StartupRealities

Startup No 201   TIMBA (The Interesting MBA) is an online program that teaches the entire Business School curriculum in 1,000 stories and videos available as TED talks, YouTube videos and even TikTok footage. Participants vote for the most interesting material in a "Trip Advisor"-style ratings system that determines whether content remains on the programme or gets dropped. The program hires actors to produce in-house videos on a minority of subjects and theoretical topics that have not been covered on existing platforms. Auditing the TIMBA program is free of charge but participants who want to receive a certificate of completion pay a fee. Such participants are not required to take exames but have to re-watch key parts of the content once or twice again months later, to ensure memory retention in line with the "forgetting curve" timeline. CEO QUOTE "Don't we all have horrible memories of the drudgery of school and university courses. TIMBA is the exact oppo...

Startup No 170 StartupRealities 2020 series 50HoursContent is an online video education company that recruits volunteer experts and intellectuals to dedicate one hour a week (50 hours a year) to recording video talks (video blogs = vlogs) in fields of their choosing. The company is building a TED-style catalogue of content by challenging academics and professionals to leave a legacy by contributing their thoughts to educating future generations. CEO QUOTE " We don't require contributors to dedicate their talks and videos to one field only. We let their minds roam. We appreciate that producing an hour of novel ideas and thoughts in a single field every week would be quite difficult. This is why we encourage our speakers and educators to break up their hour into six 10-minute talks on different topics. Their videos thus become a magazine-type series of video blogs (vlogs). " - said 50HoursContent founder and CEO Fifi Houghton Contador. Alexander Pope (image source...

StartupRealities No 124 KidsExplained is an online education and media company that uses YouTube and TikTok videos to educate children, with the role of presenter or host being played by children. The company maintains that children pay more attention to what other children say, rather than to adults, as children are usually fed up with the orders that adults give. CEO QUOTE "KidsExplained democratises education. Who said that only adults can be the teachers? If adults prepare the material, children can easily present on video and can even have some input into the customisation of the material. Furthermore, children are more enthusiastic presenters than adults and this enthusiasm can be contagious and lead to some viral videos." - said KidsExplained founder and CEO Kieran Exposito. Children in an outdoor classroom in Angola (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 116 MultiCommercials is an advertising agency which produces video commercials that advertise multiple brands of different products in a single video. This allows a multi-faceted ad story to appeal to different target audiences with different brands and products that are advertised, so that every viewer will pick up in the video only what is relevant to the person. CEO QUOTE " We brought the linear world to an abrupt end. Before us, it was 'one commercial = one brand.' Since MultiCommercials was founded, the 'equal' sign has been broken. Just as most movies don't tell a single story, so a commercial no longer needs to advertise a single product. For example, if you see a video made by us where champagne and strawberries are served in a hotel room to a guest with a pearl necklace, this video will most likely be advertising brands in all four categories: champagne, strawberries, hotels and jewellery. In the past, one brand would have been...

StartupRealities No 93 LiveVerifier is a media analytics company which tracks and verifies the time when video footage is aired live (for the first time) on TV or on the internet. The company uses automation and artificial intelligence (AI) to determine if footage is novel and if it is being aired in real time. CEO QUOTE "When you are watching a TV report and you see the sign 'Live' in the corner, is it actually live in real time? Often recordings of the live footage are also run with the Live sign on, which creates confusion and uncertainty. LiveVerifier deals with this problem by following all mainstream TV channels as well as popular social media and internet channels," said company founder and CEO Livia Vermilione. Dutch Prime Minister on live TV (image source: Wikipedia )

StartupRealities No 64 ChoiceCommercials is an online advertisement agency which gives viewers a choice of one of 3 commercials to watch when ads are displayed during streaming of internet music and videos or playing online games. The service integrates smoothly with social media and online video platforms as it increases the attention viewers pay to commercials. The set of 3 commercials is a set of 3 very different videos, e.g. a 15-sec ocean scene, a 15-sec mountain scene and a 15-sec desert scene. Thus, the viewer has the option to pick with a single mouse click the commercial that fits most closely to their personal preferences, taste and mood. CEO QUOTE "I like to draw an analogy between the way YouTube commercials are displayed and force-feeding a goose: the goose has absolutely no control of what and how much it is fed. So given the chance, the goose will try to run away. ChoiceCommercials is involved in force-feeding to a much smaller extent as the online goose in th...