A Tribute to the Great Bill Hamilton - Founder of TechSmith Corporation

Rest in peace to my mentor, my second father, one of the greatest men I've ever known.

*This is my personal account of Bill Hamilton from my own personal memory. I’m sure that I have some of the details and facts wrong. I apologize for any errors

On December 15th, 2024, Bill Hamilton, the Founder of TechSmith died from a heart attack at the age of 77.

Bill Hamilton was the greatest entrepreneur of the Lansing area in this century. Arguably more.

He was a husband, a father, a veteran, a computer programmer, a Spartan, an amateur ham radio enthusiast, a competitive shooter, an avid reader, a history expert, a philanthropist, and to me personally - he was my second father, a mentor and one of the greatest people I’ve ever known.

Bill Hamilton is the reason I finished college, the reason I love to read, the reason I’m an entrepreneur, the reason I love software & tech, the reason I am skeptical, the reason I got on my first airplane, and so much more.

I can’t begin to imagine the hole that has been left in the heart of his family, especially his loving wife Susan and his daughter Wendy, whom I have come to know best. My love and support go out to them and his entire family.

Bill co-founded TechSmith all the way back in 1987. It was a software consulting company, and one of the products they developed to serve their clients was, I believe, the first-ever “screen capture” tool.

At the time, TechSmith was mainly doing consulting work for clients, but Bill had ambitions to become a software product company.

They had the brilliant idea to give away Snagit for free on a “shareware” site that allowed users to download free applications. Remember, this was pretty revolutionary at the time. At this time, mostly the way you would buy software was to walk into a brick and mortar retail store and buy packaged software off a shelf like a book.

Downloads of Snagit exploded so they decided to start offering customers the option to donate money to the company. And they did! All the sudden, TechSmith was a software company.

The company built visual communication software. Snagit for taking pictures of the Screen. Then Camtasia Studio for recording videos of the screen. Camtasia was the product that I helped grow under the leadership of Troy Stein.

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Bill was built different and he built TechSmith unlike any other company that I had ever seen. When I joined TechSmith in 2003, I believe there were about 50 employees. TechSmith was like paradise to me.

There was an employee lounge with free pop, snacks, and every Friday the company catered meals for “Free food friday” where they would select the best restaurants from around the area and even sometimes - the best ice cream.

But it wasn’t the perk of getting to eat for free - Bill did it because he wanted his employees to sit together and get to know one another. It was all to build trust and community amongst his employees. This was something I directly emulated (Ahem, Stole) at Liquid Web.

Everything Bill did in the company was to build a culture where the employee was supported, mentored, taught, and grown into a better person. Bill encouraged dissent. He encouraged people to always have one thing in mind: What is best for the customer?

When I joined the company I was 22 years old. I was a young punk kid that knew nothing about software, the internet, business, - or anything - really.

At the time I was applying for the job, I was nearly bankrupt after starting a company that failed and taking a loan out from my generous parents that I was at risk of not being able to repay. I was bitter from my previous experience at Millenium Digital Media and felt that I had been treated unfairly, so I had a big chip on my shoulder.

I came into TechSmith with the attitude of literally - “Fuc& it. I’m going to speak my mind, they are going to fire me anyway.”

Bill had another incredible gift. He believed in complete transparency and honesty. Almost anyone in the company could run sales reports and see detailed financial information about the products and the company itself. In most companies, only the elite top of the company has the privilege of seeing this “sensitive” information.

But Bill believed that the best ideas can come from anywhere within the organization and that we should all work from the same set of facts. He also encouraged people to sit in on meetings, even on topics that they were not the expert.

I want to take a minute to go back to a post that I wrote just 4 short months ago. I am SO glad that I wrote this and took the time to honor the man I admired:

“Bill Hamilton at TechSmith will always be like a second father to me.

I didn't really know what software was when I was hired, and I certainly had no idea what it meant to invent a software application, do the coding to develop it, market it to customers, to become a multimillion-dollar product. TechSmith was one of the most beautiful companies I've ever worked for, comprised of some of the smartest people I've ever met in the world.

Being around those people made me smarter, no question—from Brooks Andrus who taught me all things “product”, to Betsy Weber on marketing, Michael Malinak, Paul Middlin, and Dean Craven on software development, Jim Hidlay on Sales, the Gardener twins, (Marty and Murphy) on insanely fast development, Daniel Park, Tony Lambert, Matt Ayo, Paul Wright, Jeff Kohler, Renee Badra, Amy Walsh, Carla Wardin, Tony Dunkle, and my all time favorite: Troy Stein: Troy taught me almost everything. (I know I missed many!!! SORRY!)

But the reason this all happened and the thing that brought us all together was Bill Hamilton.

Bill and his wife Susan created a culture where anyone could have any idea, and the status of the individual presenting the idea did not matter at all. The only thing that mattered was the correctness of the idea and how convincingly you could persuade others to your way of thinking.

I remember being a young punk kid, maybe 21 or 22, essentially doing customer service for sales calls. Even with my low level position, at TechSmith I was encouraged to sit in on some of the development and product marketing meetings for a software application that I knew nothing about. I had no expertise that qualified me to participate in those meetings. Yet, there I was.

I remember one meeting specifically a week or two into my employment that was about the Camtasia Studio’s non-destructive video editor. There were probably 10 brilliant people in the meeting — and me.

As the discussion went around the room and they discussed the product, I had a realization: I knew a little bit about the application because of my experience working at NBC Channel 10. I knew a little -- but not much —just enough to be dangerous.

I also had a chip on my shoulder from being fired from my previous job and after some prodding from Bill Hamilton, I got the courage to speak up.

“Do you guys realize this doesn’t function like any of the other video editing software on the market?” There was an audible gasp in the room as the youngest stupidest person at the table essentially disagreed with every decision that they had previously made.

The person who had hired me into TechSmith tried to get me to stop, but luckily Bill Hamilton was in the room. He embraced me, leaned in, and argued with me passionately. I argued back. I was certain I was going to be fired, but to my surprise, Bill Hamilton took me into the hallway afterward and continued the conversation.

He told me that he appreciated the feedback and welcomed it, and that I should continue to do it and sit in on more meetings. It was truly amazing.

Honestly, I don't even know if I was right about what I was saying. Looking back, I'm sure I probably wasn't, but that taught me the most important lesson of my life.

Surround yourself with smart people who want to hear your opinion regardless of your status, and people who judge you solely based on the content of your character and the quality of your thinking.

TechSmith taught me many things, but the main things it taught me were how to think, how to build companies, how to be skeptical of my own brain, it taught me strategies to disregard status in the search for truth, and taught me the importance of building high-quality teams of the smartest people in the world.

I am incredibly lucky that Bill Hamilton chose to keep TechSmith Corporation in the Lansing, Michigan, area. If it wasn't for that, I truly don't believe I would be the person I am today. That is not to say I am a perfect person. Far from it. But I’d certainly be a much shittier person if it wasn’t for Techsmith!

And this is precisely my point: because of my time at TechSmith, I know that perfection isn't an end state; it is a constant pursuit. The only way you can ever possibly get close to achieving it, which of course is never possible, is by surrounding yourself with smart people and continuing to push and challenge yourself every single day.

So, this concludes another love letter to Bill Hamilton, the founder of TechSmith Corporation.”

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As I sit here crying and missing my friend and mentor, I regret a lot. I regret that I never recorded the podcast with him that I had planned to do. I regret that I didn’t join TechSmith after we sold Liquid Web like Bill had hoped I would.

On Monday when my friend Joe Dearman called to give me the news of Bill’s passing I was running at the MAC. Literally the very next thing on my To-Do list was to call Bill and invite him to Lunch with Brooks and Joe the following day.

When Joe told me of the passing of Bill, he mentioned that Bill was just in the office on Wednesday and he was sharp as ever. He also mentioned that on his way out of the meeting Bill said, “Tell Travis I said Hi”.

I cannot believe he is gone. He was healthy and sharp.

About 1/5 of you reading this will die of a heart attack. Of that, about 50% of you will be seemingly healthy and have no prior warning or signs. As most of you know, Matt Hill founder of Liquid Web, my best friend since 2 year old - also died of a heart attack.

This again is my plea to please spend the ~$200 to get a CT Calcium Score of your heart.

It is quick, painless, doesn’t require any dye or injections. Just a quick trip to see if you have a ticking time bomb in your chest. (I am not a doctor.)

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Bill was my mentor. He was like a second father to me. The man I am today, for better or for worse, has been influenced mostly by my incredible parents and just after that… Bill Hamilton.

Bill and I would try to get lunch or breakfast about once a quarter. When I was walking out of a meeting we had around the time of Matt’s death I remember turning to him and saying: “I love you”. I think it startled him and I felt really weird when he didn’t say it back — but sitting here, I know he loved me and I am so fu$&ing thankful I delivered him that message while he was still here with us.

I love you Bill. Thank you.