Interview with Doug Weisman

Sep 11

SEPTEMBER 11, 2024 | 00:47 | Episode 36

Doug Weisman on Taking Risks and Working Hard to Build a Successful Broadcast Company

Doug Weisman, the founder of VideoLink, shares his journey of starting and growing the company. VideoLink provided live television production services and became a premier broadcast entity. Doug and his team took risks, worked long hours, and built a unique business that attracted clients from major networks. They focused on providing exceptional service and treating employees and clients with respect. After 26 years, Doug and his partners sold the company and retired. Their success was a result of their dedication, hard work, and commitment to excellence.

ABOUT MY GUEST

Doug Weisman is the former chairman and co-founder of VideoLink

VideoLin is a company that provides live studio and on-location video production and transmission services for domestic and foreign TV networks, corporations, and medical organizations. After growing the company throughout the Northeast over 26 years the business was acquired in 2016 by AVI-SPL, a US-based, international audio/video integration firm.

For over 40 years Doug Weisman worked in the television production industry as a producer, director, and director of photography. He had the opportunity to document major domestic and international events as they unfolded and created compelling stories for many of the world’s television news and documentary networks. His ability to capture unique imagery keeps him behind the lens of his camera.

He began his television career as a freelance sound technician and freelance cameraman for CBS News. He worked for major video production houses and corporate communications departments in New England as a director of photography and producer/director for corporate, educational, and medical programs, as well as documentaries, prior to founding VideoLink.

And in retirement he’s keeping one foot in the video production world. He has been the director of photography on two recently produced documentaries—one looking into school shootings in America and the other showing a band of women farmers in Vermont changing the face of family and cooperative farming.

Today Doug continues behind his camera often documenting distant communities and off-the-beaten path scenes including unusual crafts persons, individuals who own their own businesses and teaching photographic techniques to those who want learn more.

Doug graduated from Ithaca College and the Park School of Communications in 1978 with a B.S. in educational communications and he currently serves the college on it’s Board of Trustees.

Doug, his wife, Julie, and their two Siberian huskies are often found on the trails in Franconia, New Hampshire, in the heart of the White Mountains.

Summary

Takeaways

Building a successful startup requires dedication, hard work, and taking risks.
Treating employees and clients with respect and providing exceptional service are key to long-term success.
Having a unique offering and intellectual property can make a company attractive to potential buyers.
Selling a company requires careful preparation, including cleaning up financials and operations.
Retiring after selling a successful company is a rewarding outcome of years of hard work.

Sound Bites

"I was brought up in a family where the work ethic was not the number one thing, but it was serious."

"I worked very hard. I was the so-called breadwinner. I knew I had to provide for my family."

"You treat your employees the way you want to be treated and you treat your clients the way you want to be treated and they'll all come back to work every day."