jan-2018

98 99 EPIPHAN VIDEO right,what we did wrong, and what we could do bet- ter.We thought about simplifying with hardware-re- lated things.The idea was to hook up a piece of hard- ware to a computer and project what was happening inside, onto the screen-a kind of web projector.That was 14 years ago. It started with a simple product–a frame grabber–and we realized there was no sim- ilar hardware in the world. If we could make it, that would be the core technology in our final unit. So,we put our efforts together to make that happen.” Sandler, and Misha Jiline, CTO, are co-founders of Epiphan. In 2003, they raised just over half a million dollars from friends and family to start the business. Sandler believes they were lucky not to raise more from other circles, because rather than being in the hands of venture capitalists, they were able to build the product and start selling with personal money and their own efforts.“We were flying right above the grass for a year, but we managed to build one, MIKE SANDLER CEO Mission Critical is a common definition for important actions that should be documented. Every surgery is mission critical and should be live recorded, so we can learn from it. Some lectures have impact that may change things for the future; courthouse recordings; even wedding ceremonies. It’s better to have records of everything, and live video is the best way to document. two, then three products and we keep success- fully selling them. Based on sales,we’ve naturally grown the company since then.The number of products now exceeds 30, though some have been retired.” Today, Epiphan employees more than 50 people. The company is headquartered in Ottawa, Canada with a secondary branch in Palo Alto, California. “Moving to Palo Alto extended our horizons,” says Sandler.“The purpose was to hire sales people in Silicon Valley. I tried to do it myself from Ottawa, but realized I couldn’t do it, remotely. I needed someone in Palo Alto permanently, and the best candidate was myself, just to build a team, be- cause Misha needed to be with the engineers. I now have two top-notch salespeople and a sup- port team for them here, in the heart of Silicon Valley, across from Stanford University. Students go to lunch right by our of- fice and definitely notice what we’re doing.We’re not shy about getting our message around.That’s how it works.” VP of Product Marketing,David Kirk came on board with Epiphan in 2012.He notes,“In four years, Epiphan has developed a base of high-pro- file clients in the Valley–Google, Facebook, interesting medical companies; we have custom- ers across a broad range of industries,whether it’s education or user experience labs or live events