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It is rather challenging to hit a moving target when it keeps changing directions. That's a bit like how Cameron Brain, CEO of Open Box Technologies, felt when he set his sights on a particular business market while still in college.
In 2006, Brain and a group of classmates at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., started to dabble in online sales and all things video on computers. They started Open Box Technologies, ready with a variety of product ideas and services. They spent a lot of time with video content and working online.
However, the marketplace would not stand still long enough for the young startup to make its mark. So Brain and classmates changed focus.
"We saw in 2006 that video was coming to the Internet," Brain told the E-Commerce Times.
Video content isn't just for entertainment. It's becoming a popular means for companies and organizations to train employees, provide distance learning and make more personal connections with remote workers. It also facilitates educating customers about new products and services.
Open Sesame
The group's strong interest in video led Brain to launch a video platform. However, success remained elusive despite the potential growth of online video.
"We realized that the idea was fine, but there was not a big opportunity for it. So we shelved the client side software and switched to the concept for Sesame Vault," he explained.
The new concept was to anchor the product to the Internet. Sesame Vault launched in the fall of 2007. Brain released the first version of his dream Web-based video platform with very little fanfare and not much marketing.
Money Trail
With the revised video product in place, the young exec secured funding from sources in New York. With seed money in hand, Brain established his main office in Troy, not far from his comfort zone of the Rensselaer campus.
He has maintained a fairly Spartan operation. Nine workers in Troy serve as technology developers. A few workers staff a small office in Seattle working on business development.
Brain's early hunch that businesses would find marketing and other uses for video on their Web sites started to show signs of acceptance. He saw an opportunity for businesses to store, manage and publish video materials online.
However, he was not the only player waiting for video production and business strategy to marry. Open Box Technologies was up and running and gathering some notice for its ease of use.
"One of our main problems was to figure out how to play in the market space," Brain recalled.
Changing Focus
The key to success for Open Box Technologies was to cater to potential customers that other players ignored. The solution seemed simple. Brain focused on SMBs.
"Other competitors aim at high-end storage and management," said Brain.
Open Box Technologies' goal is to become the leader in video space for SMB clients, according to Brain. To realize that goal, he had to go where the bigger players don't. Getting there is still a struggle.
"Lots of back-end technology is in that space, so they are up against a lot of other offerings. The company is not unique. It operates in between SMB and enterprise," Paul Verna, senior analyst at eMarketer, told the E-Commerce Times.
Attracting Attention
Getting potential clients to grasp why and how video could help their business requires an ongoing educational campaign. Brain soon realized that just because he built it, customers would not automatically come.
"One big hurdle is participating in an early stage market that most people don't understand. So we are doing a lot of customer education," he explained.
Developer's Delight
The video-for-business field is still so new that Brain does not want to give up on core ideas that started out hard to sell. For example, he built in features to please video developers. So far, though, that feature is largely not used.
"Very early on, we wanted to do a Web platform for developers. Since the 1.0 release in 2007, we have been growing that as a major part of our offering," Brain explained.
The majority of his customers do not use the developer's platform, but it is there. Instead, they use the automatic features, he noted.
Value Based
Much like when Brain first started his company, he is looking for ways to improve and alter his software. The current plan is to adjust the product to be unique in three key areas.
First is having a low entry price. For instance, subscribers pay a range of $50 per month for 266 GB of storage to $350 per month for 600 GB of storage.
Secondly, the company is opening up the application programming interface (API) for more third-party support. The API is a very critical element for the majority of customers, according to Brain.
Third, the encoding publishing system works with more platforms and 11 different formats.
"The objective is making the service very cost-effective. Our customers just want it to work. So we created a universal player to auto-detect the customer's format," explained Brain.
Crowd Appeal
Brain is pleased with the growing list of clients. He has what he described as a mind-boggling array of customers that includes top universities and schools.
Open Box offers a publishing solution serving online video with a reasonable cost structure, agreed Verna.
"The interface is flexible, and the company has good clientele. It seems like an interesting company in a tight, competitive state," he said.
More to Come
Brain hopes his unusual approach continues to pay off. Rather than focusing on content monetization and advertising, he targets high-quality tools.
The company's current project is to launch version 3.0 next year as it continues to grow its three core areas.
"We want to give customers complete, unlimited control over what they do," said Brain.
Smart Move?
Open Box Technologies lowered one of its biggest hurdles when it eliminated the time and expense that developing its infrastructure would have created. Instead, it made Dell (Nasdaq: DELL) the sole infrastructure provider for its SesameVault Web video platform.
That deal enabled Brain to back SesameVault with a 99.99 percent uptime guarantee. The Open Box solution includes Dell's 1950 PowerEdge rack servers, Dell/EMC Storage, PowerConnect Switches and network peripherals.
"We are a technology company, but our business is customer service, delivering the highest quality user experience available when it comes to web video," said Brain.
Open Box owns and maintains all of the server infrastructure on which
SesameVault is hosted. The infrastructure itself is stored in Dell's
multiple facilities that provide Internet connections and physical
security systems.
