All of the other apps out there were really more of
a tool, black and white.
You could kind of feel that they were built by a
bunch of tech dudes that were really passionate
about this photography space.
From a creator's perspective to a creator's
perspective. We want it to be bold, feminine, fun.
We wanted it to feel as fun as the act of
creating.
We never in a million years thought that we'd
get it to this point, because we really just
launched it as a passion project and something that
we really thought would be fun.
I'm Tessa Barton.
And I'm Cole Herman.
And together we started a photo and video editing
app that brought in over $26 million in 2023.
We grew up in Utah and we met as babies.
Our parents were best friends in college.
We already kind of knew Utah was not the place we
were going to end up.
We really loved New York City and in 2016, we made
the jump. We moved there.
Our main revenue stream when we first moved to New
York was pretty much just my salary.
I was actually working at a startup based in Utah at
the time and convinced them to let me work
remote.
We could barely afford our rent, so we were trying a
million different things. Everything from starting a
denim jacket brand to writing a book, to selling
online courses and guides to improve your
photography. We started shooting together and
really started kind of pushing how to post on
Instagram, not just like, here's my outfit, but how
can you tell a story and take it further?
And that's when we kind of started seeing people
really be interested and inspired and wanting to be
a part of it. That's kind of when we really started
taking it seriously.
There were times when we looked at our bank account
and it had negative dollars. So when all of a
sudden, you know, someone's paying you for
something you're creating, it's a really
amazing and also challenging.
We used to make kind of our own collage wall out
of art magazines that we'd find in New York, but
it's actually shockingly expensive to get enough
magazines to cover a whole wall.
I mean, it was like $300 to do something like that.
And everyone was asking, how did you do this?
How did you get this many images to make this thing
happen? And we thought, you know, we can do this
and we can make it available for much
cheaper.
The collage kit was a good learning lesson for us
because it was our first physical product.
Though there was so much interest and people were
so excited about it, it didn't hit right away.
And we were doing this out of our tiny
250-square-foot apartment.
We had boxes to the ceiling and orders weren't
rolling in at the start, but we learned so much
about how much you have to market and showcase it
in, you know, different areas. It's not just like,
here's a product, I created it, come buy it.
After that, we launched Lightroom Presets.
So that was kind of our foray into photo editing.
I was kind of one of the first in the space to give
away my secret sauce, especially professional
photographers. We're kind of, you know, keeping it a
secret and cultivating that.
And I just had learned so much from other artists
that were willing to share with me.
And so that kind of became my goal.
Like, I'm going to let everyone in and they can
learn and make it their own.
I would say the three big ingredients are obviously
the technical components, the programing and then
how it looks and then how it works.
We were lucky because we were able to combine each
other's talents to do all three.
My day to day was on the programing and kind of the
user experience and design of it.
I spend most of the time creating, you know, the
presets, testing on every kind of image, making sure
we have something that caters to everyone's
needs.
It started out just the two of us, you know, we
had no team or investors or anything.
Really, really. We started this without the
intention of it becoming a business.
It was really started as a passion project, a side
project, a way for us to hopefully get some extra
income to pay rent and survive in New York City.
So we're creating a new support page in the Tezza
app right now.
We were building it probably from the hours of
like 10 p.m. to 3 a.m.
that was kind of our our time that we had.
It was a lot of tears and trial and error and
thinking, okay, this is a dumb idea.
It's never going to work because we couldn't really
get it for a long time.
It was a struggle. But I remember once we finally
got something working and looking the way we were
hoping, the excitement and the joy was like,
okay, we're going to do this.
So we launched the app in June of 2018.
It was so amazing that we were able to launch with a
community of people that were already interested
and begging for the product.
It was red. We had chunky fonts.
You know, we spoke to our users in a fun way, like,
woohoo, you saved your photo. Like sweet.
Like we just use, you know, kind of slang and
lingo and made it feel much more relatable.
And I think that really separated us from all of
our competitors. Yeah.
The growth was just pretty much fluid and
steady. We had this.
Amazing organic support from this really vibrant,
creative, cool community that you know, was willing
to share it and share that they loved using the
app. That's what really started the growth for us.
And I would say 2020 was a pivotal year where we
realized, okay, this is a company now, this is no
longer just a side project.
We did do everything ourselves and letting
other people in on it, and also just trusting
that that's going to take it to the next level has
been challenging for us as founders.
But once we kind of started leaning into that,
we've just seen so much more success.
Tezza Pro's 5.99 a month, and Tezza Luxe is 9.99 a
month. So the different tiers are you can use it
for free, you can edit your photos with some of
our best presets.
And then there's Tezza Pro, which you can use all
of our film effects. You can edit single videos.
You can use all of our templates. We have over
150 kind of editorial, really cool kind of
magazine inspired templates. And then on top
of that there's Tezza Luxe which lets you use
studio, which is our like big full featured video
editor.
We learned so much from launching physical
products and then having a digital product.
Just being able to have something where you can
just actually reach so many people.
So many people can be a part of what you're
building versus having this physical product.
And you can only ship to people in the US.
Someone can post something about it, and it can go
viral or reach a ton of people in, you know,
different countries all over the world.
It's just pretty amazing that, you know, this this
digital product can be downloaded at any time,
anywhere, and it doesn't change the cost.
We currently live in Los Angeles, California.
We've been here for about three years.
I still think we live in New York mentally, but
we're California people now. We have a daughter.
She's two years old and she's crazy and fun.
Working with your partner can be challenging.
I mean, it's important to kind of set your roles,
especially once you start, you know, running a
company or working with other people.
We don't really step on each other's toes, but we
come together creatively with the vision.
So I think it's really important for me to also
just keep a pulse on, you know, what people are
interested in, what people are liking, how
they're creating in general.
One thing Cole always says is done is better
than perfect, and that has been something we have
used in our business all the time, because if we
perfected something, we'd probably never get it
fully out. But you know, you learn so much by just
putting something out and people will tell you how,
how they want it to be better. It's hard to ever
feel like you've made it, because you keep getting
inspired and you keep seeing like, new avenues
and ways to kind of reach people.
We have imposter syndrome. I think still
sometimes we're like, are we sure?
Like, why are why do people like this?
But it's cool. I think you can just see the
passion and the community is really such a big part
of it. They inspire a lot of what we create.
It feels amazing. Looking back on just how crazy it
was to start it all, and it feels a little surreal.
We honestly feel just incredibly, you know,
lucky and grateful that we get to work on what we
love to do every day.