SXSW Startups: Sceenic Connects Viewers
The Forrest Four-Cast: January 30, 2018
At the 2018 SXSW Accelerator Pitch Event, 50 finalists from around the world will make their pitches before a panel of judges. Half will pitch on Saturday, March 10 and the remaining 25 companies on Sunday, March 11. A winner in each of 10 categories will be announced at the SXSW Accelerator Award Ceremony, 7 pm Sunday, March 11, at the Hilton Austin.
Presenting in the Entertainment and Content Technology category at 3:30 pm on Sunday, March 11, Sceenic will talk about its Watch Together SaaS solution, which enables media companies to create interactive co-viewing experiences for dispersed viewers. They call this solution “the future of OTT & TV viewing re-imagined for today’s society.” CEO Paul Bojarski (pictured above, at center) offered more insight into Sceenic, and shared a 30-second video to explain more about his London-based company.
Also connect with Sceenic on Tuesday, March 12 at the SXSW Accelerator Demo Day.
What inspired you to create Watch Together?
Two things. First, frustration that video viewing on OTT, IPTV, TV and even VR were lean back alone experiences and not together with your friends who are separated by distance. Then, when I was running MTV in Latin America but my parents were in London, it was the Volleyball World Championship Final, Poland vs Brazil. My dad called me on the phone to watch it together, separated by 13,000 miles. We moved onto a video call whilst watching the same thing, me in Argentina and my dad in London. It was magical to open beers “together” whilst watching the same thing. In 2013, this inspired Watch Together and our journey began.
How does Watch Together work?
The way it works for the end user is actually really simple; for example, a user logs onto the esports platform and is watching like they would normally do a video stream. But rather than being on a public text chat, the user has an option to “form a private room” and invite friends via a social network or a direct link. That friend is invited into “his/her virtual room” where the person can watch with just their friends. The friends get an invite or a push notification and are taken to exactly the same video and they can video chat with each other.
What is unique about Watch Together?
That we look at video watching as a group/together experience rather than a lean back “on your own” activity. That’s a big fundamental change seeing that since the start of the internet and sites like broadcast.com and YouTube, we, the users, have always had a public text chat. We are turning this around to a private chat but using video conferencing, which makes a very personal and emotional experience, to see and hear your friends.
What does Sceenic hope to accomplish in 2018?
Togetherness. Our company purpose has always been to bring people together who are separated by distance via Watch Together. We hope to accomplish this by deploying our solution with more clients both in the U.S. and Europe and unite families and friends who can watch TV or OTT or IPTV together.
What inspired your team to apply for SXSW Accelerator?
We are planning to enter the U.S. market this year after an initial trip out to the U.S. in October 2017. SXSW is known for creative tech solutions, so we thought it’s the perfect place to showcase our tech and introduce ourselves to the U.S. media market.
Since no one on your team has been to SXSW before, what is the most intriguing thing that you heard about the event?
That it’s like Coachella meets a tech summit.
What kinds of people is your team looking to meet at SXSW 2018?
People looking to drive true change and evolution in the Media Tech sector whether it’s investors, product owners from corporates, or potential partners. On a “dream big” kind of note, I would love to meet Mark Cuban as he was one of the people responsible for broadcast.com back in 1999 when it sold to Yahoo. Mark had the vision of IPTV way back in the day, so I would love to show him Sceenic’s Watch Together solution.
What are the goals for Sceenic for SXSW 2018?
First, win our category of Entertainment Tech (yes, we are very competitive), then establish contacts with clients in the media industry with broadcasters, OTT platforms and cable operators. We aim to also close our funding for our current seed round at SXSW. We have also been selected to be part of the official Hamburg Startups Delegation to SXSW. Though our headquarters are in London, one of our investors is from Germany (NMA.vc).
Tell us about your previous pitch experiences.
We have pitched at a few events before like the #VOOM Pitch To Richard Branson in the U.K. and reached the final 20 (from 9,000 companies) last year. We also won second place at the Startups@Reeperbahn Festival 2017 in Hamburg, Germany, which we are really proud of. We also won second place at the LEADERS Sports Summit in London, a very prestigious event. We have learned to start off with a story — human brains love stories. Keep it as simple as possible, there is only so much a brain can process. Lastly we have learned that pitch events are an AMAZING place to meet potential clients, partners, investors and mentors and we have.
How long has the Sceenic team been together?
Jonathan Williams and I have been working together since 2013 at our previous startup SayYeah, a live streaming platform for Millennials in LATAM. Our third co-founder, Aron Yechezkel, joined us at the end of 2015 and we have been working together since then, and now as Sceenic. Sceenic is the result of the learnings to do with co-viewing of SayYeah back in 2013-15. We have been also working with our engineering team since SayYeah in 2015.
What other startups have team members been involved with?
Aron was part of the Austin-based Lyft competitor RideAustin. I started my first business back in 1998 when I was 17; Skipworth was my first digital record label. And Jonathan has done artist management agency WISEgroup.
Sceenic is based in London. Give us some insight into what makes the London startup ecosystem so special.
In the U.K. we have organizations such as Innovate U.K. (backed by the U.K. government) giving grants to innovate R&D-based projects and grants for research studies, etc. And corporates willing to run pilots and tests with young companies and a infrastructure set up for this to happen. We have amazing mentors and advisors such as Robert Mollen (fundraising/financials expert) not only for advice, but hands-on work to improve our investment strategy. But there is a flip side to every coin: London is facing a big problem of shortage of tech talent and I think over the next two years this will become even a bigger problem to have an R&D team in London.
If your team wasn’t involved in Sceenic, what would they be doing?
Aron Yechezkel, our CTO, would definitely open and run a bouldering gym. Jonathan Williams, COO, would probably be running a CrossFit studio or a blockchain project or an automotive-based project. I would be either playing volleyball professionally (or trying to), or running a ride-sharing startup.
What has the startup experience taught you about life?
It’s hard to achieve something in life alone and also in the startup world — set out on the journey with one or two others who have complimentary skills, but believe in the end objective just like you do. Love what you do and do what you love: doing an innovative startup is insane, why would anyone want to suffer like this? So, if you love what you do, the pain will be a little bit eased. Practice, practice, practice, do, do, do: if you want to be the best live band in the world, you have to tour and play to small crowds in pubs at first to then get to play in stadiums. It’s a journey. Same in startup world, keep working on the product. perhaps your first beta tester is a small company to run a trial (= gig in a pub in front of two people) but keep going and soon you will be playing stadiums.
Other than Sceenic, what is world’s the most exciting startup at present?
I really love Revolut (a modern day banking alternative). Not because they have some unique technology, they actually don’t, but because they make something like banking super simple to use compared to a normal bank and do it with lower fees.
What inspires your team to work harder?
I think our purpose of “bringing families and friends together around the video content they love” inspires us to keep going and the thought of really re-inventing how we all watch TV/OTT/IPTV etc.
Look for interviews with other SXSW Accelerator finalists in this space between now and March. Startups already profiled as part of this series include 70MillionJobs, Bluefield, Cambridge Cancer Genomics, HealthTensor, Instreamatic, PolyPort, and UPGRADED.
Hugh Forrest serves as Chief Programming Officer at SXSW, the world’s most unique gathering of creative professionals. He also tries to write at least four paragraphs per day on Medium. These posts often cover tech-related trends; other times they focus on books, pop culture, sports and other current events.
