My interview with Laura Martin of Needham & Company

I saw leading Wall St media analyst Laura Martin of Needham & Company debate the future of Netflix on stage at the Banff World Media Conference in June and caught up with her after to expand on her assessment of the streaming giant and the streaming video landscape more broadly. Check out the transcript of our conversation on TechCrunch >>

Wall St analyst Laura Martin on the fate of Netflix, breaking up Google, EU regulation, and a decade of more money for Hollywood

A guide to Virtual Beings

Last week in San Francisco, I spoke at the first Virtual Beings Summit (organized by Fable Studio CEO Edward Saatchi).

The term “virtual beings” gets used as a catch-all categorization of fictional personalities that humans can interact with. This ranges from activities like Amazon, Apple, Google, and Microsoft pouring resources into conversational AI technology to chip-maker Nvidia and game engines Unreal and Unity advancing real-time ray tracing for photorealistic graphics to VCs backng “virtual influencer” startups like Brud and Shadows.

There are really three separate fields getting conflated though:

  1. Virtual Companions
  2. Humanoid Character Creation
  3. Virtual Influencers

These can overlap — there are humanoid virtual influencers for example — but they represent separate challenges, separate business opportunities, and separate societal concerns. I’ve outlined an overview of at these fields and how they collectively comprise this concept of virtual beings… Read my article on TechCrunch >>

A guide to Virtual Beings and how they impact our world

My interview with Northzone’s Paul Murphy on the next era of gaming

Paul Murphy is a London-based general partner at VC firm Northzone who previously founded the popular mobile game Dots when he worked at betaworks in NYC.

Paul looks at a range of startups but 2 of his 4 first investments at Northzone have been related to gaming. I interviewed him on his current investment theses and where he sees opportunity in gaming for entrepreneurs. Read the transcript on my TechCrunch column >>

Northzone’s Paul Murphy goes deep on the next era of gaming

Fundraising 101: How to trigger FOMO among VCs

I talk to startup founders every day, a portion of who are inevitably fundraising. I noticed successful serial entrepreneurs I know have more methodical approaches to how they raise money from VCs and create competition among potential investors.

So I asked several of them to share their tactics. Read the post on TechCrunch >>

Fundraising 101: How to trigger FOMO among VCs

TC Interview: Delane Parnell’s plan to conquer amateur esports

Los Angeles-based PlayVS  (pronounced “play versus”) wants to become the dominant platform for amateur esports, starting at the high school level. The company raised $46 million last year—its first year operating—with the vision that owning the infrastructure for competitions and expanding it to encompass other social elements of gaming can make it the largest gaming company in the world.

I recently sat down with Founder & CEO Delane Parnell  to talk about his company’s formation and growth strategy.  Read the transcript on TechCrunch >>

Delane Parnell’s plan to conquer amateur esports

Where top VCs are investing in media, entertainment, & gaming

In my TechCrunch column, I just posted long-form quotes from these 9 sharp VCs on their investment interests in the media, entertainment, & gaming space. If you’re an entrepreneur planning to raise money (or an investor curious what your peers are focused on), I suggested you give it a read.

Zwift & fitness-gaming’s superiority over interactive fitness videos

(This was originally a section of today’s Monetizing Media newsletter. Sign up here.)

Happy Sunday night, media friends. Great to see many of you over drinks in London and LA recently. Shout out to Hummingbird VC and Sinai VC for co-hosting those events. I’ll be at the Milken Conference this week so if you’re in town for it reach out.

Zwift: interactive fitness vs. fitness-gaming

I interviewed Zwift CEO/Founder Eric Min in TechCrunch, discussing the virtual cycling company’s product evolution, numerous potential revenue streams, and Olympic esports ambitions.

Interactive fitness startups are a hot trend right now, following Peloton’s mainstream breakthrough. As it’s preparing to IPO, other “Peloton for X” startups like Tonal, Mirror, and Hydrow are raising substantial sums. Scooter Braun and Rumble are teaming up for a boxing one called At Home 360.

These combine the upfront purchase of workout hardware with monthly subscriptions to access live-streamed or recorded workout videos. It’s a smart business because it taps into “content as a utility”…content that is framed as a providing concrete outcomes in areas where we are used to spending a lot of money (health, education). The hardware purchase creates a sunk cost bias that makes customers resistant to stop subscribing.

What Zwift is doing taps into what I consider a bigger, more defensible opportunity however: fitness-gaming. Cyclists can put their bike on a trainer at home (which makes it stay in place) and ride with other players inside a virtual course where their characters’ looks, movements, and power corresponds to their own.

Because users are represented as players within a social game, there is the benefit of network effects, opportunity for in-game commerce and an audience viewing the competition.

In Zwift’s case, it’s developing a full-force virtual cycling league that involved real like pro cyclists and that he aims to get included in the Olympics as a cycling event. (Read the interview here)

Interview with Eric Min, CEO of Zwift

I interviewed Zwift CEO/Founder Eric Min in TechCrunch, discussing the virtual cycling company’s product evolution, numerous potential revenue streams, and Olympic esports ambitions.

Interactive fitness startups are a hot trend right now, following Peloton’s mainstream breakthrough. As it’s preparing to IPO, other “Peloton for X” startups like Tonal, Mirror, and Hydrow are raising substantial sums. Scooter Braun and Rumble are teaming up for a boxing one called At Home 360.

These combine the upfront purchase of workout hardware with monthly subscriptions to access live-streamed or recorded workout videos. It’s a smart business because it taps into “content as a utility”…content that is framed as a providing concrete outcomes in areas where we are used to spending a lot of money (health, education). The hardware purchase creates a sunk cost bias that makes customers resistant to stop subscribing.

What Zwift is doing taps into what I consider a bigger, more defensible opportunity however: fitness-gaming. Cyclists can put their bike on a trainer at home (which makes it stay in place) and ride with other players inside a virtual course where their characters’ looks, movements, and power corresponds to their own.

Because users are represented as players within a social game, there is the benefit of network effects, opportunity for in-game commerce and an audience viewing the competition.

In Zwift’s case, it’s developing a full-force virtual cycling league that involved real like pro cyclists and that he aims to get included in the Olympics as a cycling event. (Read the interview here)