The Best Camera Is the One That's With You The early 2000s saw a revolution in the production and distribution of media. The advent of ine pensive, high-quality digital recording devices and the ubiquity of Web 2.0 platforms to hon user-generated content (UGC) gave rise to the era of participatory media. By May 2019, YouTub claimed that more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to the site every minute, and the platformi usage is only increasing. 84 Brands want to use amateur UGC (called "found content") for its aurhenic emotionally resonant quality, but unlike traditional stock footage shot by professionals, it's not awan clear where a viral social media post originated or who can claim ownership of it. Analisa Goodin isn't your typical MBA-holding Silicon Valley start-up founder. Goodin is a practicing artist and carned an MFA in art history and theory at the California College of the Arts. While working in image research at a San Francisco ad agency, Goodin came across the perfect video snippet for a commercial the firm was producing. The agency's team had "a whole laundry list of ques-tions," they told GingerBread Capital. "Who shot this? Can we license this for the spot? How much do they want for it? Can we set the price?" Faced with the difficulties of securing the rights to the found content, Goodin had an epiphany: "I have the opportunity to reverse-engineer an entire mar-ketplace!"S In 2014 they founded Visual Catch, the creative consultancy that became Catch& Release, a venture-backed tech start-up with a mission to make the internet licensable. "Adaptability Is Built Into Our Culture." For its first few years, Visual Catch handled only the creative side of discovering found content for production shops and didn't focus on the legal or financial aspects of licensing it. When it became clear that Goodin's clients needed both, the firm was rebranded as Catch& Release, which was "born to do it allcontent curation, clearance, licensing, indemnification all powered by Curation Intelligence," the company's AI.86 "I developed a pretty decent spidey sense about whether or not a piece of content could be licensed."87 Transforming Visual Catch from a service-based revenue model into Catch& Release, which focuses on its technology product, was the first test of the company's adaptability. Goodin likens the difference to farming, where as a service provider "you're tending a plot of land with seeds already planted and growing the business customer by customer," whereas when you shift into product mode, "now you're ripping out plants and buying up more acreage. We're not just optimizing by project but optimizing for an entire market. It's like going from a micro view to a macro view." The company's first iteration was not so micro, however, achieving $3 million in service revenue before seeking outside investment in 2017. Bootstrapping a company with its own revenue has both benefits and drawbacks compared to raising outside capital from the be.

1. The Best Camera Is the One That's With You
The early 2000s saw a revolution in the production and distribution of media. The advent of ine
pensive, high-quality digital recording devices and the ubiquity of Web 2.0 platforms to hon
user-generated content (UGC) gave rise to the era of participatory media. By May 2019, YouTub
claimed that more than 500 hours of video were uploaded to the site every minute, and the
platformi usage is only increasing. 84 Brands want to use amateur UGC (called "found content")
for its aurhenic emotionally resonant quality, but unlike traditional stock footage shot by
professionals, it's not awan clear where a viral social media post originated or who can claim
ownership of it.
Analisa Goodin isn't your typical MBA-holding Silicon Valley start-up founder. Goodin is a
practicing artist and carned an MFA in art history and theory at the California College of the
Arts. While working in image research at a San Francisco ad agency, Goodin came across the
perfect video snippet for a commercial the firm was producing. The agency's team had "a whole
laundry list of ques-tions," they told GingerBread Capital. "Who shot this? Can we license this
for the spot? How much do they want for it? Can we set the price?" Faced with the difficulties of
securing the rights to the found content, Goodin had an epiphany: "I have the opportunity to
reverse-engineer an entire mar-ketplace!"S In 2014 they founded Visual Catch, the creative
consultancy that became Catch& Release, a venture-backed tech start-up with a mission to make
the internet licensable.
"Adaptability Is Built Into Our Culture."
For its first few years, Visual Catch handled only the creative side of discovering found content
for production shops and didn't focus on the legal or financial aspects of licensing it. When it
became clear that Goodin's clients needed both, the firm was rebranded as Catch& Release,
which was "born to do it allcontent curation, clearance, licensing, indemnification all powered by
Curation Intelligence," the company's AI.86
"I developed a pretty decent spidey sense about whether or not a piece of content could be
licensed."87
Transforming Visual Catch from a service-based revenue model into Catch& Release, which
focuses on its technology product, was the first test of the company's adaptability. Goodin likens
the difference to farming, where as a service provider "you're tending a plot of land with seeds
already planted and growing the business customer by customer," whereas when you shift into
product mode, "now you're ripping out plants and buying up more acreage. We're not just
optimizing by project but optimizing for an entire market. It's like going from a micro view to a
macro view." The company's first iteration was not so micro, however, achieving $3 million in

2. service revenue before seeking outside investment in 2017.
Bootstrapping a company with its own revenue has both benefits and drawbacks compared to
raising outside capital from the beginning. On the Startup Foundations podcast, Analisa Goodin
told host Greg Miaskiewicz that scaling the business without the funding to invest in engineering
and marketing had been challenging but forced the company to intimately understand their early
customers' needs. Establishing deep relationships with their customers and holding open
conversations within the team about how to solve customer pain points paid tremendous
dividends in raising funds to develop Catch& Release's technology.
The company's $14 million Series A in 2021 brought its total investment to over $26 million.
Catch& Release has leveraged the capital infusions to go beyond its typical customer base in the
advertising production industry and create new opportunities with its technology. The company's
Content Exchange serves both the supply and demand sides of the creative equation by enabling
brands to discover and license found content while providing a secure marketplace for content
creators to sell their work and receive fair compensation for it. Amateur UGC curated and
licensed by Catch& Release has been used by many of the world's biggest brands, like Nike,
Twitter, and Verizon, in addition to being featured in Super Bowl ads.8
According to Analisa Goodin,
"found content is now a permanent part of the creative mix." When
Catch& Release surveyed 100 advertising professionals, 87% of respondents indicated that they
anticipated their use of found content to increase in 2022. The proliferation of new streaming
services and social media platforms that host user-generated content is accelerating every year.
Catch& Release aims to adapt with the internet and remain brands' premier choice for
discovering authentic media for engaging with consumers on these emerging venues.
"Think Big, but Start Small."
Scaling any new business venture demands continual learning and adaptation based on customer
feedback. In an interview with the San Francisco Business Times, Goodin advises entrepreneurs
that adaptability is the key to success, telling them not to wait to start until they have the perfect
business
or funding. Instead, "what you need to do is just figure out the smallest little ways that you can
validate that what you're doing is solving a need and just keep growing it up from there." Godin
adds,
"You've got to be able to measure small increments of success and failure really early on to know
that you're on the right path; so think big, but start small."
Critical-Thinking Questions