6 ms·

Video is exploding and Mux raises a Series A

36 points by jon_dahl 9y ago

kevinmannix 9y ago
Congrats! Few questions I have - I'm also not knowledgable about the space, so forgive me if they come off a bit naive. 1. Can you give me an example of how a company would use Mux? I can't quite grasp that from this page alone + looking through your homepage. Are you hosting video? Plugging into 3rd parties for metrics? 2. Is Zencoder still around? How did your successes / failures there translate into Mux, both from a tech / product standpoint & a management / operations standpoint. 3. You discuss how Netflix is only the size of a more niche channel like Discovery. Even so, it's large in the realm of online video - how do you aim to protect your product / strategy from being swallowed up or replicated from Youtube or Netflix, who are big fish even in the cable / satellite video world & even bigger in the smaller pond of online video? Again, congrats & best of luck to the team going forward.
- jon_dahl 9y ago
  Thanks! Answers below. > 1. Can you give me an example of how a company would use Mux? I can't quite grasp that from this page alone + looking through your homepage. Are you hosting video? Plugging into 3rd parties for metrics? We don't host video. We monitor video players (web, mobile, TV, etc.) to understand when problems happen, like rebuffering or slow load time. The best analogy is probably something like NewRelic: NewRelic helps companies understand their application performance, and we help companies understand the performance of their video streaming. > 2. Is Zencoder still around? How did your successes / failures there translate into Mux, both from a tech / product standpoint & a management / operations standpoint. Yep - we aren't involved anymore, but Zencoder is still a great product and a great business. We learned a lot there, and when we decided to tackle analytics, we built the product that we wish we'd had to optimize and validate other tools we've built (like Zencoder and Video.js). > 3. You discuss how Netflix is only the size of a more niche channel like Discovery. Even so, it's large in the realm of online video - how do you aim to protect your product / strategy from being swallowed up or replicated from Youtube or Netflix, who are big fish even in the cable / satellite video world & even bigger in the smaller pond of online video? Netflix and YouTube are definitely the giants right now, and are both great companies. Two thoughts on this. First, we think the universe of online video is still significantly bigger than these two, and that the growth of the entire online video ecosystem means there is still a huge opportunity to be hand. Second, we (philosophically) think the world is a better place if media is decentralized, and we want to bring Netflix-grade sophistication to everyone else in the market, large or small.
jon_dahl 9y ago
Hey! Co-founder of Mux here. Happy to answer any questions.
- ryandamm 9y ago
  Congrats on the raise, Jon!
  - jon_dahl 9y ago
    Thanks!
- 100k 9y ago
  Congrats! Can you talk about how Mux's focus differs from your previous efforts in the video space?
  - jon_dahl 9y ago
    Definitely - we take a lot of inspiration from other products we've built. We saw first-hand from our last 6 years in the video space how many publishers are basically blind when it comes to their video streaming. Intuitively, if you're going to build a business around online video, you should probably measure and monitor your online video - but it's hard to do well. Our goal is to make it simple.
mlmilleratmit 9y ago
Congrats! That's a big war chest to go to market.
- jon_dahl 9y ago
  Thanks!
daniel_levine 9y ago
Excited to be working with Mux. I've known the team for nearly six years and from Zencoder to Video.js to Mux I'm continually blown away by their ability to build great technology and be great people.
Heff 9y ago
(Also a Mux co-founder) For anyone interested, we just rolled out new pricing tiers that make the service more accessible, including a $50/month starter plan and free Lite plan. https://mux.com/blog/announcing-self-serve-pricing-signup/ https://mux.com/blog/announcing-self-serve-pricing-signup/ This is compared to our prveious entry level price of $1k/month when we were focused only on developers at larger media companies. Happy to answer any questions around pricing.

36 points by jon_dahl 9y ago

Congrats! Few questions I have - I'm also not knowledgable about the space, so forgive me if they come off a bit naive. 1. Can you give me an example of how a company would use Mux? I can't quite grasp that from this page alone + looking through your homepage. Are you hosting video? Plugging into 3rd parties for metrics? 2. Is Zencoder still around? How did your successes / failures there translate into Mux, both from a tech / product standpoint & a management / operations standpoint. 3. You discuss how Netflix is only the size of a more niche channel like Discovery. Even so, it's large in the realm of online video - how do you aim to protect your product / strategy from being swallowed up or replicated from Youtube or Netflix, who are big fish even in the cable / satellite video world & even bigger in the smaller pond of online video? Again, congrats & best of luck to the team going forward.

jon_dahl 9y ago
Thanks! Answers below. > 1. Can you give me an example of how a company would use Mux? I can't quite grasp that from this page alone + looking through your homepage. Are you hosting video? Plugging into 3rd parties for metrics? We don't host video. We monitor video players (web, mobile, TV, etc.) to understand when problems happen, like rebuffering or slow load time. The best analogy is probably something like NewRelic: NewRelic helps companies understand their application performance, and we help companies understand the performance of their video streaming. > 2. Is Zencoder still around? How did your successes / failures there translate into Mux, both from a tech / product standpoint & a management / operations standpoint. Yep - we aren't involved anymore, but Zencoder is still a great product and a great business. We learned a lot there, and when we decided to tackle analytics, we built the product that we wish we'd had to optimize and validate other tools we've built (like Zencoder and Video.js). > 3. You discuss how Netflix is only the size of a more niche channel like Discovery. Even so, it's large in the realm of online video - how do you aim to protect your product / strategy from being swallowed up or replicated from Youtube or Netflix, who are big fish even in the cable / satellite video world & even bigger in the smaller pond of online video? Netflix and YouTube are definitely the giants right now, and are both great companies. Two thoughts on this. First, we think the universe of online video is still significantly bigger than these two, and that the growth of the entire online video ecosystem means there is still a huge opportunity to be hand. Second, we (philosophically) think the world is a better place if media is decentralized, and we want to bring Netflix-grade sophistication to everyone else in the market, large or small.

jon_dahl 9y ago

Hey! Co-founder of Mux here. Happy to answer any questions.

ryandamm 9y ago
Congrats on the raise, Jon!
- jon_dahl 9y ago
  Thanks!
100k 9y ago
Congrats! Can you talk about how Mux's focus differs from your previous efforts in the video space?
- jon_dahl 9y ago
  Definitely - we take a lot of inspiration from other products we've built. We saw first-hand from our last 6 years in the video space how many publishers are basically blind when it comes to their video streaming. Intuitively, if you're going to build a business around online video, you should probably measure and monitor your online video - but it's hard to do well. Our goal is to make it simple.

mlmilleratmit 9y ago

Congrats! That's a big war chest to go to market.

jon_dahl 9y ago
Thanks!

daniel_levine 9y ago

Excited to be working with Mux. I've known the team for nearly six years and from Zencoder to Video.js to Mux I'm continually blown away by their ability to build great technology and be great people.

Heff 9y ago

(Also a Mux co-founder) For anyone interested, we just rolled out new pricing tiers that make the service more accessible, including a $50/month starter plan and free Lite plan. https://mux.com/blog/announcing-self-serve-pricing-signup/ https://mux.com/blog/announcing-self-serve-pricing-signup/ This is compared to our prveious entry level price of $1k/month when we were focused only on developers at larger media companies. Happy to answer any questions around pricing.