Speaker 1: Welcome to another episode of Strictly Business, the podcast in
Speaker 1: which we speak with some of the brightest minds working
Speaker 1: in the media business today. I'm Andrew Wallenstein with Variety.
Speaker 1: Want a free TV, and not just any TV, but
Speaker 1: a fifty five inch top of the line stay to
Speaker 1: the art screen. You'd probably have to pay more than
Speaker 1: a thousand bucks if you wanted to hang one in
Speaker 1: your living room. Well, my next guest has an interesting
Speaker 1: proposition for you, but it comes with some strings attached.
Speaker 1: We'll be back with Ilia Posen, CEO and founder of
Speaker 1: Telly to explain in just a moment. And we are
Speaker 1: back with Ilia Posen, CEO and founder of Telly, which
Speaker 1: just be the most audacious new product introduced this year,
Speaker 1: and he's just getting started. There's some new interactive features
Speaker 1: we're going to highlight from Telly as well. But first,
Speaker 1: thanks for being with us.
Speaker 2: Alia, Hey, thanks for having me so.
Speaker 1: As I referenced to the top of the show, you
Speaker 1: have been given out free TVs. You pledged in May
Speaker 1: you were going to give out about half a million
Speaker 1: of them by the end of the year here in
Speaker 1: the US, and as we sit here having this conversation
Speaker 1: in late December. Have you reached that goal?
Speaker 3: You know, we've we've set out to build this product.
Speaker 3: We've built an amazing team, and we've we've put.
Speaker 2: Out thousands of thousands of units.
Speaker 3: And you know, one thing we've done that's really really
Speaker 3: different is when we announced this company publicly in May,
Speaker 3: we had an astonishing number of people that were interested
Speaker 3: in our product. Honestly blew away our expectations. We had
Speaker 3: nearly nearly half.
Speaker 2: A million people are currently on our wait list.
Speaker 3: We spent zero dollars in marketing. We had to sign
Speaker 3: up every single second. The types of people that signed
Speaker 3: up were mirror the US population, so they're you know,
Speaker 3: everyone's very interest in the high quality product that we've built.
Speaker 3: The other thing that happened was we attracted manufacturers that
Speaker 3: wouldn't even return our calls in the beginning, right, these
Speaker 3: are the top tier ones that you know, make the
Speaker 3: best products.
Speaker 2: In the world, and as a startup, they don't really
Speaker 2: give you the time of day.
Speaker 3: But once they saw the tremendous response the consumer demand,
Speaker 3: we started to have, you know, more serious conversations and
Speaker 3: we thought, you know what.
Speaker 2: Let's take advantage of that.
Speaker 3: Let's slower roll let's send thousands and thousands of units
Speaker 3: now which we have, Let's kind of iterate and build
Speaker 3: this product together and have a much bigger and stronger
Speaker 3: twenty four.
Speaker 1: Well, my guess is the the Samsungs of the world
Speaker 1: or other companies that make the kind of screens that
Speaker 1: go into Telli probably thought you were crazy, I mean
Speaker 1: giving these screens away. Now that you've proven that you
Speaker 1: could get these screens out the door, what is what
Speaker 1: are you going to do in twenty twenty four? Are
Speaker 1: you going to now you know, how many more screens
Speaker 1: do you plan on giving out? And are you going
Speaker 1: to give them out for free? Because I'm sure people
Speaker 1: listening to this are gonna be banging at your door.
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question.
Speaker 3: Now people assume that free is just like an initial offer,
Speaker 3: and then adventurely we're going to start charging for our product.
Speaker 2: It's always going to be free.
Speaker 3: We're planning on delivering a lot of units in twenty four.
Speaker 3: And if you look at the TV today and I
Speaker 3: know you had a chance to see, it's it's a
Speaker 3: state of the RTV. And don't let the price point
Speaker 3: of free throw you off.
Speaker 2: Right. This is not a low budget TV targeted at
Speaker 2: low income folks. This is this is.
Speaker 3: A high MTV And as you said in the beginning
Speaker 3: of your program, right, if we sold this thing, it
Speaker 3: will be.
Speaker 2: Well over one thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: It comes with those screens, that's got a sound bar
Speaker 3: made by Harmon cart and it can do who calls
Speaker 3: on Zoom and play amazing music and through Spotify and
Speaker 3: you know, and so many more things that's got to
Speaker 3: pull voice assistant built in. These are all things that
Speaker 3: your TV just simply can't do, right, And that's the
Speaker 3: way where we've built Kelly. It's kind of kind of
Speaker 3: taken a page out of you know, like like the
Speaker 3: Tesla playbook, if you will, where the car is overloaded
Speaker 3: with extra computing power, extra hardware, and it becomes better
Speaker 3: and better and better over time.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So at Telly, we release software updates every month, and
Speaker 3: this thing improves time.
Speaker 2: Over time over time. Right.
Speaker 3: So, you know, we didn't have a voice assistant a
Speaker 3: few weeks ago, right now we do. We have a
Speaker 3: karaoke remote coming soon. We would be able to pick
Speaker 3: up your remote control and sing into it, right, and
Speaker 3: so many other cool features that will make this thing
Speaker 3: by far the state of the art device. And truly
Speaker 3: kind of the heartbeat of the living room, the main
Speaker 3: device in the home. And our goal here is in
Speaker 3: the same way that the iPhone became, you know, the
Speaker 3: main device out of the home, right, the main device
Speaker 3: on you. The TV is still that device that brings
Speaker 3: the family together.
Speaker 2: Right, And it kind of missed the mark.
Speaker 3: TVs haven't really changed in over ten years, right, and
Speaker 3: it kind of stayed the same. And our goal is
Speaker 3: to reintroduce this thing and bring the smartest TV in
Speaker 3: the market.
Speaker 2: And this thing is just going to take over your
Speaker 2: living room.
Speaker 1: Well okay, now, obviously some people listening to this are
Speaker 1: going to be saying this can't this is too good
Speaker 1: to be true. So we have to explain a few things.
Speaker 1: Number One, Telly is no ordinary TV. Attached to this
Speaker 1: great fifty five inch piece of hardware is a second,
Speaker 1: smaller screen at the bottom that is always showing commercials.
Speaker 1: You cannot turn it off when the screen is on.
Speaker 1: Number Two, if you are privacy sensitive, Telly may not
Speaker 1: be for you. It comes equipped with a camera and
Speaker 1: a censure a sensor that watches what you're watching in
Speaker 1: order to deliver that information to advertisers, and you have
Speaker 1: to fill out a battery of more than one hundred
Speaker 1: questions about all kinds of consumer behavior just to use
Speaker 1: Telly in the first place. That is, if you're lucky
Speaker 1: to even get selected. Not everyone who wants a free
Speaker 1: Telly gets one. So you know what I mean, what
Speaker 1: percentage of people who you know who even come to
Speaker 1: you actually even get a TV?
Speaker 2: Yeah? All good questions.
Speaker 3: So, first of all, everyone's everyone's qualified to get a Telly, right,
Speaker 3: as long as as long as you sign up and
Speaker 3: you opt in to our terms of service, you're qualified
Speaker 3: to get the TV.
Speaker 2: We don't. We don't select people based on any kind
Speaker 2: of bias, right.
Speaker 3: So, so, and from a from a data and privacy perspective,
Speaker 3: you know, we're one hundred percent privacy first as a company.
Speaker 3: If you look at what's happening in all the other
Speaker 3: TVs when you purchase, you know, any other TV on
Speaker 3: the market, you're buying the.
Speaker 2: TV and they also sell your data.
Speaker 3: They deliver advertising, right, and our consumers recognize that that
Speaker 3: revenue is being double dipped on. I'm already paying for it,
Speaker 3: and I'm my my data is being used there selling advertising.
Speaker 3: You know why am I paying twice? And they're realizing
Speaker 3: that with Telly, we're just upfront about it. We're completely
Speaker 3: transparent about it, and you're right. At the sign up process,
Speaker 3: we ask a number of you know, demographic and psychographic
Speaker 3: questions that that are.
Speaker 2: That are utilized to target advertising.
Speaker 3: That are specific to you, right, because all ads aren't equal,
Speaker 3: and the ads that are shown to you are could
Speaker 3: be different that are shown to me because consumers want advertising,
Speaker 3: but they want that advertising to be relevant.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: When when consumers hate ads, it's when they're when they don't,
Speaker 3: they don't, they don't belong and they you know, they
Speaker 3: just they shouldn't be there and they interrupt your experience.
Speaker 3: But more importantly, that bottom screen that you mentioned, yes,
Speaker 3: there are.
Speaker 2: You know, when you watch the top screen, the bottom
Speaker 2: screen comes along with it. But if you look at.
Speaker 3: Any any consumer feedback and any of our data, people
Speaker 3: love it. It's not a distraction. The best parallel I
Speaker 3: can give to It's kind of like the dashboard to
Speaker 3: your car. Right, the top screen your windshield, the bottom
Speaker 3: is your a dometer, your speedometer, your.
Speaker 2: Radio, your nav.
Speaker 3: You know, we show actor information then news and weather
Speaker 3: and sports scores, so you know, if you're watching your
Speaker 3: favorite sports team playing on you know, on a broadcast network.
Speaker 3: We can show you scores around the country kind of
Speaker 3: like the lower third on the bottom screen, or a newsticker,
Speaker 3: magical browsing Netflix, and your Rotten Tomatoes reviews pop up
Speaker 3: right there in the bottom right. So the first and
Speaker 3: foremost the priority of.
Speaker 2: That screen is to enhance your content viewing experience.
Speaker 3: But yes, there is advertising, and that advertising is there
Speaker 3: to support.
Speaker 2: The fact that the TV is free, and we're very
Speaker 2: upfront about it.
Speaker 3: You're opting into that, and we're fully transparent, right, and
Speaker 3: the consumer understands that, and they understand the value stream understood.
Speaker 1: But I think people myself included, are going to wonder,
Speaker 1: how are you making money if you're giving these things away?
Speaker 1: It's not coming from the consumer, or is there some
Speaker 1: other revenue source, or is this the kind of thing
Speaker 1: in sort of you know classic you know, Silicon Valley style,
Speaker 1: you know, is it just about scaling and you'll worry
Speaker 1: about making money later? What's the business here?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: No, we're making money in the same way that any
Speaker 3: other TV manufacturer makes money. Right when when a Visio
Speaker 3: or Samsung sells you a TV, there's hardly any margin
Speaker 3: on the hardware anyway, there's pretty much no money for them.
Speaker 2: To be made there.
Speaker 3: Right, We're just our business model is just better that
Speaker 3: we're able to make more money in the same business streams,
Speaker 3: in the same revenue streams that they are. So it's
Speaker 3: no different, right. TV makers are monetizing data, they're delivering ads,
Speaker 3: and we're doing the exact same thing, except we're not
Speaker 3: selling your TV.
Speaker 2: And once again, if you look back at the playbook
Speaker 2: of Pluto, same idea.
Speaker 3: We don't have to charge your subscription fee and deliver
Speaker 3: advertising to you like cable companies do. Pluto has built
Speaker 3: a very successful and very sustainable business on just ads alone, right,
Speaker 3: And so initially we as a company pay for the TV,
Speaker 3: right and we deliver it to you in your home.
Speaker 3: TVs are used for a very very long time, right.
Speaker 3: The average American family watches over five and a half
Speaker 3: hours of television every single day. The primary TV is
Speaker 3: about sixty percent of that viewing. That's you know, three
Speaker 3: four hours a day of usage. That's a lot of
Speaker 3: TV time on your primary TV. That's also a lot
Speaker 3: of opportunities for advertisers to be able to reach the
Speaker 3: consumer with relevant ads.
Speaker 2: Right, So I think that's that's where our business model works.
Speaker 3: Is we're able to deliver relevant advertising, performance advertising, not
Speaker 3: just brand awareness advertising, and do it in a way
Speaker 3: where build a sustainable business, where we're able to give
Speaker 3: away the hardware and then you have a clear direct
Speaker 3: value exchange with the consumer.
Speaker 1: Now, I want to get into some of the new
Speaker 1: stuff you've got coming, because there's now going to be
Speaker 1: some sort of new interactive features coming to Telly, Which
Speaker 1: isn't to say that there's nothing interactive. I know you
Speaker 1: guys have some QR codes that you're playing with, but
Speaker 1: let's talk about some of the browser functionality that you
Speaker 1: have coming to tell you, Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is super excited about this one. So typically when you.
Speaker 3: See ads on TV, it's a it's a fifteen second
Speaker 3: or thirty second commercial sandwiched in between content, right, and from.
Speaker 2: A brand perspective, that's a great way.
Speaker 3: To get awareness for your product, but it's not a
Speaker 3: great way to get performance out of it. Right when
Speaker 3: that add is in between content. As a consumer, you
Speaker 3: can't wait to get back to the content, so people
Speaker 3: don't really engage on that ad. There's not enough time
Speaker 3: to take your phone out to scan up your RCO
Speaker 3: or maybe take your computer out and go to a
Speaker 3: website or something. Right for us, performance is critical, and
Speaker 3: because we have that screen on the bottom that's there
Speaker 3: the entire time.
Speaker 2: Let's say you're watching a program.
Speaker 3: And then ad for I don't know, Toyota Tundra comes
Speaker 3: on the on the screen on the main screen, we
Speaker 3: can show you a relevant ad on the bottom screen
Speaker 3: or a local Tundra offer in your local market. And
Speaker 3: what's coming very soon in aut a month is you'll
Speaker 3: actually be able to take your remote out and click
Speaker 3: that ad and a full browser open, so you could
Speaker 3: schedule a test drive, you could purchase a product, and
Speaker 3: an e commerce website, you can download an app, you
Speaker 3: can you know, tune into a program, opt into whatever.
Speaker 3: So in the same way that on your phone or
Speaker 3: your computer, you can engage in ad by clicking on it.
Speaker 3: We're bringing the exact same ability technology and engagement into
Speaker 3: the living room.
Speaker 2: And people have been.
Speaker 3: Trying to kind of bridge this gap between performance and
Speaker 3: awareness and living room, but let's be honest, it's never
Speaker 3: really going to be done on a single screen, right
Speaker 3: because because once the content comes back and you have
Speaker 3: fifteen seconds to engage, but because we have this dedicated
Speaker 3: screen on the bottom. The odds are persistent and there's
Speaker 3: plenty of time to engage the unit and take out
Speaker 3: the remote and take active.
Speaker 1: But wait, there's more, as they say, in terms of interactivity,
Speaker 1: T commerce, which is something that has been bouncing around
Speaker 1: the margins of the television industry for decades. Now, you
Speaker 1: guys are also coming to that's also coming to Telly.
Speaker 1: Now what are you well, first of all, explain T
Speaker 1: commerce for those who don't know what it is and
Speaker 1: how that is also coming to Telly.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So, so transacting on the TV is something we've all
Speaker 3: been doing for a very long time, right, right, say
Speaker 3: you want to find a favorite movie, you want to
Speaker 3: buy them on you know, on pay per view or
Speaker 3: through Google or through Apple, right you can or Roku,
Speaker 3: you can buy. You can find your favorite movie and
Speaker 3: purchase it for two ninety nine, three nine nine or
Speaker 3: what have you, and of course sign up for your
Speaker 3: favorite subscription service things like that.
Speaker 2: But actual purchase of products.
Speaker 3: Has been something that typically happens on your phone or
Speaker 3: your computer, right, But it doesn't really happen on TV.
Speaker 2: Even though we buy movies, but we don't buy products.
Speaker 3: The browser is going to bring that as well as
Speaker 3: some of the native integrations we're doing with some of
Speaker 3: our upcoming advertising partners. Right, So imagine you're wall I
Speaker 3: don't know, it's twelve thirty, You're watching a football game.
Speaker 3: It's sponsored by Pizza Hut. We show you an ad
Speaker 3: for Pizza Hut on that bottom screen. You take your
Speaker 3: remote out, you click that ad, and you're purchasing a
Speaker 3: pizza without interrupting the game right there on that bottom screen.
Speaker 3: The best way to look at that screen is it's
Speaker 3: almost like a mobile tablet attached to your TV.
Speaker 2: Right. It uses the data and it's synchronized.
Speaker 3: Well what's happening up top, but it's also independent so
Speaker 3: it doesn't disrupt the experience.
Speaker 2: So, knowing kind of your location and where.
Speaker 3: You are and maybe your favorite pizza topics, we can
Speaker 3: get a consumer to easily purchased a pizza under.
Speaker 1: A minute's I could totally understand how that could be
Speaker 1: something that would be a real game changer for t commerce, which,
Speaker 1: let's be honest, we've been talking about, you know, the
Speaker 1: proverbial example of you know, Jennifer Aniston sweater, which is
Speaker 1: people have been talking I think since the year two thousand.
Speaker 2: I look this up.
Speaker 1: Was when people talked about, you know, you should be
Speaker 1: able to click on that on the screen and buy that.
Speaker 1: But here we are twenty three or four years later,
Speaker 1: and it's never really got in mainstream yet. Maybe it
Speaker 1: does take a second screen to do that.
Speaker 3: It has to write because if you click on it,
Speaker 3: where does anything show up?
Speaker 2: Right, You're going to overlay your friend's episode.
Speaker 3: That's a horrible experience and it just that doesn't really
Speaker 3: play well for the consumer or for the rights folder
Speaker 3: frankly of the content right, But for us because there's
Speaker 3: a second screen. It's once again it mirrors the idea
Speaker 3: that over eighty percent of consumers when they're watching TV
Speaker 3: are looking at a second screen already on their phone. Right,
Speaker 3: they're right there, they're looking they're distracted to look at
Speaker 3: a second screen. We actually reduced that distraction by putting
Speaker 3: information right there fronting center.
Speaker 1: We'll be back in just a moment with more with
Speaker 1: Ilia posen CEO and founder of Telly. And we are
Speaker 1: back with the CEO and founder of Telly, Ilia Posen.
Speaker 1: Ilia talk about the funding it took to get Telly
Speaker 1: off the ground.
Speaker 2: We do have some amazing investors.
Speaker 3: Uh, you know, I think ones that a lot of
Speaker 3: your listeners are familiar with, you know, ones like kind
Speaker 3: of rich Gienfields for example, fun Light Shed who's an
Speaker 3: analyst in the space.
Speaker 2: He's one of our lead investors in this round.
Speaker 3: And many many, many others that are both in media
Speaker 3: and advertising, like the founders of Spoducts that sell their
Speaker 3: copy for our billion to Magnete and so forth. So
Speaker 3: we've got great people, uh that have invested in company
Speaker 3: so far, and a lot of and a lot of
Speaker 3: investors waiting to continue funding us in our future rounds.
Speaker 1: What is it going to look like in terms of
Speaker 1: do you need more funding to keep going anytime soon
Speaker 1: or are you good where you are right now?
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's that's a great question.
Speaker 3: The way startups are typically funded is you know, to
Speaker 3: protect shareholders, right, employees, founders and investors, you always raise
Speaker 3: capital in multiple rounds. It's kind of like a game
Speaker 3: of football, right where you you get it first down,
Speaker 3: you move the change forward, and then you keep going.
Speaker 2: You don't want to over over.
Speaker 3: Raise too much capital early on in your business because
Speaker 3: you're going to take a lot of dilution, So you
Speaker 3: want to you want to raise some capital. You want
Speaker 3: to achieve your milestones, right, then you want to raise
Speaker 3: more capital at a higher evaluation. And we plan on
Speaker 3: doing that, you know, for for the unforeseeable future. I mean,
Speaker 3: if youve know, if you look at public companies, they're
Speaker 3: raising capital continuously from the.
Speaker 2: From the public market. So that's that's kind of a
Speaker 2: standard order of business, if you will.
Speaker 1: Of course, you know you've been down this road before
Speaker 1: in Pluto, which you co founded, and that company went
Speaker 1: on to get acquired by the company that is now
Speaker 1: known as Paramount Global. Got to wonder, you know, is
Speaker 1: tell you something you're committed to taking on an independent
Speaker 1: path or is this something that is bound to perhaps
Speaker 1: get acquired by one of any number of hardware giants
Speaker 1: out there that's already in the television game?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you know, any good entrepreneur will tell
Speaker 3: you that they're never building a company to sell, all right, Right,
Speaker 3: And even when Pluto was was when we got an
Speaker 3: offer from at that point it was Viacom, you know,
Speaker 3: Viacom to get acquired. We weren't in the market to sell,
Speaker 3: right they We actually went went to went to Vicom for.
Speaker 2: A confident deal and they gave us attention.
Speaker 3: So planning on doing the same thing here with Telly,
Speaker 3: where where we have.
Speaker 2: An opportunity the market's you know ours for the taken.
Speaker 3: We've got great momentum, great leads, huge consumer demand. We
Speaker 3: built a put out a build, and put out a
Speaker 3: great product that everyone's using for many, many hours every
Speaker 3: single day. I think I think would be foolish to
Speaker 3: go out and try to sell this company early in
Speaker 3: the market right now where we want to stay independent
Speaker 3: as long as possible.
Speaker 1: Well, here's the thing, as I look at what you
Speaker 1: guys are doing. To me, the surest sign of success
Speaker 1: for Telly is if we see any of the established
Speaker 1: players out there copy what you're doing and which the
Speaker 1: natural next question is what kind of patent protection do
Speaker 1: you even have on this, you know, second screen configuration
Speaker 1: that you have out there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, great question. We look, we fire filed a ton
Speaker 2: of patents on what.
Speaker 3: We've built, and that's something we're continuously doing. But at
Speaker 3: the end of the day, you know, you and I
Speaker 3: both know that patents are just kind of ammunition for
Speaker 3: lawyers to build more and more hours at they're extremely
Speaker 3: high rates. Right, I think in today's day, there's technology,
Speaker 3: whether it's software or hardware, is easily not easily replicable,
Speaker 3: but it's much easier to replicate something today than let's
Speaker 3: say ten fifteen years ago, right, and you see copycats
Speaker 3: forming all the time. Look at look at Pluto, right,
Speaker 3: we were the first in the market to build a
Speaker 3: fast service.
Speaker 2: We define this fast category. And now there's.
Speaker 3: Over a dozen competitors and literally the exact same thing.
Speaker 2: But Pluto is by far the leader in the space.
Speaker 3: Right, They've got market share and you know what we're
Speaker 3: doing or whatever.
Speaker 2: Recommend to any any startup or any.
Speaker 3: Entrepreneur in the market is to build it, run as
Speaker 3: fast as you can and maintain that that first mover
Speaker 3: advantage and maintain that lead.
Speaker 2: And that's what we've got here, I think.
Speaker 3: I think naturally, when you look at other hardware makers
Speaker 3: in the space, imagine one of them taking a product
Speaker 3: that they are selling for decades and making it a
Speaker 3: free right, what would the stock market do to that company?
Speaker 3: I think I think it wouldn't send the most positive signal, Right,
Speaker 3: So I think I don't think it will be easy
Speaker 3: for a company to go out there and just slash
Speaker 3: their prices just on a on this premise that this
Speaker 3: little startup Telly is out there and kind of nipping
Speaker 3: at their heels. But look, if it happens, we welcome it,
Speaker 3: and we you know, we plan on doing what we
Speaker 3: do best.
Speaker 1: I also wonder if you know, we could see the
Speaker 1: day where you actually add a third or a fourth screen.
Speaker 1: I mean, who knows what sort of forces you're you're
Speaker 1: unleashing here. Well, I mean, the thing is, uh, you
Speaker 1: know you. I wonder if what you're doing here really
Speaker 1: isn't that different than what we see on news channels
Speaker 1: with tickers and all sorts of kind of you know,
Speaker 1: dual screen approaches. It's not that far afield. You don't
Speaker 1: even necessarily need to have a multi screen panel approach.
Speaker 1: I mean, or does it really have to be some
Speaker 1: sort of second panel approach? I guess I wonder whether
Speaker 1: there needs to be a second pain of glass even involved.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think the second screen really gives
Speaker 3: such a big advantage not only on the business model
Speaker 3: right on advertising, but just on the consumer experience. Like
Speaker 3: one of the features we have coming up that I
Speaker 3: mentioned to you is this watch party idea. Right right now,
Speaker 3: we have zoom right, so we have it by the
Speaker 3: way you mentioned our camera. We don't use the camera
Speaker 3: whatsoever for our own for business purposes.
Speaker 2: The camera is just there for the consumer. There's a
Speaker 2: shutter on there.
Speaker 3: When you want to watch something, it asks if you
Speaker 3: want to open the shutters. So it's there for gaming
Speaker 3: and zoom calling and things like that.
Speaker 2: But we have zoom right now on the big screen,
Speaker 2: but one thing we're.
Speaker 3: Doing in one of our next releases is moving zoom
Speaker 3: to the bottom as an option. Right, So, imagine you
Speaker 3: call your friends and family, two, three, four or five
Speaker 3: friends that live across the country and you tune into
Speaker 3: the same sports game and you're not watching TV together
Speaker 3: right from from across the across the country, and you're
Speaker 3: synced up and you're watching the same game or the
Speaker 3: same movie. That kind of experience can't really be done
Speaker 3: on a single screen.
Speaker 2: And imagine if a single screen experience.
Speaker 3: Where you go out and buy a fifty five inch
Speaker 3: or sixty five inch TV and then they're squeezing back
Speaker 3: your content and it becomes smaller. You're kind of pissed
Speaker 3: off as a consumer, right, you just spend all this
Speaker 3: money on a on a TV and they're making your content,
Speaker 3: you know, a screen size smaller than what you paid for.
Speaker 3: I just don't think that's a good experience, to be honest.
Speaker 3: I think putt putting the extra information, the things that
Speaker 3: support what you're watching, once again, should be done on
Speaker 3: a on a secondary screen, and it just shouldn't be
Speaker 3: done on your phone, right, it should just be still
Speaker 3: front and center, so you're not you're not taking your
Speaker 3: eyes off the game.
Speaker 1: Speaking of the game. Sports betting is obviously something that's
Speaker 1: becoming bigger and bigger in the sports TV business. How
Speaker 1: does the second screen that you have come to bear
Speaker 1: in something like this, Yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean it's sports is a perfect environment for this dual
Speaker 3: screen experience. So you're watching a game, right, You're look,
Speaker 3: you can see odds on the bottom screen, You're seeing
Speaker 3: fantasy sports stats from from other from your players, from
Speaker 3: other teams.
Speaker 2: You're looking at sports corgor across the country.
Speaker 3: And as you can imagine, all the big sporting sport.
Speaker 2: Betting players in the space are talking to us now.
Speaker 3: About betting natively right there on that device. And once again,
Speaker 3: it's getty close to what a mobile phone experience looks like.
Speaker 2: So you could do it right there, and you know.
Speaker 3: Imagine without without taking your eyes off the game, being
Speaker 3: able to place place a bet based on the odds
Speaker 3: are based on the stats that you're seeing right there
Speaker 3: on the same device, but on the separate screen.
Speaker 2: It just makes that experience so seamless.
Speaker 1: Last question, you know, twenty twenty three obviously is the
Speaker 1: year Telly put itself on the map. What is twenty
Speaker 1: twenty four hope? What do you hope twenty twenty four
Speaker 1: will be for Telly?
Speaker 2: So because we decided to do this public data.
Speaker 3: Period in twenty three, we've really got a chance to
Speaker 3: build out the product that we want. And if you
Speaker 3: look at the data and the usage of how consumers
Speaker 3: are using this device and the customer satisfaction rate, we
Speaker 3: have a ninety nine point nine percent on customer set
Speaker 3: actionary and people are using this thing for hours and
Speaker 3: hours every single day. All the signals are there for
Speaker 3: us to scale. And that's exactly what we're going to
Speaker 3: do in twenty four. We're going to scale. Our demand
Speaker 3: is there, consumer demand is there? Are wait list is huge.
Speaker 3: If we want it to market to more consumers, we could,
Speaker 3: but we've done it. What zero dollars spent on marketing
Speaker 3: our product satisfaction. Our customer satisfaction is higher than we expected.
Speaker 3: The data on usage is higher than expected. The data
Speaker 3: on revenue, by the way, is we hardly have a
Speaker 3: sales team right now that's out there selling ads, and
Speaker 3: our revenue numbers already multiples above every other OEM out there,
Speaker 3: right So all of those things point that we're ready
Speaker 3: to scale. So our twenty three was our year of
Speaker 3: a launch, that was our big moment and our unveiling,
Speaker 3: if you will, and twenty four is going to be
Speaker 3: the year that we scale.
Speaker 1: Well, this is going to be quite a growth story
Speaker 1: to watch. I'm glad you came here to tell it.
Speaker 1: At the end of twenty three, we'll have to have
Speaker 1: you back at the end of twenty four we could
Speaker 1: see how far the growth story has gone.
Speaker 3: Ilia.
Speaker 1: Thanks for taking the time out, Thanks so much for
Speaker 1: having me, Thanks for listening. Be sure to leave us
Speaker 1: a review at Apple Podcasts and Amazon Music. We love
Speaker 1: to hear from listeners. Please go to Variety dot com
Speaker 1: to sign up for the free weekly Strictly Business newsletter,
Speaker 1: and don't forget to tune in next week for another
Speaker 1: episode of Strictly Business.