Adam Lisagor had no idea how lucky he was.
It was 2009, and Lisagor, a Los Angeles-based video producer, had just finished shooting his second app demo clip when he was approached by a guy named Jack Dorsey. Dorsey had a brand-new startup, Square, and a problem. No one could explain how to use Square. Could Lisagor make a video, Dorsey asked him.
At the time, both companies were nobodies. Lisagor was making demo videos for fun, and no one had heard of Square. Now, Sandwich Video, Lisagor’s company, makes arguably the best and most sought-after product launch videos in tech, ones that you've probably seen, though you might not have noticed they were all made by the same guy. His client list now includes the likes of Airbnb, Uber, Warby Parker, Slack and a slew of other marquee startups.
Over the years, Sandwich developed a pricing model that's both lucrative and startup-friendly: cash-strapped companies can pay a lower price for the video in exchange for a small slice of equity -- a deal Sandwich has struck with about 30 startups to date. One of Lisagor's biggest regrets is not to have figured out that model before Dorsey came calling.
He remembers doing the job for less than "peanuts" and no equity. Square is now worth about $6 billion. "It would have been fun to have a small piece," he says, flashing a wistful smile.
He’s not about to let that happen again. On Tuesday, he’s launching Sandwich Fund, an early-stage venture fund that, in partnership with Detroit-based Ludlow Ventures, will front the full costs of a Sandwich Video – usually around $100,000, with an on-set crew of around 30 people – in exchange for $100,000 in equity.
Sandwich will no longer be a video company that dabbles in equity here and there. It now aims to also be an early investor that offers something others can’t: the perfect launch video. In exchange, it hopes to snag a hold on a rocketship.
“It's certainly not going to be every client that we do a video for -- maybe 10 per year if everything goes well,” Lisagor said. “But there's going to be 10 companies where it's a slam dunk. I want to get in on the ground floor, so to speak. I want to be involved in helping them with the messaging that launches their product.”
Sandwich Video began in 2009, when Lisagor and a friend quit their jobs and built Birdhouse, a third-party Twitter app, and made a demo video in hopes it would drive downloads of the app, which cost $1.99. The video is full of the droll touches that those in the know recognize as Sandwich signatures, including Lisagor starring as the deadpan “let me show you how it works” narrator.
“When I saw it, I thought, ‘That’s a dumb idea for an app, but that’s a really funny video,’” said Ludlow founder and managing partner Jonathon Triest.
Others thought the same. Genentech approached Lisagor to make a video for its underused internal apps. Then Square. Then Lyft and Jawbone and more (though Jawbone is the only one of those big-name startups Sandwich got equity in). Lisagor got a chance to hear about many of them before almost anyone else did.
Sandwich’s first piece of equity wasn’t even Lisagor’s idea. Soon after Square, he did a demo video for Flipboard, and CEO Mike McCue gave him a small stake, “almost like a token of thanks,” Lisagor said – a token that’s now worth a little piece of $800 million. It got him thinking: “I wonder if there’s a way for me to be selfishly involved in that growth, if right now they recognize there's value in what I can provide,” he said.
Taking equity also let Sandwich offer its services to startups Lisagor loved that were too poor to pay a fifth or so of their seed round for a video. Sandwich would knock the price down to, say, 75% or the original and take the rest in equity or occasionally revenue share.
As Sandwich’s profile grew, so did the river of inquiries from startups looking to get the Sandwich stamp of approval.
“They get so many requests from startups that at this point they have to be pretty selective," said Ben Apel, cofounder of Final, a recent Sandwich client. Being accepted as a client "is a signal -- like what being on Product Hunt has become. You work with Sandwich and you get another person affirming this is a great idea -- someone who is probably hearing as many great ideas as any VC firm out there."
Lisagor was perched on a venture capitalist’s dream.
“Adam’s deal flow was insane,” Triest said. “The most impressive people were seeking him out because at the end of the day, what he provides is some of the most valuable assets a company can have at launch.”
Triest had reached out to Lisagor when he saw some of his early videos, and the two had stayed in touch casually. Then, in November 2013, Sandwich had its biggest hit yet: its video for Coin, a digital credit card, racked up millions of views in just a few days, helped Coin hit its crowdfunding goal in 40 minutes and shook up immense buzz.
Triest couldn't take it anymore. Coin burst out of the blue, and at Thanksgiving dinner that year, even his parents were talking about it.
"I needed to figure out how to identify these companies way earlier than Mom," he said. "I said to Adam, 'Look, you're seeing companies way before any VCs, way before the public sees them, and that's the time as a VC that I'm hungry to meet these entrepreneurs."
He and Lisagor struck a deal. He'd make him a small partner in Ludlow, and in exchange, Lisagor would introduce him to promising entrepreneurs. Their first informal joint deal -- Sandwich made a video, then Ludlow invested in a round -- was in mid-2014 with Navdy, an in-car navigational display. The next was for Final, an app that provides unique credit card numbers for each use to mitigate damage from hacks.
Eventually, the idea for Sandwich Fund was born. "Other people's money is fun to play with, as any VC partner will tell you," Lisagor said. "But there's an ownership stake in it. I'm not going to throw away this opportunity on companies I don't believe in. I'm going to reserve it, in fact, for the most important ones."
For Ludlow – a scrappy firm that isn’t shy about pestering founders until they take their calls – the ability to offer its portfolio companies a Sandwich video in exchange for equity will make them stand out among the investors shoving each other out of the way to get in with promising startups.
"There's so much money out there right now that we have to convince the entrepreneur that it's worth taking our check over someone else's check," Triest said. "With Adam, talk about real value add. This is something that no one else can offer. We can say, 'We're going to invest, give you all the support, but on top of that, you're going to get an asset that you can walk out a door with and go start selling the hell out of your product.'"
Giving away equity for a video might make sense for some startups more than others, depending on their priorities for cash, equity and exposure. A crowdfunded company, for example, needs early momentum to ever get off the ground, but others might want to hold onto future stakes more closely. "Looking back, if we had the opportunity to do just equity, I think we would still want to do some cash," said Apel, of Final. "Mostly just to de-risk a little."
It’s kind of a trip to watch Sandwich’s older videos, which introduce, patiently, how to use apps that are now part of daily life – “Meet Uber,” for example. They’re relics of a time when household-name tech companies needed the best introducer in the business – and that time is often only a few years ago.
That perspective makes it hard not to look at each new Sandwich video and wonder: Is this the next big one?
Not all of the products featured in Sandwich's best videos have panned out as well as expected. Coin, which has almost 10 million views for its video, has problems with its product. After a blockbuster crowdfunding campaign for pre-orders, the ship date has been pushed back for months. Lisagor worries that the casual viewer might associate his face with their disappointment in the campaign. Part of the Sandwich brand, after all, is trusting Lisagor -- the geek-next-door archetype that he is on screen and in life.
"I want people to believe me when I say, 'Here's a new product you've never hear of that you should be paying attention to,'" he said.
Sandwich is often sought out by bigger companies like eBay, and their deeper pockets allow Sandwich to offer lower rates to smaller companies. The latest collaboration is a series of television spots for internet service provider CenturyLink, starring Lisagor. If even big companies want to have him touting their stuff, it's a testament to the power that a sharp, dense video can have when telling a company's story.
"A well-produced video that says the message in exactly the right way … can launch a company to success," Lisagor said. "It can convince a whole lot of people that something that they’ve never heard of an hour ago is now the thing they need most in their life."
