[ Storymix founders Marshall Stokes, Ariane Fisher and Mike Fisher. ]

We are profiling the five companies in the Capital Factory summer 2011 class. Our team will be in Austin to live blog the Capital Factory Demo Day on Sept. 7.

WHAT: Gives couples the tools and support to create crowd-sourced, high-quality wedding videos for between $100 and $500, including HD camera rentals. Storymix does all of the editing and delivers final video (and all raw footage) on DVD in about a month.

Users upload the footage to the Storymix site for editing and can arrange the footage as they desire using the drag-and-drop storyboard, or they can leave the editing process up to Storymix. Completed videos are typically 15 to 20 minutes. Other services include slideshows, video save-the-dates and DIY wedding videos, where guests use their own cameras and give video to StoryMix for editing.

Camera rental for U.S. and Canada only. Coming soon: an iPhone app so people can take footage and upload it directly to StoryMix.

LAUNCHERS: Mike Fisher, CEO. Ariane Fisher, Creative Director. Marshall Stokes, CTO.

WHY: Professional wedding videographers cost $3K+. Not many cheap solutions for shooting and editing quality video. Even if someone shoots video, they rarely finish editing it because the process can be overwhelming and tedious. No easy way to compile and include video wedding guests shoot.

WHEN/WHERE: Chicago and Austin / 2011.

BACKSTORY: "We had another business [ReeltimeDVD] that was mainly focused on transferring and digitizing old analog media -- film, video, slides and photos," Mike says. "What we started to realize was just transferring this stuff from a video to DVD didn't really change anything. We started getting requests from couples to do something with wedding videos that uncles or relatives had taken and turned into an edited final movie. We started to realize the real opportunity was creating a story with people's videos."

BUSINESS MODEL: Tiered pricing starting at $99 for 3-day camera rental and editing services. Users can rent up to 5 HD cameras ($499). Sells packages through StoryMix website and channel partners. After Storymix gets the go-ahead to start the editing process, turnaround is 4 weeks or less, compared to the typical 5+ weeks.

COMPETITION: Weddeos (packages start at $799), Cutterfly ($999 and up), and Wedit ($499 and up).

ON COMPETITION: "The two major advantages we have are prices anywhere from one third to half lower and secondly, none of them really do the same level of editing that we do," Mike tells LAUNCH. "The final product that you get from them is less quality."

CUSTOMERS/GROWTH: 100 orders to date. Doing about 10 videos a week.

GOAL: "Obviously we want to have brides all over the U.S. and Canada using Storymix," Mike says. "We want to grow presence beyond weddings and expand into other event markets. Beyond event stuff, we really are looking to expand into general purpose -- anyone whose got video."

WHO BACKED IT: Bootstrapped, Capital Factory.

RAISING: $500K

NUMBER OF EMPLOYEES: 4.

SCREEN SHOTS

Upload video directly to Storymix and arrange the footage using the drag-and-drop interface.

Coming soon: use the Storymix app to record and upload video to Storymix.

FURTHER READING

1. "Can Collaborative Online Video Creation Go Mainstream?" (ReelSEO, April 8, 2011)

2. "Wedding Videography Checklist - Important Shots for a Wedding Video" (About.com Desktop Video)

CONTACTS & LINKS

Mike Fisher
Email: mike dot fisher at storymixmedia dot com
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/storymixmike

Ariane Fisher
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/arianefisher

Marshall Stokes
LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/in/marshallstokes

Storymix
@storymixmedia
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Storymix
Blog: http://storymixmedia.com/blog/

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