It's already been 3 years since Cleeng launched, and we just held our first ‘Global Conference’ 3 weeks ago with the entire team coming together!When you launch a startup, you are full of dreams.
You expect your success to be immediate. The reality is a lot less glamorous, and it takes months to find your way, identify the right niche market and instill a common company culture. It’s very often frustrating and demanding, but as Steve Jobs used to wisely say,
"What matters is the journey, not the destination."
You suddenly and truly realize exactly what he meant.
Fortunately, we at Cleeng have now reached a point where we can finally focus our total energies on building a global leader in a clear market segment: helping people sell their videos. Nonetheless, this can only be possible with the right team. Take, for instance, our latest project - the 2014 FIFA World Cup live streamed to 23 Caribbean countries, which is a perfect example of the combination of robust technology and teamwork: we signed up just a week before its start and managed to setup higher-capacity servers, increase global coverage and optimize a viewer payment plan that works well for the Caribbean countries. The bottom line is that it all ran very smoothly, thanks in great part to the skills, devotion and passion of the Cleeng team.
It’s not easy to pinpoint a single element that makes our business so great, but – beyond even the shadow of a doubt - one of those elements that allows us to grow and succeed is our amazing Cleeng team!
But now back to the conference. I’m convinced that this year’s tagline, “Cleeng 3D - Dare, Drive, Deliver,” encompasses perfectly who we are as a team:
- We DARE to do things differently and innovate. When we first launched Cleeng back in 2011, many people felt that it was absurd to develop a solution to sell content. "No one likes to buy content" was the main message.That was incredibly frustrating for me to hear, since I had spent five years (2001 to 2006) at Apple watching the skyrocketing growth of iTunes. Literally tons of content sold, from music, movies, apps, books and more. Maybe in part because of this, we at Cleeng have kept going, and we continue today to innovate because we dare to go where most companies don't even consider going. Our most recent project in the Caribbean clearly reflects our daring spirit - Cleeng Live, the first platform truly optimized to sell large live events.
- We DRIVE change: It’s easy to be innovative at first, but it’s much harder to continue to instill a culture of change and adaptation after a few years. Hence, we continue to ask all members of our team to push forward the projects that they consider are essential for our company to thrive. We can’t afford to simply state pleasantly, "We need better reporting," "We need more communication" or "We should be doing this or that." Instead, we must dare to make bold proposals, AND then if we truly believe in them, we must continue to drive them forward toward delivery.
- We DELIVER great solutions to our clients. And that's certainly what we do best. No BS marketing statements, no rapidly developed crappy technology, no false commitments. Rather, we deliver top quality through focus, expertise, passion and teamwork.
The combination of these three components of our tagline makes us more and more unique. It’s good to see several of our competitors continue to copy us, whether it’s on our positioning statements or innovative new solutions (I'm sure they'll recognize themselves) because it validates that we’re moving in the right direction. But it’s all part of the game, and I'm convinced now more than ever that our 3D model above will make it increasingly difficult for them to catch up with Cleeng.
I’m proud to see that we have created a culture of work that respects the diversity of people while at the same time being based on talent and shared ambitions. We’re truly a global team now, with offices in U.S., Netherlands, France and Poland. But regardless of where we’re located, we adhere to the same vision as an exceptionally strong team.
We’re still a relatively young company, but we aim big. We now have amazing client references from TEDMED, Conde Nast, Viaplay, Dailymotion, Canal+, and also business partners like Brightcove, Kaltura, Livestream. Combined with our own gifted and focused people, we remain the best positioned to push our startup forward to shake up the industry of Live and On-demand video.
I want to give a huge thanks to our hugely successful investors, Pascal Cagni and Charles-Antoine Beyney, who joined us during the conference, shared some of their tips to accelerate our growth and energized our team. All of us at Cleeng are very grateful for the time you spent with us.
Congrats to all the team, and let's keep pushing our 3D spirit !
- Gilles Domartini -
PS: If you believe in 3D as well and want to join our team, please send us your CV at theteam@cleeng.com or contact me on Linkedin
