Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we talked with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in media today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein, president of Variety Intelligence platform.
Speaker 1: The pandemic has altered media habits and all kinds of
Speaker 1: fascinating ways, perhaps none more interesting than what you might
Speaker 1: call virtual co viewing. That's when people connect over live
Speaker 1: stream video, not just with each other, but with a
Speaker 1: TV show or movie that they watched simultaneously. There's many
Speaker 1: companies trying to crack that nut, including Senor, who's co
Speaker 1: founder and CEO, Joe Braidwood, is with me today to
Speaker 1: discuss this trend. Hello Joe, Hi, Andrew, good to be here.
Speaker 1: Thanks for coming. Virtually speaking, virtual co viewing is definitely
Speaker 1: a trend with some serious heat. You're getting some record traffic.
Speaker 1: We'll get to that, but I want for you to
Speaker 1: explain first what exactly Senior is really described the product
Speaker 1: so people get a sense of it exactly. We call
Speaker 1: ourselves the virtual Movie Theater, and what we mean by
Speaker 1: that is we are at an extension for Chrome, the
Speaker 1: web browser, that enables you to synchronize your playback when
Speaker 1: you're watching a movie or a show with friends UM
Speaker 1: in other locations. So really it's sort of Zoom meets
Speaker 1: Netflix kind of concept. Got it. And you and I
Speaker 1: met back in when you had first launched, and I
Speaker 1: was excited about the product and I saw a potential
Speaker 1: in it that I felt was never really realized when
Speaker 1: what you might call social TV was a bigger trend
Speaker 1: many years ago. So here you guys come, and here
Speaker 1: the pandemic comes, and it really changed the reception in
Speaker 1: the marketplace for your product, did it not? Yeah? Absolutely,
Speaker 1: I think sort of prior to the ademic, a lot
Speaker 1: of people predicted that this behavior would grow over time,
Speaker 1: but it hadn't really become mainstream. Most people who are
Speaker 1: doing it would be in long distance relationships or um,
Speaker 1: you know, on a tour of duty or away from
Speaker 1: home for a period of time. And obviously the social
Speaker 1: lockdowns and the social distancing that have been very much
Speaker 1: the main thrust of the last few weeks has really
Speaker 1: changed that behavior set. People are craving social connectivity with
Speaker 1: people that they love and that they care about, and
Speaker 1: they're finding new and creative ways to spend time together,
Speaker 1: and co viewing is a great way to do that. So,
Speaker 1: I mean, you had mentioned some sort of extreme instances,
Speaker 1: but nowadays in the pandemic give us a sense of
Speaker 1: like what kind of coviewing experience, say, you know, a
Speaker 1: group of teenagers might have or maybe a different demographic. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's interesting. We see a lot of emails come to
Speaker 1: us from mother's planning birthday parties for their kids, which
Speaker 1: is acute and sort of unanticipated development for us. Um.
Speaker 1: We see a lot of people who run movie clubs
Speaker 1: or film clubs that are getting together on a Friday
Speaker 1: night to to to watch an old classic. Um. And
Speaker 1: you know, people who are usually spending time together on
Speaker 1: a day to day basis where they if their coworkers
Speaker 1: or students at a university, are doing this to just
Speaker 1: stay connected to their to their peers. And it's a
Speaker 1: really really great way to do it. So what is
Speaker 1: the upside for something like this? I mean, do you
Speaker 1: see this as being, you know, a very mainstream activity
Speaker 1: in time? Does the pandemic accelerate perhaps that mainstreaming? Yeah,
Speaker 1: a great, A great sort of example of this is
Speaker 1: you know, delivery services. The pandemic has accelerated the adoption
Speaker 1: of food and grocery and other good delivery services, and
Speaker 1: you know, we we see that that acceleration is just
Speaker 1: changing behavior over time, and when the pandemic is no
Speaker 1: longer so in focus, we still think people are going
Speaker 1: to shop with instacot and get their food from uberiats.
Speaker 1: The same is true of co viewing. You know, it's
Speaker 1: a really fun, very convenient way to spend time with
Speaker 1: people that is engaging and um, you know, sort of
Speaker 1: take some of the focus off of trying to constantly
Speaker 1: entertain people, which you might have on a Zoom Happy
Speaker 1: Hour or another video chat. And so that sort of
Speaker 1: shared experience is something that we're all craving and we
Speaker 1: think that you know, making it painless and fun is
Speaker 1: going to be something that sort of continues for for
Speaker 1: years to come. Now, you launched with the ability to
Speaker 1: create this coviewing experience around just a few select services
Speaker 1: like Netflix. More recently, you guys announced a partnership with HBO.
Speaker 1: So what is that about. So as the pandemic was
Speaker 1: setting setting in over the last sort of couple of months,
Speaker 1: U some of the team in Seattle who work on
Speaker 1: on uh the HBO digital direct consumer products, reached out
Speaker 1: to us about, you know, a way to facilitate this
Speaker 1: for their audience, so we work with them and bringing
Speaker 1: support for HBO now and HBO go to the platform.
Speaker 1: And that's great because it enables people to enjoy some
Speaker 1: of the best content out there through the alternative services.
Speaker 1: And our users have written to us since and really
Speaker 1: thanked us for doing that. You know. It really has
Speaker 1: created a way to sort of explore back catalogs of
Speaker 1: really great content with your friends in a way that
Speaker 1: you couldn't before. And have you seen a difference in
Speaker 1: the marketplace since the HBO deal kicked in? Is it
Speaker 1: giving you a new level of visibility? Yeah? I think
Speaker 1: you know, when you have prominent announcements with incredible brand
Speaker 1: slate like there's it really sort of raises your profile.
Speaker 1: And we've had an incredible response from users and partners
Speaker 1: over the last few weeks. Um our usage has sort
Speaker 1: of multiplied several factors, uh, you know, and just the
Speaker 1: that the fact that people have been talking about us
Speaker 1: on social media in ways that they haven't before. We've
Speaker 1: seen a couple of TikTok videos go viral about us.
Speaker 1: It's been really an exciting time, uh. And I think
Speaker 1: it's it's really a rising tide for all co viewing
Speaker 1: services right now, Well, that's the thing. Let's let's give
Speaker 1: a broader sense of what's going on here. I mean, frankly,
Speaker 1: I think if there's any one service that's kind of
Speaker 1: broken out from this pack, it would be the Netflix Party,
Speaker 1: which is also a Chrome. Addition, we've seen other services
Speaker 1: like House Party kind of extend themselves into this space. Frankly,
Speaker 1: I'm surprised Zoom hasn't already done this. So, you know,
Speaker 1: how crowded a marketplace are you operating in. We like
Speaker 1: to think that what we're doing is very distinct because
Speaker 1: we are, um you know, we're built from the ground
Speaker 1: up to be respectful of content rights and we really
Speaker 1: want to be a partner for the industry to think
Speaker 1: about how they merchandise and build engagement around that the
Speaker 1: most exciting pieces of content. And you know, that's quite
Speaker 1: different to some of the other examples that you site,
Speaker 1: where it's more just about hanging out or bootstrapping ways
Speaker 1: to sort of synchronize playback. So, you know, the fact
Speaker 1: that we're working with the industry and the fact that
Speaker 1: we enable video chats synchronized with playback, those are two
Speaker 1: unique traits to what we're doing, and we think that
Speaker 1: it really Um, you know, it makes for a very
Speaker 1: interesting conversation about what the future of coviewing looks like. Well,
Speaker 1: what's it been like in terms of your relationships with
Speaker 1: Hollywood to get these copyrights in place? I mean, do
Speaker 1: content do I P owners understand the coviewing trend even
Speaker 1: a year ago? Do they take it seriously? Do they
Speaker 1: see the potential? Yeah? I think that things are really
Speaker 1: quickly sort of evolving. Um, just in terms of the
Speaker 1: conversations we've been having since the announcement. Um, you know,
Speaker 1: a few months ago, a lot of the marketing around
Speaker 1: a big show or a big move in particular big
Speaker 1: movie would be around the theatrical release. And we know
Speaker 1: we've seen some very interesting stuff happen with um some
Speaker 1: of these sort of premiere we can debuts a big
Speaker 1: big big shows and big movies where you know, people
Speaker 1: pay to watch it, um, you know, as as soon
Speaker 1: as it comes out, rather than waiting for the theatrical runs.
Speaker 1: And you know, so that is the beginning of what
Speaker 1: we see as this sort of this very very new,
Speaker 1: very very exciting trend around creating really really engaging home
Speaker 1: entertainment experiences out of theatrical content. Um. And I think
Speaker 1: you know, the other thing that is rapidly evolving is
Speaker 1: the is the subscription video on demand landscape, and um,
Speaker 1: you know, anything that can differentiate the experience of enjoying
Speaker 1: shows and movies through these big esport services, you know,
Speaker 1: it can be a very very powerful tool around sort
Speaker 1: of engaging and retaining customers. So we're very excited about
Speaker 1: these changes. So, I mean, it's great that you've got
Speaker 1: good relationships that allow you to get your hands on
Speaker 1: this content. On the flip side, I have to ask myself, well,
Speaker 1: why can't Netflix, for instance, just do this themselves. Do
Speaker 1: you have any concern? I mean, you've got enough competitors
Speaker 1: as as as it is big and small, But couldn't
Speaker 1: the rights holders themselves start to roll out this technology too? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's it's it's conceivable that people who are building
Speaker 1: these platforms could focus on this. Um. We haven't seen
Speaker 1: that happen yet. And I think that's really for two reasons.
Speaker 1: The primary reason is just staying competitive in terms of
Speaker 1: the quality level of an spond service with buffering times
Speaker 1: and with recommended content, and with all of the other
Speaker 1: staples that really are required in order to be successful.
Speaker 1: That's that's a ton of work that's very hard, and
Speaker 1: you know, Netflix is really sort of trailblazing on that front,
Speaker 1: and a lot of the other services have been focused
Speaker 1: on how to sort of build features that stay competitive
Speaker 1: with Netflix. The second thing is around the psychographics of
Speaker 1: of this behavior set. I think, you know, it's it's
Speaker 1: a lot easier for us, as a brand that's obsessed
Speaker 1: with this problem to focus on building features for it
Speaker 1: than it is for um, you know, a larger organization
Speaker 1: that has to cater to all of their customers and
Speaker 1: all of their use cases. So we can build something
Speaker 1: that just works on Chrome, just on laptops, but building
Speaker 1: credible tracks behind that, Whereas if you are thinking about
Speaker 1: the sort of product roadmap at a larger organization like
Speaker 1: an Amazon or Hulu or a Netflix, they have to
Speaker 1: think about all of the devices, all of the markets,
Speaker 1: and so it's it's just it's harder to really get
Speaker 1: some momentum behind a breakout idea in that context, which
Speaker 1: is why the startup ecosystem is so great for this. Well,
Speaker 1: let's get back though to Netflix Party, which to me
Speaker 1: seems to be before we should be clear, has no
Speaker 1: affiliation with Netflix UM seems to be the one that's
Speaker 1: sort of driving this trend, or would you even disagree
Speaker 1: with that. I think Netflix Party is stow an incredible
Speaker 1: wave of growth at the very beginning of the pandemic
Speaker 1: because people were sort of desperate for new ways to
Speaker 1: connect and UM, you know, when you punch in how
Speaker 1: do I have a party on Netflix into Google, they
Speaker 1: came up because of their their name UM, that I
Speaker 1: think is an important thing to recognize, and they've done
Speaker 1: a great job a sort of capitalizing on that way.
Speaker 1: The distinction though, is that it's actually just very, very
Speaker 1: difficult to make a really great product in this space.
Speaker 1: There's so much technical UM sort of requirements around sort
Speaker 1: of building a great synchronization algorithm, integrating great immersive experiences,
Speaker 1: and we've really been focused on that from a sort
Speaker 1: of quality level perspective of like building a product that
Speaker 1: that scales really well, that enables these rich and engaging experiences.
Speaker 1: So the thing that we just have started rolling out
Speaker 1: this week is a feature set that enables many more
Speaker 1: people to come into the same coviewing experience UM in
Speaker 1: more of a sort of broadcast models. You can imagine
Speaker 1: someone who worked on a movie, or someone who acted
Speaker 1: in a show, or even someone who's just really funny
Speaker 1: watching a great piece of content and bringing their audience
Speaker 1: to that situation. And that's a very different take on
Speaker 1: co viewing too, you know, pressing a button on the
Speaker 1: tool bar to to send a link to your friends
Speaker 1: to to sort of synchronize the playback, which is what
Speaker 1: Netflix Party does. So yeah, I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of space in this market for different creative ways to
Speaker 1: tackle the problem of what really the trend that we're
Speaker 1: seeing here is this idea of hanging out virtually, it's
Speaker 1: this idea of being together when you're a part and um, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're very excited about our particular strategy on this. I
Speaker 1: also wonder what the advertising play might be in all this.
Speaker 1: Is that something I mean you're is there something to
Speaker 1: how advertising might work in a co viewing experience that
Speaker 1: might be different than traditional I think yeah that the
Speaker 1: probably the best way to think about that is to
Speaker 1: sort of consider what an AVOD platform like a Pluto
Speaker 1: TV or inn IMDbTV, how they have fewer barriers to entry,
Speaker 1: which is actually a great factor when you're thinking about
Speaker 1: inviting friends and bringing them together you know, at the moment,
Speaker 1: in order to enjoy some content on sena need a
Speaker 1: subscription to Netflix, Rhbo Now or something like that. And
Speaker 1: what that means is there's this sort of a natural
Speaker 1: friction if one of your friends doesn't have a subscription,
Speaker 1: And so you know, looking at ad supportive video on
Speaker 1: demand and thinking about how that reduces the barrier to
Speaker 1: entry and how the biggest metrics for the team's working
Speaker 1: on those products is eyeballs and engagement. We could be
Speaker 1: a very natural partner in that context. The other thing
Speaker 1: that we've been discussing with some some folks is this
Speaker 1: idea of being an influencer and having an audience and
Speaker 1: all of the sort of classic ways that influences already
Speaker 1: monetized that our audiences on other social platforms. So, you know,
Speaker 1: product endorsements, podcast marketing has been a really interesting thing
Speaker 1: for us to think about and and yeah, I think
Speaker 1: there's a ton of opportunity there, But our primary objective
Speaker 1: right now is just to deliver a great experience to
Speaker 1: people viewing and to to grow. So um, we're sort
Speaker 1: of not too immediately focused on the monetization piece. I
Speaker 1: want to get back to the different use cases you
Speaker 1: talked about a few minutes ago, because, as you said,
Speaker 1: it's not necessarily just about a group of friends coming together.
Speaker 1: This could be something. And again this goes with you know,
Speaker 1: what is the strategy of a of a content rights
Speaker 1: holder to take people that are involved in a production,
Speaker 1: a star or director or writer or whatnot, and have
Speaker 1: them have these kind of hosted experiences really not unlike
Speaker 1: the content you might see in a DVD extra, but
Speaker 1: in an interactive, live sense. Um. I mean, do you
Speaker 1: have as big expectations for what that is as opposed
Speaker 1: to the generic, you know friends model of this. Well,
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting things that we've seen over
Speaker 1: the last few weeks is people reach out to us
Speaker 1: to run events. Right, So it's not that you know,
Speaker 1: the analogy of DVD commentary makes the most sense if
Speaker 1: you think about the conventional way that you would engage
Speaker 1: with a director. But there's also incredible events that variety
Speaker 1: tears running. There's incredible events like Comic Con that's been canceled.
Speaker 1: There's all sorts of opportunities across the industry where you
Speaker 1: might have an intimate audience with with someone that has
Speaker 1: been involved in a piece of content, and people are
Speaker 1: asking themselves, like, you know, Zoom doesn't really scale that
Speaker 1: well for that use case, especially if you're screening a
Speaker 1: premium piece of content. So maybe we could play a
Speaker 1: role in that. And yes, that is exactly what we're
Speaker 1: focused on right now. It's it's obviously always in our
Speaker 1: interest to think about the consumer experience, but there is
Speaker 1: also a very very significant opportunity to think about you know,
Speaker 1: very very avid fans or prosumer sort of uh, you know,
Speaker 1: takes on what an event or a screening or a
Speaker 1: premier may look like in the future. So it doesn't
Speaker 1: sound like you have concerns that, as you know, some
Speaker 1: have suggested, not necessarily specific to coviewing, that there will
Speaker 1: be a particular set of behaviors that occur in this
Speaker 1: unique pandemic period. But once things go back to normal,
Speaker 1: who knows how much things returned to the way they were.
Speaker 1: Any concerns that co viewing could be a very temporary trend, No,
Speaker 1: And I think the best example of this is in
Speaker 1: video games, right you know, Fortnite and a number of
Speaker 1: other video games have done a really great job at
Speaker 1: integrating social features, and those have been sticky because people
Speaker 1: are inherently social, they want to spend time with others,
Speaker 1: But we're also inherently constrained by what we can physically
Speaker 1: accomplish in a day. So if you don't have to
Speaker 1: move around, and if you can still have a great
Speaker 1: social experience, that's awesome. And we see this as the same.
Speaker 1: You know, there is so much convenience and so much
Speaker 1: social delight that comes from you know, kicking back with
Speaker 1: a group of friends or being part of the big
Speaker 1: fan experience around a piece of content. And we don't
Speaker 1: think that that's going to change when people can return
Speaker 1: to go into the more or to the workplace. How
Speaker 1: much you know, we've talked about you've got a broad
Speaker 1: range of competitors out there, big and so mall. Twitch
Speaker 1: has been in this space, uh with some authorized content,
Speaker 1: and they've also been sued from sports leaks. It didn't
Speaker 1: like that their content was being transmitted with copyright infringement.
Speaker 1: How much illegal activity is going on here? Do you
Speaker 1: get a sense of you know, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of people who are just using Skype and and face
Speaker 1: time to do this kind of group activity. Yeah, It's
Speaker 1: it's difficult to know because the majority of that stuff
Speaker 1: is peer to peer and you know, I think if
Speaker 1: you think about what happened in the music industries is
Speaker 1: a great example of what we are really focused on.
Speaker 1: We are enabling fully compliant, copyright friendly coviewing experiences in
Speaker 1: the same way that Spotify would enable you to listen
Speaker 1: to your favorite bands and music without infringing copyright, and
Speaker 1: that over time, that that charts to what people actually want,
Speaker 1: because if people are passionate about content, and they're passionate
Speaker 1: about movies, they want to they want to put their
Speaker 1: dollars there, they want to be fans, they want to
Speaker 1: embrace that content, and so um. You know, of course,
Speaker 1: every day we get emails from some some kids who
Speaker 1: used to use Rabbit, which closed down because it was
Speaker 1: struggling to scale because it was so so focused on
Speaker 1: the piracy use case. And you know, they say, well,
Speaker 1: this is this is weird. It didn't share my screen. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're not. We're not in the industry of screen sharing
Speaker 1: and we're in the industry of delivering premium entertainment and
Speaker 1: bringing your friends along for the ride. And I think
Speaker 1: that that's very exciting, and you know, we're focused on
Speaker 1: the right long term strategy there. But is your product
Speaker 1: a superior user experience from the illegal stuff, because as
Speaker 1: we've seen in an earlier age of Hollywood, where streaming
Speaker 1: copyright protected content wasn't really that much different in user
Speaker 1: experience in the illegal piracy, which has certainly not gone away,
Speaker 1: I think it was an even bigger headache. Yeah, absolutely. Um.
Speaker 1: You know, you only have to be on a zoom
Speaker 1: with twenty people to realize that the quality level ball
Speaker 1: of the video calls goes down significantly, and then if
Speaker 1: someone shares some content on one of those feeds, it's
Speaker 1: just not a good experience. And so we have worked
Speaker 1: tirelessly to make sure that the way that Sena works
Speaker 1: when you fire up the Chrome extension is it is
Speaker 1: writing on top of the content delivery networks of the
Speaker 1: services that you're watching that have been built from the
Speaker 1: ground up to deliver premium viewing experiences. You still get
Speaker 1: that same high resolution, beautiful content, um, you know, direct
Speaker 1: from the source, and then you augment it with with
Speaker 1: with the social layer, and so it works incredibly well
Speaker 1: and the experience is superior. The same is true for
Speaker 1: the audio. You know, you can manage and have full
Speaker 1: control over the audio experience, so you can mute everyone
Speaker 1: that's in the room and just focus on the movie
Speaker 1: or show, or you can turn the movie or show
Speaker 1: down and talk about it if it's a rerun. And
Speaker 1: and you know, giving people the freedom to really create
Speaker 1: their own experience. Here from a device perspective, you guys
Speaker 1: strictly work on a browser in a desktop scenario, not mobile,
Speaker 1: not on the TV screen itself. Correct, Yeah, I mean
Speaker 1: there are ways to leverage your laptop and plug it
Speaker 1: into your TV, and you can even use sort of
Speaker 1: Chrome casts. And we've had people right to us sort
Speaker 1: of being evangelical about the fact that they figured that out.
Speaker 1: Um that we're at the beginning here. We've got a
Speaker 1: ton of work to do, and we're very hungry to
Speaker 1: get it done. Around deeper integrations, and those could take
Speaker 1: one of two forms. They could either be permissioned at
Speaker 1: the platform level, so a row coup or Apple TV
Speaker 1: or you know, a Visio or someone like that could
Speaker 1: could provide an API to allow us to know what
Speaker 1: content is being viewed and to change the shuttle controls
Speaker 1: so that it's synchronized. Or we could partner directly with
Speaker 1: the content owners to to sort of bake this into
Speaker 1: their proprietary apps and and both of those are on
Speaker 1: the table. The beauty of Chrome as a platform is
Speaker 1: it is such an amazing way to sort of integrate
Speaker 1: deeply into these content experience too, in a way that
Speaker 1: doesn't require the spoken permissions, and so that has allowed
Speaker 1: us to prove that this is something that people want
Speaker 1: without needing to persuade sort of very very senior bordering
Speaker 1: folks that they need to change their strategy. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: would imagine, particularly on the mobile front, when you crack
Speaker 1: that nut, that really is going to have a huge
Speaker 1: effect for you. Yeah, exactly. And you know, mobile is
Speaker 1: is a really interesting platform. It just so happens that
Speaker 1: the pandemic has made it slightly less relevant, and so
Speaker 1: we've been able to really sort of take that and
Speaker 1: run with the fact that many people have access to
Speaker 1: a laptop conveniently right now. Um, but as people start
Speaker 1: to move around again and start to want to be
Speaker 1: in these social environments, we've got a ton of ideas
Speaker 1: about how to extend that to mobile and that may
Speaker 1: just be the that, you know, one example of that
Speaker 1: may just be that if you're on mobile, you have
Speaker 1: to manually synchronize your TV, but if you're on laptop
Speaker 1: just magically happens for you, and you're okay with that
Speaker 1: because you know that that's an alternative use case. Obviously,
Speaker 1: we want to provide experiences that are really buttoned up,
Speaker 1: and that worked very well for users who were also
Speaker 1: exploring deeper integrations. Who is your audience there at, sen
Speaker 1: Or Joe. I'm curious just that I keep sort of
Speaker 1: referencing in this conversation, this hypothetical set of teenagers. For all,
Speaker 1: I know your average ages seventy years old. I have
Speaker 1: who who out there is using this kind of technology. So,
Speaker 1: because we worked so fast to to reboot the product
Speaker 1: at the beginning of this this chapter of history, UM,
Speaker 1: we actually have not yet done very much by way
Speaker 1: of sort of using research, and we make it very
Speaker 1: lightweight to join these sessions, so we don't ask people
Speaker 1: how old they are and where they're from. UM, so
Speaker 1: I have an empirical sense of how this has shifted.
Speaker 1: We had a very very dialed in understanding of the
Speaker 1: users prior to this search, but it's definitely broader. You know,
Speaker 1: you're the support emails and the praise that we get
Speaker 1: on social comes from people whom some people who are
Speaker 1: sort of clearly in their middle ages, you know, and
Speaker 1: they're just sort of thinking about this as a great
Speaker 1: way to connect with their friends that they miss. There's
Speaker 1: a lot of young folks because they tend to not
Speaker 1: be worried. We call them screen ages. You know, they
Speaker 1: don't hold back in terms of what it takes to
Speaker 1: to get to their friends and to create experiences on devices.
Speaker 1: But yeah, it's it's very early, and the sense we're
Speaker 1: getting is it's much broader than it was before. Tell
Speaker 1: us a little bit about Senior as a company. How
Speaker 1: did you guys come together? How big are you? I
Speaker 1: I you mentioned you're in Seattle. I assume that's where
Speaker 1: your whole team is. Yeah, we we we have five
Speaker 1: full timers in Seattle and a number of incredibly talented
Speaker 1: freelancers that work in other locations for us. Um we
Speaker 1: were born inside of Real Networks, So, you know, those
Speaker 1: like you with a deep knowledge of the industry will
Speaker 1: know that Real sort of invented streaming audio and video
Speaker 1: back in the nineties and is still based in Seattle.
Speaker 1: And Rob Glazer that the CEO of Real is our
Speaker 1: chairman and has personally been very bullish on the company.
Speaker 1: So yeah, we're based up in Seattle. We're a small team, um,
Speaker 1: and we're very passionate about the space, but we have
Speaker 1: great support from from Robin. The folks are real to
Speaker 1: get things done and to to navigate this space. And
Speaker 1: I'm curious, are there investors that have joined Real Robbing
Speaker 1: in investing in your company? Yeah, so we we we
Speaker 1: went through the Launch Accelerated program run by Jason Calacanis
Speaker 1: last year and Rob and Jason are the sort of
Speaker 1: two primary investors other than Real Networks when we were
Speaker 1: being incubated, and uh, you know, so far, it's it's
Speaker 1: it's been a really great team to have on board.
Speaker 1: We're thinking about, you know, potentially raising another round in
Speaker 1: the next couple of months and and sort of really
Speaker 1: just trying to understand what the best timing would look
Speaker 1: like because we're trying to stay heads down on building
Speaker 1: products right now because as you can imagine, people, you know,
Speaker 1: that feeling you get when you have a product that
Speaker 1: that people actually want to get inundated with requests constantly.
Speaker 1: So we're trying to really stay heads down on that stuff.
Speaker 1: But yeah, and finally, I wonder how Robert Jason look
Speaker 1: at your company's long term ability to monetize. You mentioned
Speaker 1: it's all about scaling up. Now, I get that, but
Speaker 1: have you given much thought to a time who knows
Speaker 1: how long it will be from now? Where how do
Speaker 1: you make money? Yeah? We we We think Twitch is
Speaker 1: probably the best example of a you know, a social
Speaker 1: video platform that has monetized with an industry working with it,
Speaker 1: and that's the gaming industry, in the sports industry, and
Speaker 1: we we'd like to think of that as a similar
Speaker 1: sort of analogy. So, um, you know, proving that we
Speaker 1: build this incredible flywheel where people come into the products,
Speaker 1: they engage with content, and then they stick around to
Speaker 1: hang out with their friends. One we've done that, it
Speaker 1: sort of rights itself in terms of working with the
Speaker 1: industry to promote their content and thinking about you know,
Speaker 1: where you direct consumers to tune into the hottest new content.
Speaker 1: Beyond that as well, there are other models around sort
Speaker 1: of tipping and the sort of social life chat experiences
Speaker 1: that exist, and we're just at the beginning of trying
Speaker 1: to understand those. But we think that if you look
Speaker 1: at the amount of money being invested in great content
Speaker 1: right now, um, it's you know, it's billions and billions
Speaker 1: and billions of dollars and so having the ability to
Speaker 1: create new experiences and engagement around that content and to
Speaker 1: sort of reinvent some of the long tail content given
Speaker 1: that maybe some productions have slowed down during the pandemic.
Speaker 1: We're very polished on our ability to facilitate that. Well,
Speaker 1: you made the Twitch comparison, so I'll bite. I mean,
Speaker 1: do you have Twitch sized the ambitions because I guess
Speaker 1: I'm not sure he's seen or something that is going
Speaker 1: to be remembered as a brand synonymous with a behavior
Speaker 1: or is it just sort of, uh, an infrastructure technology
Speaker 1: that maybe consumers don't even eventually need to know about
Speaker 1: my brand. If I didn't gravitate towards the former, I'd
Speaker 1: be a bad entrepreneur. You know, I think we would
Speaker 1: love to be synonymous with enjoying content together and if
Speaker 1: we can do that, and if you know, our mission
Speaker 1: here is to bring people together around shows and movies
Speaker 1: that they love. It's that simple, and the sky is
Speaker 1: the limit in that respect. That being said, you know,
Speaker 1: would be very happy if we could facilitate that at
Speaker 1: scale for a bunch of other organizations, But our primary
Speaker 1: focuses on the consumer. Well, looking forward, to seeing how
Speaker 1: continues to unfold for you. You're off to a great start.
Speaker 1: Thanks for talking with me, Joe, I really appreciate it. Andrew,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot. This has been another episode of Strictly Business.
Speaker 1: Tune in next week for another helping of scintillating conversation
Speaker 1: with media movers and shakers, and please make sure you
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