Welcome to Vyond’s employee highlight series. This is a series aimed to highlight the talented individuals that work at Vyond across all departments and offices.
Meet Reid Horimoto, one of Vyond’s customer success associates from the San Mateo office. As a customer success associate, Reid engages with Vyond’s customers to ensure they make the most of the platform through onboarding and workshop sessions. He also presents at conferences to promote Vyond Studio.
What was your journey to becoming a customer success associate?
I pivoted from risk management and fraud prevention in financial services to customer success at Vyond last year.
Pivoting into a new function was tough, as I had to learn new terminology and pick up new techniques. I knew I wanted to do something new, and I enjoyed training people and answering questions for clients. I met Michael Klonoff, who handles Vyond’s business partnerships, as we’re part of the same MBA cohort. He told me about the opening at Vyond.
My team has played a huge role in helping me get acclimated to the customer success world. For me, the biggest difference between the two industries (and something I mentioned during my interview process) is that customer success and risk management feel like opposite sides of the same coin; in risk management, you’re using your product knowledge to minimize negatives for clients, while in customer success, you try to maximize positives.
Where is your hometown? What brought you to The Bay?
I was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawaii, but then I moved and attended college at Santa Clara University in the Bay Area.
Honestly, the Bay Area is pretty similar to Hawaii in that there are a lot of different cultures coexisting together. I much prefer the weather here, as it can get pretty humid in Hawaii and I sweat easily. Aside from my family, the main thing I miss about Hawaii is getting to eat my favorite food in the world, Curry House Coco Ichibanya.
What’s an interesting fact or story about yourself?
I’m an Eagle Scout. Actually, due to the timing on when I submitted my application, I was the first Eagle Scout on Oahu in 2007!
What are some of your hobbies?
I like videogames. I’ve been playing them since I was “knee-high to a samurai.”
As an only child, I had to learn to entertain myself from a young age. I remember playing the original Nintendo (Duck Hunt and Super Mario) at my grandma’s house with my Dad. I’d say I really got into gaming once I got the original Gameboy with Pokemon Blue. Currently, I’m playing Valorant on the PC, as well as various games on the Nintendo Switch (Animal Crossing, sports games, and I just finished Outer Worlds).
I’m also going to get back into music production once I finish up my MBA, as I enjoy making beats!
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Reid with several members of the Vyond team on an island together in Nintendo’s Animal Crossing game. | |
Why do you love Vyond?
I love Vyond because I get to work with wonderful people every day, helping to build a product that helps others all over the world.
Everyone I’ve met at Vyond is knowledgeable, which is great, but also considerate, which is excellent. It’s common nowadays to encounter an individualistic mentality, where a person’s sphere of concern stops at themselves. Being able to work with a team that emphasizes collaboration and unity allows me to fully invest in my work and the work of those around me, as we’re all working toward the same purpose.
What is your favorite feature in Vyond?
I always urge customers to use the continue scene feature and camera tool! For ideas that you can use in your next video, check out our new template library as well.
Check out our new template library here.
What are some of the bigger projects you are working on now?
I am currently developing templates for our new template library related to the financial services industry.
The primary challenge related to this project is the specific information that needs to be in the training. However, I think it will be a big help to any financial service company, as the concepts are mandatory but the training is usually presented in less exciting ways (i.e. a PowerPoint vs. a short animated video).
