We knew it wasn’t going to be easy to turn our ideas into an actual product, not only because of the technical challenges we were facing, but also because we were building a company from scratch. A company which needed to build up a culture that should be in line with the product we are developing.
Those of you following the project since its inception know that one of the founders, Javier D´Ovidio, also founder and CEO of a software factory called Edrans, with a proven expertise on AI, Big Data and Cloud Infrastructure. We leaned on Edrans for the development of Flixxo. Seven developers were hired to work full time on the platform (two back end developers, two front end developers, one UX/UI designer, QA and a project manager). They were directed by Javier and Pablo Carbajo (Flixxo founder and CTO). Even though they are a skilled and awesome team and communication was always fluid, we felt from the beginning that we were seen purely as a “client”. However, we decided to move on with the development and eventually review this situation.
By June 25th the platform was released. UX/UI was far from being perfect and some of the basic functionalities were not working (e.g. paying for seeding). Dev team was totally burned-out and frustrated, so we decided to send invites on a slower pace and make a twist on the relationship with our developers.
We engaged on a consultancy process with a company called Liqueed, which did an outstanding job for Disney. Working with Ariel Ber and his team for a week we discovered many inconsistencies in our workflow, as well as some scaling issues in the core of platform’s architecture. Edrans took the responsibility of rebuilding the architecture and injected some more hands into the project, meanwhile our legacy team focused on fixing the payment channels and the UI. With the help of Liqueed we started a new work dynamic and opened new communication channels with the team (needless to say, we discovered the potential of some of our team members was huge!)
We´ve hired NK, an award winning design studio from Buenos Aires to work on the webpage which was abandoned during the last months, and help us rethink the UX/UI of the app. Clock is ticking again and we have a huge milestone next October at MIPCOM Cannes, challenging the platform against the mainstream content industry.
Where are we now?
As stated on social channels, we have around 600 users testing the platform. By this week we will start sending invitations on bigger batches and we expect to have 10,000 invites sent by mid September.
We have deployed the improved architecture, for those of you already using the platform a sensitive performance upgrade should have been noticed. As for current issues and their solutions, we have a bottleneck when trying to moderate and approve content. Many of the videos are not being fully uploaded to our seedboxes (when they should be there) therefore we are redesigning the uploading process, adding an HTTP upload layer on top of BitTorrent. On the UX side of the uploading process, we are adding the option to upload serial content.
A new webpage and branding redesign is on its way, and the fully redesigned app will be ready by October 15th.
We have started some tests on Android devices, with a very positive result. Even though we are hiring new developers for mobile development (both Android and iOS) and sharing content through this devices is still a huge challenge, migrating the actual platform into a mobile video player was a seamless process.
Regarding social networks and communication and after having many conversations with him, Hernan Nadal, former Director of Communications at Greenpeace, joined the Flixxo team as a communication advisor. He was responsible of most of the digital campaigns that Greenpeace set up over the last 15 years, and we hope he will achieve the same level of success with Flixxo! Hernan is joining forces with Federico Parapar on PR.
Content is key for growing our user base, that’s why we are focusing on reaching the biggest players in the industry in MIPCOM and MIP CANCUN, as well as looking for content with a growth potential similar to our platform’s. That’s why we have engaged on supporting Web Series festivals. Web Series (or short form series) are a new trend on internet videos, with more and more hours of content produced every year with outstanding quality standards. Short form series are having a hard time when it comes to monetize and we envision a fertile ground for them on our platform. Flixxo’s next stops this year are Web Series festivals of Berlin, Marseilles, Bilbao and Rio.
We have just signed a distribution deal with Zoomin.TV, which is one of the most prolific short form content creators worldwide and the sixth multichannel network, with more than 4 billion views a month. This deserves a whole post, so more info will be coming soon.
Furthermore
We hate creating hype out of nothing or publishing information without substance, but we wanted to share some projects in which we are involved. More info will be available soon, but we want our community to be part of our endeavors. The first one is related to micropayments, as we are starting a joint-venture with a well known company to deliver soon a tool that will be used by Flixxo but opened to the whole crypto community. On the other hand we will be announcing soon a new collaboration in order to develop a state-of-the-art content recommendation engine.
In addition, Flixxo Limited has made an allocation on RSK’s RIF tokens. Being the first ICO running on top of Bitcoin’s blockchain, RIF token generation event was completely oversubscribed. But we managed to be a part as we are committed into building blockchain infrastructure for cloud storage and developing micropayment solutions.
Regarding exchanges, we are super excited on Qryptos merging with Quoinex into Liquid exchange, starting on September 4th. With the volume of both exchanges merged into one, Liquid is aiming to be a top ten. One of the first improvements in which we are working together is bringing Flixx/USD and Flixx/Euro pairs to move one step forward into making it easier for everyone to get their Flixx tokens.
