Who’sAtCooBric: Kareem Kouddous

Kareem Kouddous is the founder of DoubleOne Media LLC. They recently launched their first site, beYOU.tv, an online service for fitness and wellness video.

How did you start beYOU.tv?
I made a personal commitment to leave consulting and start a business although I didn’t know exactly what that business was going to be. I was very excited about online video – and this is before YouTube exploded. I also started boxing so that I could lose all that weight I gained from taking advantage of the expense account while traveling. Giving people the tools to improve themselves and reach their personal goals through video is such an obvious service that would be of great use to a lot of people

So the simplest form of instructional video is how to tie a tie?
The simplest thing is how to tie a tie or learn the perfect golf swing. Practice videos.

We did a lot of analysis. We found that a lot of people who want to practice yoga don’t have time to practice at a studio. beYOU.tv is perfectly suited for the home experience.

During that whole process I was about twenty-five pounds heavier than I am now. When I had been doing all this traveling as a consultant, food was all expensed and I never worked out. So during this process with beYOU.tv I started working out intensely.

I started boxing. I would box five times a week for an hour and a half per day. It was a ruddy, smelling, no air-conditioning type of gym in Chelsea. I would go there and it was a great experience.

Just like starting a company, it takes a long time to get results. I always thought when you’re working out, you’re going to get results in two to three weeks, but it took two to three months. While I was working out, I was putting together a business model.

The business name is DoubleOne Media. DoubleOne because eleven’s my lucky number. If I’m ever in a casino, I always play roulette, and I’ll always put my money on number eleven and everything surrounding number eleven. You just have to be patient.

And what did you learn from boxing?
I’m still just as scared if I’m out in a dangerous situation, that hasn’t changed. But it may sound cheesy – boxing gives you a sort of belief in yourself if you can make that sort of change in your life. Losing twenty-five pounds is a dramatic change.

People see you before and after. You get really rewarded by that experience. You just realize, you can do anything. You get up in the morning no matter what temperature outside, whether it’s raining or not. Whatever happened, I would get my gym bag.

That sort of perseverance starting a company is pretty much the same thing.

Where is beYOU.tv right now?
We’ve received so much great feedback from people who have used the site. They love the videos and the teachers that we are fortunate to be working with. This made us realize that there was an even larger opportunity to reach out to local and regions teachers and instructors. Since we are all about attainment, we know we can help them attain their professional goals by growing their following, even if they don’t have their own DVDs, in turn helping more people have access to more opportunities to learn new things and different points of view. It really completes the circle and allows us to touch everyone in the process. I’m extremely excited about this.

Do you know who the right people are?
We’re giving the tools to people who want to change their life. It’s for somebody who’s willing to take the risk and learn something new.

It’s probably skewing female, 25 to 40’s or 50’s.

What excites you about them and your interaction with them?
What excites me about beYOU.tv is providing a service that people find useful. They say, ‘These are such great videos! We haven’t been able to find them anywhere on the web.’

There was somebody in India who bought/downloaded eight videos off of us. She said, ‘You know, I can never find these DVD’s because shipping is so expensive locally, but I was able to log onto your site and download these videos.’

That’s it, fundamentally. People will say, ‘Thank you for providing this service, because I didn’t have it before.’

I know how good it feels to reach personal goals. People saying thank you, that’s the biggest thing. If I can do that, I’ve succeeded.

How did you hear about cooBric?
I’m not by nature a social person in a business environment, I think mainly because of my CS [computer science] background.

In CS you kind of get bred to not be sociable. To sit and program. Even with my client interactions when I was consulting, I would interact, but I was always more comfortable building something, delivering it. And also interacting with people in that, ‘Let’s work together to build a really good product.’ Those were the sort of interactions I was comfortable with.

But I went to the Tech Meetup with one of the guys I work with. And through the mailing list, I started reading Nate Westheimer’s blog. Through his blog, as well as my coworker, I found out about cooBric.

I think we met at the opening party – he had a longboard?
Yes. Greg [Schnese].

So it was Greg who pulled me into this whole thing. It was so great to meet young, energetic entrepreneurs in the city because it reinforces that people who are successful and building great products, you’re not alone. You’re together. I met Tony and there was a VC that came down to cooBric, he was there, and that was the first time I went.

I met Tony, I met Nate, and I talked to Tony for a bit and I got really excited about the idea. I’m really excited about the idea of working here on Friday. Greg and I try to come here every Friday to stay in touch with the community and it’s great to get out of the office anyway.

Through that, I started twittering, because of cooBric. I had created a Twitter account, but I really didn’t have anyone to twitter to. My friends laugh at me – can you believe that some of them don’t even know what blogging is. And then Tony must have searched for me and found me on Twitter, so he added me and started following me. So at least one person is connected to me and following me, that’s a reason to start the process, start communicating! So I started twittering after that. I added a few more people. I’m trying to grow my Twitter friends.

What’s something people can do in the cooBric community?
We are starting up a very cool initiative to help instructors and coaches to promote themselves through online profiles and video. I’m extremely excited about this. If you know any fitness instructors, personal coaches, sports teachers, anyone who is professionally providing services to help people better themselves please send them my way – kareem[at]doubleonemedia.com.