Running your own business means wearing many hats. Kyle Chesser, owner of Hands On Studio in San Jose, California, takes on the role of photographer, videographer and client management to make sure his studio thrives. Hands On Studio is a one-stop creative shop for photo and video assets, working on over a thousand multimedia projects per year for businesses in various industries, for events and for celebrities. (We’ll resist the urge to name drop here, but you can check out some of their work here.) With so many projects, Hands On Studio needs a reliable service for organizing thousands of files to share for client review.
Early adopters of file transfer service YouSendIt
Kyle started Hands On Studio in 1996, when digital photography and video equipment was still new to the market. As digital technology evolved, so did his business; he recognized there was a need to transfer multimedia, digital assets to clients for review in a very quick and easy way. In 2004, Kyle came across a then-new service called YouSendIt, now known as Hightail, which was exactly what he needed to help efficiently run his business. Over 15 years later, Hands On Studio continues to rely on Hightail for easy file sharing and collaboration with their clients.
The client review experience sways technology decisions
“Clients have an expectation of me. They need deliverables by a certain time and they need those deliverables to be easy to access.”
With Hightail, Kyle’s clients can quickly download files, share files and even preview and leave feedback on images and videos. “What I deliver to my clients needs to be ‘gift-wrapped’ as a nice presentation no matter what stage of the project we’re in. When I have anywhere from three to ten people collaborating on a project and reviewing content, I don’t want to make them think about how to access the files. Other file sharing services like Dropbox require so much from the recipient – my clients. I applaud Hightail for making it simple and seamless for my clients to preview, download and share photo and video files.”
“The relationship with my clients is mine – I don’t want my clients to need a relationship with my technology too.”
Kyle has found that the Uplink feature of Hightail is an extremely valuable asset as well. “Not only can I give my clients content and make it easy for them to access, but I can also have them send me content that may be critical to keep our project moving forward. Once they send files to me via my personal Uplink URL, I can easily integrate that content back into the Hightail Space for further collaboration. All the dots can easily get connected.”
“Hightail is a product that is as vital to Hands On Studio as Adobe, Microsoft and all of the photography and video equipment that I need to operate my business.”
