5 minutes with…Grabyo
We caught up with Grabyo CEO Gareth Capon to ask him 5 questions about the launch, growth and future of Grabyo.
1. What are 3 things that you wish you knew when you started Grabyo?
1. Hiring the right people is absolutely crucial.
2. Browser-based technology moves very, very fast.
3. Media rights are complicated.
2. Where did the idea for Grabyo come from?
Grabyo originally launched as a mobile app that enabled viewers to share a clip of the last 30 seconds of what they’d seen on TV to Twitter and Facebook. We launched with Britain and Ireland's Next Top Model, which was shown on Sky. However we quickly (and naively) realized how hard media rights were to manage, which put an end to the consumer clip-sharing service.
Fortunately, our pilot success didn’t go unnoticed. We generated lots of interest from the broadcasting world from digital teams with a need for rapid clipping, editing and sharing. So we decided to relaunch Grabyo as a tool for broadcasters, media rights holders and publishers.
As soon as we launched this on Premier League Transfer Deadline Day with huge success, we knew we were on to a winner.
3. What’s your best moment since you started Grabyo?
Releasing our live cloud-production product. From the initial concept which many people in the industry told us could never work, to creating a fully scalable, redundant, browser-based live production studio in the cloud. Seeing events such as a Winter Olympics, World Cup and AELTC Wimbledon use Grabyo to transform live content production has been fantastic.
4. In today’s world, where everything can appear urgent, how do you prioritise workload and opportunities?
We spend a lot of time listening to our partners and understanding their needs. We use this to prioritize projects and developments based on user feedback, and strategic opportunities we see in the market. This could be based on unmet needs in video production, a change in consumption habits or simply a great new idea.
It’s hard managing so many competing priorities, but we combine partner feedback with our own research into media consumption trends which defines a pathway for the future.
We build tools aligned to that future vision. If we can understand the trends in consumer behavior of tomorrow, we can create products that meet the needs of the future ahead of time, rather than only being reactive to the needs of today.
As Wayne Gretzky puts it, “I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.
Other than that, we just try to work harder and smarter!
5. Tell us about a failure or setback that was difficult at the time but in the long run, helped you to get where you are today?
In 2014, Twitter bought SnappyTV, which at the time was a similar product and had been around for 4 years before Grabyo launched. SnappyTV was a basic clipping and publishing tool, which allowed users to publish to all social media platforms, provided they published to Twitter first.
On acquisition, Twitter gave Snappy TV away for free, which of course seriously undermined our growth plans and business model as any publisher could access this free service.
Our strategy during this challenging period was to make sure that Grabyo and SnappyTV couldn’t be compared. We made Grabyo a feature-rich, end-to-end platform for live and real-time cloud video production that remained intuitive, easy to use and constantly evolving. This spur to create a new product experience without direct competition propelled us to the forefront of online video production. Today, we are trusted by the world’s major broadcasters, media rights holders and publishers and the ambition for the future of the platform is more ambitious than it has ever been.