Today we’d like to introduce you to Jade Kurian & Paul Adrian
Hi Jade Kurian , thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
They wanted to save news and built something bigger.
It was the perfect storm. In 2008, newspapers were folding, television stations merging, newsrooms shrinking. Getting a story together was hard enough. But broadcast journalists were also struggling to deliver the news to the public. It was difficult to transfer large video files back to the station quickly. It took several products, all stitched together, to edit the story and then get the information on the air. HD News Correspondent Jade Kurian and her husband KDFW-TV Investigative Reporter Paul Adrian decided it was time to rewrite the script.
“We decided that we needed to either get out of journalism and do something ourselves to promote it or change it,” Paul Adrian co-owner and CEO of latakoo said. “So, we leaped. It wasn’t some calculated risk. It was just, ‘Let’s do this.’”
“Why not,” Jade agreed. Even though they had a one-year-old daughter, Jade followed Paul from Austin to Boston, where he attended a program at the Harvard Kennedy School to learn to build a business. Someone else might worry they were unemployed parents with a child moving across the country. But not Jade.
“I spent the first years of my life in a little village in India, with a river running in front of our house. Monsoons would bring snakes to our door. Fear? In a healthy way, but I just try to look at it as “life.” I would walk to elementary school in the mud with flimsy flip flops on because that’s all we had. You take one step, then another, and you figure it out,” she said.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Their original dream was to build a journalism company and cover political news in Texas. But they kept running into the same tech problem. There was just no way to transfer footage fast.
“Having worked at HD News, I was intimately aware of the complexities of large file transfer.” Jade recalled. “The Internet was just welcoming the age of social media, mobile apps and streaming, but the technology was not ready to process and upload high-resolution video files. It was slow going.”
In 2010, they built a solution called latakoo. They named the company after a type of lark bird in honor of their daughter Lark. Today, the cloud-based platform offers the fastest video transfer in the world. Once video (they also take documents, graphics and images) is uploaded into the latakoo platform, it is automatically transcribed and can be translated into more than 133 languages. Teams can collaborate in the cloud and comment on the work. The content can be shared to anyone, anywhere, in any format. You can automatically distribute media directly to on-prem and cloud platforms with seamless integrations into news production systems and content management systems and just about any other destination. It’s a true end-to-end video workflow solution.
“We realized this technology wasn’t just a fix for journalism,” Paul said. “It was a business. Something people needed, something they’d pay for.”
Building the dream was tough. It took years. There were roadblocks. Naysayers. Jade and Paul finally found some early adopters to believe in and invest in latakoo. The couple also paid a high price: selling their home, moving in with family, getting by on little because they reinvested everything in latakoo.
“Every two weeks, you’ve got payroll,” Paul said. “You’re looking at your bank balance, your burn rate, and wondering how long the money will last. That’s your runway.”
Jade nodded, grateful for the lifelines of the American system.
“Thank you, America for helping hungry entrepreneurs. Thank you for the unemployment aid, for college loans. I’m not ashamed of any of it. It’s what got us through.”
As you know, we’re big fans of latakoo. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand? What are you most proud of?
The fastest end-to-end video workflow latakoo offers the fastest end-to-end file transfer and video workflow. It is also the most flexible cloud-based media asset manager available today. Patented technology delivers easy collaboration and smart automation. It’s the trusted choice for content creators around the globe.
latakoo revolutionizes video workflow with its unparalleled speed, simplicity and security, offering the most efficient way to transfer high-quality video, audio, images and documents. A secure cloud-based asset management platform provides users complete control over their content while innovative automation tools save valuable time and resources. The world’s largest broadcasters trust latakoo and we’ve been recognized for excellence with prestigious awards.
Founded by veteran journalists Paul Adrian and Jade Kurian, latakoo was born in 2010 from a simple, yet powerful idea: make file transfer and media workflows faster, easier and more secure. Paul and Jade have extensive careers in journalism over decades, tackling everything from breaking news to deep investigative stories. Throughout their reporting, they consistently faced a significant obstacle: how to swiftly and reliably transfer large video files, especially from locations with poor Internet access. This challenge inspired them to create latakoo, named after a type of lark bird as a tribute to their daughter, Lark. Their goal was to give journalists and content creators more time to tell impactful stories without technical barriers. Their vision led to the creation of latakoo, a cloud-based media asset manager designed by journalists, for journalists.
“We are grateful for and proud of the team we’ve built, the strong relationships we’ve cultivated in the industry, customers who are now our friends, and the fact that latakoo is a mission critical tool for journalists everywhere,” said Paul. Today, latakoo is trusted by the world’s largest broadcasters, video producers, and content creators across the board, including higher education, government and the military. We’re committed to continuous innovation, ensuring users always have the fastest, easiest-to-use and most secure tools to collaborate and communicate.
Can you talk to us a bit about the role of luck?
Luck, they agree, played a role. But it wasn’t dumb luck.
“Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity,” Paul said, quoting Seneca the Younger. “You work like crazy, and when luck knocks, you’re ready to answer.”
Jade looks at this in the Eastern sense, as luck being a sum or result of many actions. “Be competent. Surround yourself with people smarter than you. Take in information, listen, and learn. That’s how you make the right decisions to get lucky.”
The Customers Who Saved Them
In the darkest days, a lifeline came from an unexpected place; one of the major news networks.
“They found ways to give us money before we even had a fully baked product. They believed in what we were building,” Paul said.
That partnership didn’t just keep the lights on. It became the foundation for everything latakoo would grow into.
“This is a customer that had visionary leadership and they didn’t just know there was a better way, they knew it when they saw it, and they also knew they could help us tweak it a little here and a little there until it was perfect for their use,” continued Jade.
“They needed us to connect their on-prem media asset management system to our cloud platform,” Paul explained. “Nobody else could do that. Lots of companies build cool things in the cloud, but those platforms are disconnected from the highly secure and critical tools that are used on the ground. Our customer expedited the project with funding, and we built it and now the platform is mission-critical in newsrooms around the world. That’s how you make a business.”
Flying into the future
Today, latakoo serves some of the biggest names in broadcasting. They have customers, employees and contractors around the world. But Jade and Paul aren’t resting on their laurels.
“We’re at the tipping point,” Paul said. “More media entities are looking at us. And beyond journalism? Corporate communications, government, military, sports media. The potential is endless.”
Jade summed up their journey with the clarity of someone who’s walked through monsoons a time or two.
“We believe in journalism. We believe in democracy. If you want the world to make good decisions, they need good information. Whatever we can do to support that, we’re going to do,” Jade said.
Paul agrees, “We’re not doing this because it might make us billionaires. We’re doing this because it’s important.”
Jade and Paul would tell you building a business is about showing up every day, putting in the work and sacrificing it all for what you believe in.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.latakoo.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/latakoo/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/latakoo
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/1210060/admin/dashboard/
- Twitter: https://x.com/latakoo
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@latakoo1
Image Credits
Headshots by Arlen J.
Family photos by Kristen Miller
