Introduction
In this interview, we dive deep into the story of Grant Petty, the founder of Blackmagic Design. He shares his incredible journey of bootstrapping a hardware company from zero to over $300 million in annual revenue, all while challenging the norms of the expensive and exclusive TV and film industry. Grant’s philosophy is built on empowering creators, fostering a unique company culture, and focusing on solving real problems without taking on outside investment. This is a masterclass in building a world-class business on your own terms.
Founder Success Story QnA
How did you get your job?
Well, you know, when you found a company yourself then you kind of build the job around you and the job changes over time. I mean, you start off doing everything. But I think that’s one of the things that makes founders do well is that if you manage to keep hold of it because it can be tough to hold on, but you sort of know all the tasks required to get something going. And as you become more successful, you can add extra people.
Tell me about Blackmagic Design. You were an engineer and you were frustrated with the TV and film industry. Can you tell us how this all got conceived?
As a television industry engineer, I think that’s one of the good things. You think about a company’s culture, and you know here I was working in television companies and you work in conjunction with other people and so you’re never really doing everything yourself. In many ways, you’re working in the backgrounds to make sure that the guys in the edits works look great. So what you realize your role in that is as part of a team. I think really to make a company that’s creative, you’re working with a bunch of people, a complex group of people with different skill sets. It’s the same model I had in television, so in many ways it’s been very comfortable making that transition. What I was really doing was it was a protest against the way the TV industry was, where everything was extremely expensive, very badly run, and controlled by people with money, not by the people doing creative work.
So you lead from the back?
Kind of both. You know, you’re running all around the place making sure everyone’s got everything they need, but also you’ve got to look at the bigger picture. If you’re running a creative company, then it’s actually the other way around, it’s upside down. What you’ve actually got is you’re going to serve everyone, not just the customers but also all the people. Your job is to enable everyone else to do their thing and get out of the way and let them do it.
What was the first product and how did you fund it?
The first product we had was a capture card that plugged into a computer. It captured high-quality video. A friend of mine bought a scanner and had Photoshop with it, and I realized this publishing industry tool was more powerful than the paint systems we use in television. I realized we need to change the business of television, not just change the products. By making a low-cost capture card for a Mac, now any Mac could do it. As far as the funding, you just sort of approach some banks and you quickly realize that what you’re trying to do you can’t prove is going to succeed. You’re going to change an industry. I mean, who does that? So you just spend every cent you have. I remember counting out literally coins to pay my car registration. I remember almost getting a product going and the post production company we were working at the back of burned down. You just have to make it happen.
How long did it take before you got profitable?
We were always profitable right from the start. You can contain your costs within your income. If you don’t, you die instantaneously. When you start off from nothing, you don’t have credit so you can’t spend. If you’ve got ten dollars, you can’t spend eleven. You’re funding it from sales. You’re building something and then selling it. It’s maybe not the best thing in the world, but it does solve someone’s problem. You just have no choice, otherwise you will absolutely fail.
When did you hit that tipping point where things got easier?
I think there’s probably two steps of survival. The first step is when you can actually pay yourself something. I remember for years we were going with no money or just enough to pay my rent and some food. I think that first step took a couple of years before I could actually start paying myself. The second step is much harder and I think that’s where you can sort of take your place in the world. Do people understand what you’re trying to do? When you’re trying to do something new, you get a wave of hatred. But once you get through that and once those new product lines are accepted, that’s kind of a second wave of survival where now everyone goes, “Okay, the industry is changed and you are a major player in it.” That gives you some credibility.
How long did it take to build Blackmagic Design into a tier one brand and industry leader?
It does take about seven to ten years. It’s different product lines. One product breeds another. You start with the capture card and then you say, “I’ve got monitoring problems, so let’s solve that.” Each product line you move into, you get a wall of hostility because some people don’t like you making things more affordable. It takes time before people realize you’re making good products. Your first product or two is just serving a very niche task. You’ve got to step through a few steps. For us, we have overlapping seven to ten-year timelines happening simultaneously depending on what we’re doing.
How do you know when to add the next product line without losing focus?
You’ve got to try and create a climate of education. The fundamental difficulty of life is that to do anything great needs more than one person, and each one of those people has to be different. The trick is to try and do extraordinary products, products that are a little bit beyond what everyone can do, in a way that’s actually a bit of a stretch. People get excited about that product, but they also understand that they need each other. We try to eliminate all planning here because planning is rigid. You want to be capability-based. The long-term planning is people’s skills and the capabilities we have. Your systems are designed to back flexibility so you can move on something really quickly.
How do you run a company with no planning?
We have a plan, but it’s literally less than a page. There’s a person who’s responsible for that product. They are the product plan, not a document. One of the problems with planning is that the document becomes the product, not the product itself. We have a very short definition of what it is, but the person is responsible for their product. It’s lots and lots of conversations with very minimal structure. It’s systems that support people’s creativity and what they need to do that don’t control their actions.
How big is Blackmagic Design now?
We’ve got about a thousand staff. There’s only about 350 here in Melbourne. We’ve got engineering facilities in America, Singapore, UK, and Japan. We’ve also got sales offices in different countries and about three factories. You go where the people are. It’s funny when you’re sitting in a meeting and you see people rip into a problem and start discussing stuff, it’s shocking when you realize the talent in the room.
You are passionate about being creative, but you’re still the CEO. How do you handle the operational side?
The company is fairly automated and it runs on software that I’ve personally written. That way, we don’t have to have a whole lot of operational people. Everything from reseller orders flows into the factory. If they don’t have stock, they build it. This whole system is running on code that I’ve written, so I know intimately what’s going on and I can adapt. In the future, I don’t think CEOs should be able to be CEOs unless they can code. If you can’t code, you can’t think, you can’t understand systems.
What are some of the unique principles that your company runs on?
We try to be product-centric, not hierarchy-based. We have a flat structure. We don’t have any meetings unless we need to work something out. We’re all wandering from group to group. It’s about getting out of people’s way, making sure you support them, and just letting them do things. Move decision-making to the coalface. Your job is to give them the bigger picture so they understand how their actions affect the rest of the company. People are smart. If they understand the human language, they can understand what you’re telling them.
What’s exciting to you that you’re working on now?
What I’m mostly focused on is, what is it we don’t know? What areas am I personally really crap at? The long-term thing is, what’s going to happen in the future? What do we need to be ready for? We push ourselves on things to learn them. We don’t do products that just battle some other point in the market. We want to do something interesting. The broader vision is like, what do we need to be better at? You can’t do anything great unless you start with failure. You have to start with nothing. I’m glad I was never spoon-fed and learned lessons the hard way.
Where’s the best place people can find out more about Blackmagic Design?
You can just Google Blackmagic Design. We have a website with a lot of product information on the cameras and DaVinci Resolve for color correction and other product lines. If you’re interested in television work, you should definitely check it out. We have a free version of DaVinci Resolve, so there’s no excuse not to get going if your medium or business of choice is television.
Grant Petty Business Stats
Grant Petty has built Blackmagic Design into a global powerhouse in the film and television industry. The company is known for its high-quality products and for completely bootstrapping a hardware company to massive scale, without any external funding. Here are some key stats that highlight their success.
- Purely bootstrapped with zero venture capital.
- Reached over $300 million in annual revenue.
- Employs over 1,000 people globally.
- Profitable from the very first year of operation.
- Products used in 80% of Hollywood feature films and major TV shows.
- Headquartered in Melbourne, Australia, with offices worldwide.
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual Revenue | $300 Million+ |
| Employees | 1,000+ |
| Founded | 2002 |
| Headquarters | Melbourne, Australia |
| Funding | Bootstrapped |
Grant Petty Method
Grant’s approach to business is unconventional and deeply rooted in his experience as an engineer. He focuses on serving his team and customers, rather than adhering to traditional corporate structures. His method for bootstrapping a hardware company is a testament to his unique philosophy.
- Lead from the back to enable and serve the team.
- Identify and fix deep-seated problems in an industry you understand.
- Maintain strict profitability by keeping costs within income from day one.
- Empower creative people by making tools affordable and accessible.
- Avoid rigid, long-term plans in favor of capability-based flexibility.
- Build custom systems to support people, not control their actions.
Grant Petty Tools
To achieve his vision of a highly efficient and creative company, Grant leverages a unique set of tools, many of which are custom-built. He believes in using technology to create intelligent systems that scale with the business, freeing up people to focus on creative work.
- Custom Operational Software: Personally coded software that manages everything from reseller orders to factory production and inventory in real-time.
- Mac Computers: Chose the Mac platform for the first product because it was the tool his target customers (designers) were already using.
- DaVinci Resolve: Acquired this industry-standard color correction software and made a free version available to empower new creators.
Key Notes
The conversation with Grant Petty is filled with profound insights on business, creativity, and culture. He challenges conventional wisdom and offers a refreshing perspective on what it takes to build a lasting, impactful company. Here are some of the most important takeaways from his journey of bootstrapping a hardware company.
- “Disruption” is often the wrong word; the focus should be on survival and solving problems for people.
- Money is a tool for interaction, not a master to be served. When money becomes the goal, creativity dies.
- Hire people for their brains, trust them, empower them, and get out of their way. They will blow your mind.
- To build something of true worth and significance, it takes at least 7 to 10 years of dedicated effort.
- Avoid rigid planning and spreadsheets. Focus on building capabilities and systems that support flexibility.
Get Started in Just 5 Steps
Inspired by Grant Petty’s story, here is a simplified 5-step guide for any aspiring founder looking to make their mark. This framework captures the essence of his philosophy for bootstrapping a hardware company or any venture that aims to change an industry.
- Identify a Real Problem: Find an industry you know well and pinpoint a deep, expensive problem that you are uniquely positioned to solve.
- Build a Minimum Viable Product: Create the simplest, most affordable version of a product that solves that core problem for a specific group of users.
- Bootstrap Relentlessly: Keep your costs lower than your income from day one. Reinvest every dollar back into the business to fuel growth.
- Focus on Empowerment: Design your business to empower your customers, not just to extract money from them. Make them more successful.
- Foster a Creative Culture: Build a flat, flexible organization that serves its people. Avoid hierarchy and rigid rules to unlock creativity.
Conclusion
Grant Petty’s story of bootstrapping a hardware company like Blackmagic Design is a powerful reminder that you don’t need venture capital to build a world-changing business. By focusing on a clear mission, empowering his team, and staying true to his principles, he has not only achieved incredible financial success but has also fundamentally reshaped an industry for the better. His journey is a masterclass in long-term vision, resilience, and the profound impact of putting creativity and people first.