In this episode of the DevReady Podcast, Andrew and Anthony welcome Kate Tiller, Chief Brand Officer at A Perfect Space. Identifying a niche within the entertainment industry, this experienced startup founder set out to develop a searchable databaseA database is a storage mechanism which allows you to store structured or unstructured data for future keeping. You can... that eliminates much of the legwork involved in scouting film locations. But as with so many startup origin stories, there have been some painful lessons learned along the way to delivering this invaluable service to production teams across North America, Australia and Europe.
“Location is the hero of every story. That’s our tagline.” – Kate Tiller
Kate generously shares her experience with bringing A Perfect Space from conception to execution, including the disappointments she suffered after partnering (more than once) with tech developers who made promises on which they couldn’t deliver. Short of industry regulation to ensure that coders perform to standard, it’s up to entrepreneurs to protect their vision and the large sums required to turn an innovative idea into a robust web-based solution. Kate explains why both business and tech sides need to be in sync with clear communication, accountability and mutually understood milestones. A Perfect Place couldn’t have realized its potential without a clearly defined, disciplined development framework – something Kate has learned is most efficiently established by hiring an effective CTO from the outset.
While A Perfect Space caters to a very specific sector, the lessons Kate has learned in building out, debuggingDebugging is the process of a developer working through code in order to try and find any error or bug.... and populating her platform are universally applicable. With candour and humour, she shares the journey to realizing her vision for “the google of location scouting” — a searchable databaseA database is a storage mechanism which allows you to store structured or unstructured data for future keeping. You can... designed to drastically reduce the travel, expense and spadework associated with identifying far-flung locales for all manner of film and television productions. Join Andrew and Anthony in exploring with Kate the many ways in which technologists and entrepreneurs must intersect on the way to turning a business dream into reality.
“I studied and read a thousand books when I was putting this together but it makes no difference. I still made every mistake in the book.” – Kate Tiller
Topics Covered:
● The challenges associated with scouting locations.
● How specifically A Perfect Space streamlines the scouting process.
● Supporting tech is essential to deliver a disruptive vision.
● Millions of dollars lost and overstating of tech developers.
● Why Big-picture entrepreneurial goals are important.
● The value in creating a hierarchy of needs within a business model.
● Defining and targeting a given market drives the tech tools deployed to reach it.
