Alex Roshuk and Rick Feist, film students at Princeton University, started the program at Matrix, a large video studio on Eleventh Avenue and West 52nd Street.
Feist began working there as a tape operator and suggested to the owners that they offer online editing to artists on the weekends and late at night at reduced rates on a standby basis (hence the name).
It attracted interest from other artists, including Dara Birnbaum, Nam June Paik, Mary Lucier, Gary Hill, Gretchen Bender, Edin Velez, and Jem Cohen, among others.
By the end of the 1980s, the staff of the Standby program included Tom Crawford, Joe DePierro, Rick Feist, Nora Fisch, Eleanor Goldsmith, Lisa Guido, Steve Guiliano, and Kathy High.
Maria Venuto became executive director that same year, and integrated the operation of Media Alliance's Online Program, a similar post-production service that also started in 1983 with Standby's help.