Does this sound like a company going under? Some of you people should go into comedy...the news will be great...load up kids.
The first sixty days. The next six months.
Having now been on board as President and COO for nearly sixty days, it seemed to be a good time to formally introduce myself and give you some insights into why I decided to join the VidWrx team and the opportunities I see ahead to rapidly grow the business.
But first I wanted to share with you some of my professional background since it directly relates to why I chose to take on this role at this stage in my career.
The first twenty years of my career were spent working for some of the most highly respected advertising agencies, starting in the U.K. then in the U.S. and Canada. This culminated with five years as CEO of TBWA/Chiat Canada, a 100 person full service agency serving clients like Nissan, Shoppers Drug Mart and TD Bank.
Excited about the rapid changes across the advertising industry with the growth of the internet, I left the ad agency world to found Adbeast in 2000. Adbeast was an early pioneer of online video production management that successfully grew into a SaaS (Software as a Service) digital asset management business. The technology was used globally by hundreds of major advertisers, agencies, production companies and independent freelancers to streamline and reduce the costs of video production.
In 2010, Adbeast was acquired by DGFastChannel the leading North American television and video advertising distribution network.
Since selling Adbeast, I have been advising and coaching high growth potential technology based companies while looking for the next stand-out entrepreneurial opportunity.
What does this mean for VidWrx?
I believe it gives me some invaluable insights into our opportunities and challenges. I understand the needs and motivations of advertisers and their marketing partners, from the smallest independent SMB (Small to Medium Business) to the largest online advertising platforms. I also understand from my experience with Adbeast what it takes to bootstrap and grow a technology based services business as well as being deeply familiar with the online video production process.
So what’s the opportunity for VidWrx?
The growing demand for online and mobile video for marketing and advertising and the need to produce this content at scale efficiently and cost effectively is well understood.
What is important to understand is where specifically VidWrx is gaining the most traction against these extremely positive underlying market dynamics and how we can continue to build the momentum over the next six months and beyond.
Key Accounts
We are seeing significant growth from our larger marketers and resellers, the majority of which are in the United States. As they ramp up their video volume they are proactively reaching out to us to ensure we can fulfil their demand and are negotiating long term volume agreements. For example, over the last few weeks, we have closed over $300k in repeat orders from just three key accounts.
Higher Value Sales Pipeline
We have a strong pipeline of high value prospects. These are resellers and marketers who have sufficient size and volume to immediately benefit from our offering and grow in value over time. The channel partner consultative sales approach we have adopted to secure these prospects has quickly started to pay dividends. We have closed six new accounts each worth over $100K this year so far. This compares to just one this time last year.
Strategic Partnerships
Google
Google will be significantly ramping up the Google Partner Program we participated in last fall. Launching in mid-March, Google has brought the program in house and will be directly managing it with their own agency and SMB sales teams targeting their higher value advertisers. Google has also more than tripled the incentives for video production to help attract these advertisers.
(www.vidwrx.com/googlepartnerprogram)
TubeMogul
Our partnership with TubeMogul continues to grow. Our joint program to provide social media video ads bundled as part of an advertising package is currently being rolled out by their sales force with a major push planned as part of the launch of TubeMogul’s new social offering in March.We have also just entered in discussions to expand the partnership and develop a similar program to provide pre roll video ads to their larger SMB clients.(www.vidwrx.com/tubemogulsocial)
The bottom line is that VidWrx is building quantifiable and defined momentum. We are confident about our ability to execute because we are seeing clear evidence that the business has traction. I look forward to your continuing shareholder support.
Sincerely,
Steve Hancock
President and COO