Toronto startup Kukuzoo makes short animated videos for all types of stuff like products, services, social messages or anything else!
We sat down with Don Radhay, Founder at Kukuzoo, to find out more about his startup.
Who started the company? Do you / team members have tech background?
Don Radhay started the company in 2014, in Mississauga, just outside of Toronto. Most of our team members come from an arts background specializing in animation, writing and design.
How are you being financed?
We started the company lean and have never been financed. We simply began building our video portfolio by reaching out to customers that we felt would benefit from having an animated video. We’ve been growing organically ever since.
What do you think will be / is a big obstacle to overcome?
Changes in video technology (Like VR) and video platforms are a major challenge. As new video platforms and tech get introduced, our job is to research, experiment and become experts in them. It’s important for us to be able to effectively use these platforms and create great content on them for our customers.
How do you go about finding good developers / IT guys for your company?
We don’t have IT guys or developers, however when it comes to hiring animators, writers, or voice over artists, we look into their previous work and portfolios. We make sure that the people we hire, will understand our own creative process. To do that we try to understand what their process is like when creating work and then see how they can compliment ours.
Can we see some of your work?
More than two-thirds of doctors use online video to keep updated on clinical information. That makes videos like this one very important. A video detailing new medical discoveries is a valuable educational opportunity.
The video below presents the complicated information in a clear manner for doctors. The animations illustrate the groundbreaking research in a quick and efficient style. Animations like these are time savers for doctors.
Who is your biggest competition?
We believe Epipheo is one of the best video production companies right now. While still a competitor, they inspire us and challenge us to make higher quality videos. Fiverr.com does a great job of bringing together experts in the arts field with competitive pricing, so that clients can develop their own animated videos without a video production company. However with Fiverr, it can be challenging if they don’t know how to effectively manage the video making process.
How are you intending on taking your company to million dollars in revenues? In what markets?
Overtime, as our unique creative process and animations become more attractive and favorable, customers will be willing to invest more as they see major value in working with us. When we say creative process we mean taking an idea from concept all the way to completion through Script, Design, Voice Over and finally Animation. We continue to get input from clients on how well their experience was, and what we can do better to streamline the creative process. There aren’t much limits to what markets we currently work with. We’ve done videos for Academia, Nonprofits, Human resources, Finance and Economics, and of course Retail.
What is the big lesson you’ve learned (success or failure) with this project.
Some of the greatest lessons I’ve learned is, if you plan to start a business, ask yourself if you’re actually willing to sacrifice a lot of time and money, and if this your passion. If not, I don’t bother pursuing it, because you will learn quickly that there will be a thousand times more failures than there are successes. At times, there may only ever be failure, so be sure that anything you pursue, its based on your passion and your strengths.
Check out the video to get more info about the company and their portfolio:
