furniture (hmm... maybe IKEA could benefit from having how-to videos that showed people how to assemble their furniture?). I'm sure not in Kansas, I mean Google, anymore, though I could probably use one of those massages after the day is over.

Our interns are going to be focusing on helping to market Howcast, contribute on engineering and design, write scripts for the site, and, if all goes well, even make a few videos. One of the really interesting things about our company is that we blend together a lot of different types of people. Not only do we design and build a high-traffic website (and all other related products), we write content, produce and edit video, collaborate with advertisers, and maintain a broad set of partnerships. There's always enough work -- and diversity of opportunities -- for our interns, so we're happy they're here to help across the company. This reminds me I need to plan a fun off-site event for the entire team this summer.

After getting the interns up to speed, my day is full of meetings. We're in the midst of a fairly massive re- architecting of Howcast.com to improve several user experience issues we are seeing. So, between brainstorming with the engineering team, reviewing mockups with our designer, and planning our next few product cycles, I'll be pretty busy. I end up spending a lot of time on the phone, given half our team is in New York and we work with just about every partner imaginable. Due to the down economy, we've been able to renegotiate several service contracts that we have in place, which makes it easier for us to run our business. Reason #456 why it's a great time to be starting a company!

Day 2 - Wednesday, June 10

I stopped by Apple's Worldwide Developers Conference this morning on my way to work. My friend got me a complimentary pass, which is great, because the passes are hard to come by. The hot topic of conversation was the new iPhone 3G S that was announced this week. We're obviously huge supporters of the iPhone App platform given the success of our Howcast for iPhone app. Two months ago, we got a huge call from someone at Apple asking us if we'd be open to having our app featured in an upcoming Apple iPhone television commercial (the "there's an app for that" commercials). After the easiest decision I've made at Howcast, the iPhone "Itchy" television commercial aired on TV and our app exploded. As of a few weeks ago, we crossed 500,000 installs of our app and are continuing to grow traffic, video playbacks and users. Needless to say, we like Apple.

Later in the day, the team brainstormed about features and improvements we could make to our current application. Pretty much every day, we get feedback from app users about new functionality they'd like to see. With such a large base of users, it's pretty easy to figure out how to prioritize what we work on next. We just listen to our users!

I'm going out for a nice steak dinner. During the first two weeks in June, there is special "Dine about Town" promotion at some of the top restaurants in San Francisco -- $35 prix fix menu, so might as well take advantage.

Day 3 - Thursday, June 11

Every morning, I spend about an hour going through the unending sea of email that I get. When I fall asleep, my inbox is clean, but by the morning on the west coast, I'm staring at a full mailbox. It's particularly interesting to read some of the emails that are written to our support team - feature ideas, people who are fans of Howcast, people asking about ways to upload content - there's a wide range of topics. We try to respond to everyone who writes us within a few hours; because I honestly believe it goes a really long way. I don't think people are accustomed to ever hearing back from companies when they contact them and we always get compliments from people when we respond to them, whether or not we can actually solve their problem or question. Even for a company like Howcast that doesn't sell anything to consumers, building trust with our users can have a great impact.

I met up with the founder of another company in the area (their office is across the street) for lunch. One of Howcast's investors knew both of us and thought it would be a good idea for us to meet. I didn't initially think our companies had a lot in common, but the lunch was awesome. It seems like most entrepreneurs generally like helping each other out and I'm actually pretty psyched about the opportunities we have to work together.

Back at the office, I worked with the team to iron out the final details of Howcast's first contest! We're challenging filmmakers to produce a new and interesting how-to video and we're giving away $2000 to the best video. We had to release some new features to the site, so I helped test the new functionality (we're small, so everyone pitches in) and coordinated our marketing plan with Heather (who runs the Howcast Emerging Filmmakers Program) in New York. A few hours later and the contest was live. Looking forward to seeing what great videos our community comes up with.

Day 4 - Friday, June 12

A day of interviews awaits me. Howcast is hiring great engineers, ad sales people, and a few other positions across the company. One of our biggest assets as a company is our people; we've been fortunate to hire talented folks. Today, we have a few engineering candidates coming into our office -- hopefully we'll find the next addition to the Howcast team!