If it is winter, it is also summer in the opposite hemisphere. Christmas comes in the middle of our South American summer, and the uncle who dares to dress up like the northern Santa will probably have a really bad — and sweaty — time.
Yes, we are all facing the coldness of Crypto Winter. But those of us who are BUIDLING can slightly spot a warm light at the end of the tunnel. We understand that not everything is about the price of ETH, we believe in the technology. And we see an opportunity.
We have made the most of an incredible first half of 2018, covering our expenses with a ETH that raised 3x its value since our ICO. And having exchanged some ETH for USD and for some tokens in which we could build synergies with, we are closing 2018 with more ETH than those raised during the ICO.
It is true that the price of Crypto collapsed in the last months, but the Flixxo team is mostly an Argentinian team, and we have faced several recent collapses in the economy. We are used to crisis, we have learnt how to survive them. In fact, the price of the Argentinian currency — the Peso — crashed against USD this year, moving from 18 to about 40 Pesos per Dollar in a matter of months. Opportunity. Even though the crypto market has crashed, we can make the most out of our resources because all our salaries are in Pesos.
And while other Crypto based companies are making their teams smaller, we are hiring new developers. Momentum for a new VOD platform is right now, everything is about timing, so we decided to push the development in order to deliver faster. So we have built an entire new team for the mobile version, and three developers and a designer were hired specifically for this task. POCs where already sent to both Android and iOS stores.
Crypto Winter, VOD Summer
2019 and 2020 will witness a thriving ecosystem of video platforms — known as OTT for Over The Top or VOD for Video On Demand — . Disney, Warner, DC… You name it. All the players in the industry are ready to take part in the battle of the direct-to-consumer video platforms — a battle that has already been won by Netflix. Giants playing against giants with the same unsustainable formula: spending billions producing original content, building a super expensive content delivery infrastructure and begging to catch a decent number of subscribers. Flixxo brings a unique approach to the problems of scalability of these models (learn more on our post It Is All About Scaling) and we need to hurry. Opportunity. Other companies are looking to build something around Web Series, and we want to pioneer both on the content and in the business and technology model. We know we have found the right content for proving ourselves, for testing the whole model in front of an industry that is eager for disruption.
Winter Shelters
Crypto Winter is a nice expression since winter is a season, and seasons change. And there will be for sure a Crypto Spring and a Crypto Summer. However, we have built shelters for the cold seasons.
As we developed Flixxo, we’ve engaged ourselves in other projects that at the beginning were satellites to the video platform, but facing the uncertainties of a bearish market turned into life-jackets.
Five-Two-Five
Also known as Flixxo House, 525 is our coworking space focused on media production and distribution. Located in the heart of the audiovisual district in Buenos Aires, with room for about 50 people, a cafe, a cool garden and a small TV studio/multipurpose room, 525 will host part of Flixxo’s team as well as players and events from the video industry in Latin America. It is intended to be a space for building communities and creating synergies. It will be also the seed of new projects that will help us promote and traction Flixxo. 525 will be ready and profitable in just a couple of months.
The Red Star
Gabriel Lichtmann’s latest movie project, The Red Star, is a fictional documentary about Laila Salama, a Nazi hunter who lived in Argentina. We have helped Gabriel promoting his film into the content markets — he was part of Flixxo’s delegation at MIPCOM — and we are happy to announce that the project is fully funded and will start its production in April. Even though it is not a short form series, spin-off material will be produced exclusively for Flixxo and, since we are co-producers, the film will be a great tool for branding and will teach us a lot on how to distribute and produce revenues on a full feature film.
Dynamite Fest
After a year of attending, sponsoring and learning from Web Series Festivals around the world (Buenos Aires WebFest, Cannesseries, Berlin Webfest, Marseille Webfest, Bilbao Seriesland and Rio Webfest), and thanks to the connections we have made in the content markets (Natpe, MipTV, MipCom and MipCancun), we’ve decided to build our own branch on top of the best festivals. By bringing influencers as a way of attracting digital consumers, studios and media companies for developing and improving the markets within the festivals, and the most respected and popular players in the ecosystem to host masterclasses, we aim at catching the attention of the media and mainstream consumers, who are not aware of these events. Short form series need not only a platform, but also a way of building an audience. Dynamite Fest starts its tour in March, in cooperation with Bawebfest.
Flixxo is up and running, developing, engaging and improving. There is a clear roadmap ahead and — even though we’ve learnt when and how to pivot — the original vision is intact.
It is summer in Latin America, it’s the hot season for the southern hemisphere. It is going to be an interesting winter, though!
Learn more about the platform and download the desktop app at flixxo.com
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