TubeMogul aggregates data from a myriad of distributors, including the major player in the market: YouTube. As with any other fine product, they do also exclude a bunch of touch points, such as Hulu or Blinkx, to name a couple.
Either way, while we crossed 50,000,000 total streams in early April, we crossed 30,000,000 streams on Tubemogul’s “sub-network” yesterday with a strong day where we did over 99,000 on YouTube alone:
For some content producers, TubeMogul can very well capture 100% of their streams, for others, it might be far less. For us, based on these numbers, the ratio between TubeMogul and our total network right now is 60% (or simply 30M/50M).
This ratio does not remain constant:
- If tomorrow we add a partner whose streams are not included in TubeMogul’s index, then the percentage will fall.
- If alternatively YouTube continues on its march to consolidate video views and garners, say 90% of the total video streams generated online, then the ratio will increase.
For us, given the wide range of content, I would guesstimate that over time, TubeMogul’s ratio versus our total network will actually decrease, even if YouTube does in fact continue to amalgamate views just as Google garnered market share in search.
Across the sites that TubeMogul’s index tracks, we’re now almost doing 500,000 streams each week (and have crossed this mark a couple of times in the past year). More importantly, we’re now doing 2-3 times the number of streams we did last June (the furthest TubeMogul’s great service lets me see). However, since Tubemogul only measures 60% of our reach, then you can see that we’re now doing more than 500,000 streams across our total network. Using the 60% ratio, we’re now doing 833,333 streams each week, nowhere what the big traditional media companies generate, but with absoluetly no marketing budget and a team of 10 people, it’s not exactly anything to be embarassed about either. Oh, as a bonus, our business isn’t shrinking by 20% either, so they can win that battle, for now.
Obviously, across our total network, we’re doing well over 100,000 streams each day, consistently, and growing nice and steady. If you do the simple math using the 60% ratio, we’re doing 166,667 daily streams… which is about right, as we are on pace to do somewhere between 4M and 5M streams this month.
We also reach 15M consumers in malls, coffee shops, gyms and other retail outlets across North America according to Nielsen. We’re also in talks with a couple of European OOH players. But we’re not talking about outdoors now, are we?
Back to the challenge of building a presence online, as we highlighted previously in the post “Three challenges facing online video producers“, the ability to build up consistenly-growing streams is a major problem because ad agencies don’t really care that you generated 1M streams last month, they want to make sure that you can deliver 1M streams next month, and the one after that. Then there is the issue that not all video streams are even equal… but that’s really for a separate post.
In fact, we’re quite confident that our streams will continue to demonstrate the hockey stick growth curve as we continue to pile on videos across an ever-growing list of distribution points.
Our WatchMojo.com channel on YouTube, for example, doesn’t even have 3,000 videos yet, even though our site has over 4,200 and our total pipeline of edited and unedited material comes close to hitting 5,000 videos.
Incidentally, check out the channel in the new widget YouTube is promoting below:
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WatchMojo NewsletterIs VC funding down? Of course. Does this mean that you will need all of the help you can get to raise money? Sure. But it doesn’t mean that you have no shot of getting money.
Sexy is a State of Mind
Our company WatchMojo.com is in one of the traditionally least sought after space by VCs: professional video content, and yet we’ve had more VC/angel interest in the past 8 days than we did in the past 8 months. Definitely the horrible economic news over the past 8 months hasn’t helped, but with “validation” and “client list” scratched off the checklist, trust me, the money will come knocking.
As a side note: it does help that most of the UGC funded companies have proven to be clunkers… and even the poster child for UGC, YouTube, is moving away from it and embracing professional content. But, that is besides the point, really. Since VC investing is a lot more about the big macro trends and riding them than the micro details of your company.
What Pain Do You Solve?
Our business is simple: we provide premium, professionally produced videos to other companies, be it social networks or media websites. Some of our “client partners pay us via:
a) speculative revenue share deals that can be hit or miss;
b) fixed minimum guarantee licensing deals (which tip over to revenue share deals over time when the deals become more lucrative).
We always ask for b, generally our client partners want b. What actually goes down boils down to leverage and how good of a salesman you are, I guess.
Our close rate and renewal rate suggests we have a lot of strong offering, pricing power and leverage in the marketplace.
Yes, I’m also a pretty decent salesman (but an abysmal fundraiser who shouldn’t get close to a powerpoint presentation, more on this later).
There’s a Time to Speculate
In 2007-08, when I would meet VCs, they were all in a speculative mood: “forego the minimum guarantee Ash, and go for the upside”, was the mantra I was told.
I never raised a penny in the boom, maybe because content wasn’t in vogue, or maybe because as much as I am a great salesman, I am a horrible fundraiser (think of it: a salesman is always following up, trying to close and open to all leads; yet a fundraiser is playing hard to get and creating a sense of scarcity and selectivity).
Validation
Anyway, maybe it’s that we crossed 50,000,000 streams (VCs like big numbers, after all), maybe it’s the Tech Crunch coverage (which back in the boom would mean an automatic term sheet from hot-to-trot financiers), or maybe it’s the fact - as one of our de facto advisors told me: it’s that we have actual paying clients who give us guaranteed, recurring, licensing fees.
I don’t want to take credit for that realization, but once you figure out what is in and hot, you have to put the spotlight on that.
There’s a Time to Hedge
That’s right: everything including financing is cyclical. VCs today are in less of a speculative mood, they’re in a hedging mood. In our case, sure the big numbers help prove the validation with regards to user consumption, but the client list of media companies and social networks that have contractual obligations to pay us minimum fees serves as validation of the business model (and the fact that we have upside deals, too, creates the potential of the “hockey stick” growth curve).
Most Startups Are on the Wrong Track
I talk to so many entrepreneurs, all smarter than me. But this is the problem these days with most startups: absolutely no sense of monetization, let alone path to profitability.
In today’s market and economy, you need to show that people are paying you for one thing or another. If you can do that, you will raise money.
PLAY
