Over the past decade, the digital streaming sector has experienced exponential growth, with binge-watching emerging as a popular trend among consumers. Online streaming platforms offer unparalleled convenience, allowing users to choose their preferred genres, switch between programs, and explore a wide array of content. Increasingly, industry professionals are placing greater trust in digital platforms over traditional theaters. To meet the soaring demand, numerous companies have developed sophisticated online video platforms and content delivery networks. One such platform is Lightcast.com, specializing in media hosting, management, and distribution.
Lightcast.com enables organizations to stream their content across various digital channels seamlessly. Andreas Kisslinger, CEO and Co-Founder of Lightcast.com, is deeply passionate about media and technology. Lightcast.com is his fifth venture, reflecting his commitment to innovation and exceptional customer experiences. Andreas comes from a small country where reliability often takes precedence over innovation, quality over quantity and skepticism towards business ideas over euphoria, and which has sometimes been a check and balance for him, actively pursuing an euphoric “can do” attitude, valuing optimism and proactive solutions.
Diverse Set of Clients
Lightcast.com is a comprehensive media hosting, management, and distribution platform that empowers organizations to stream their content across various digital channels. It provides services such as live streaming, on-demand video hosting, website integration, and OTT (Over-the-Top) app development. It caters to a diverse clientele, including media companies, religious organizations, businesses, and educational institutions, offering them the tools and technology needed to reach their audiences effectively in today’s digital landscape.
User-oriented Approaches
Several customers of Lightcast.com aim to launch TV apps across the primary device platforms and app stores. Those include: AppleTV, FireTV, Roku, AndroidTV, Samsung and LG Smart TV and Vizio.
Many of the customers either lack TV apps altogether or possess only a limited number, such as Roku, and are seeking to expand their portfolio of publishing properties. Startups and vloggers frequently turn to Lightcast.com to launch TV apps and/or mobile apps for streaming. The company’s cost-effectiveness is an important reason for content creators and media publishers. It provides an opportunity to save valuable financial resources compared to other “patchwork solutions.” Many large media corporations are transitioning away from developing and maintaining in-house patchwork systems, which involve:
- Costly contracts with multiple vendors
- Extensive in-house staff with diverse skill sets
- Complex overhead management
In addition, the ability to conserve time is another compelling factor driving publishers to choose Lightcast.com. The proprietary Media Cloud real-time content and app management system enables users to accomplish more in less time. All connected publishing properties, including TV, mobile and web apps, players, podcasts, and social media channels, can be managed in a single location, with streamlined workflows, and comprehensive user/viewer data and reporting.
Foundational Struggles
Substantial technical expertise and resources are needed to develop and implement a robust platform. It is to perform tasks like uploading, hosting, organizing, and delivering live streams and on-demand content. Developing app frameworks for the majority of publishing platforms requires significant technical expertise and resources.
The company did not accept external capital, venture capital, or outside investments. It funded the startup entirely on its talent and reinvested every Dollar that came in. This forced it to be extra smart with budgeting and expense control during the startup years. Without excess capital to spend, it had to maximize the value of every dollar it had. This mindset of resourcefulness has stayed with the company and continues to drive the approach today and into the future.
Despite challenges, the startup years were rewarding, offering creative freedom to focus on developing the best multi-platform Online Video Platform (OVP) and Media Management System for the mid-market. The absence of investor pressure made those years enjoyable, fueled by a passion for exceptional software.
Company Statistics
In 2012, Lightcast.com began accepting a select group of customers—a small focus group of media publishers who provided feedback on its services during the initial development phase. By 2014, it officially opened doors to customers, and since then, the monthly recurring revenue has skyrocketed by over 1600%. As a SaaS company with long-term contracts for recurring business services, it can anticipate continuous growth with relatively high accuracy.
Given the recent acceleration in growth, it perceives sustained year-over-year growth in the mid-double-digits for the foreseeable future, even without investing in marketing or sales efforts, acquiring smaller streaming providers, or forming strategic partnerships. This growth projection is solely based on the current organic growth trajectory.
Conventional Methods Lead to the Surge
Around a decade into its operations, Lightcast.com observed a significant surge in growth when it adopted traditional strategies of marketing. Although, customer referrals and organic search traffic initially drove steady growth with solid long-term customers. When looking back, the company realizes some strategies that could have been implemented earlier. It is also quite evident that when the company started in 2010, it was the first of its kind to provide end-to-end OTT solutions for the mid-market. The market needed time to mature. The startups and media producers in the mid-market needed to develop before becoming potential customers for the company.
Considering the same, the recent acceleration in Lightcast.com’s growth over the past three years can be attributed to a combination of timing and the implementation of online marketing initiatives. It was an invasion of increased public awareness of Over The Top (OTT) and multiplatform distribution, a maturing market of content creators and media publishers, and strategic marketing efforts.
The Right Entrepreneur
Andreas believes an entrepreneur has a passion for the solutions he/she offers to the clients. He has a deep sense of responsibility toward society and the greater good. In terms of daily operations, entrepreneurs listen attentively, assess, and absorb insights from various stakeholders: mentors, investors, customers, and employees. These groups serve as valuable focus groups, offering feedback and input crucial for refining and enhancing products, services, systems, and processes.
Enduring Wins
Lightcast.com embodies a tenacious determination and enduring resilience, akin to that of a pitbull. Over the past decade, the prevailing term has been sustainability, and in this regard, sustainability lies at the core of its enduring success. The company didn’t set out to become an overnight sensation to quickly exit at inflated valuations. Its vision is to provide service to customers for many decades to come. In a sense, the company is anti-inflationary, prioritizing intrinsic value, robust underlying technology, and long-term sustainability. Given the choice between explosive growth within 12 months or consistent and sustainable growth over 12 years, it would opt for the latter without hesitation every single time.
Trust and Communication
Lightcast.com is a small micro-multinational company with small offices and teams spread across various locations. It has learned the importance of establishing effective processes, fostering open communication, and cultivating a strong sense of trust. With multiple teams and offices, and a significant number of young hires, the structure naturally necessitated a high level of trust in the employees long before the remote work trend was conceptualized in 2020. As it became mandatory to implement remote-working practices since the inception of the company over a decade ago, it provided the company with a slight advantage. The employees understand that they have a considerable degree of autonomy and play a vital role in shaping the company and its future.
The company has never opted for external capital and avoids the formation of a large board comprising external figures that dictate decisions. It refrains from selling to investors or leveraging others’ influence and networks for personal gain. It has consistently prioritized the employees and customers as the most significant stakeholders. In this regard, the company is constructed appreciably as compared to the typical model of tech startups.
A Feather in the Cap
Lightcast.com is perpetually expanding its flagship software service, the Lightcast “Media Cloud”®, an award-winning media management and distribution system. The development pipeline is brimming with innovative features and functionalities for the Media Cloud® that it knows its customers will appreciate. These enhancements encompass additional automation features for media workflows, new monetization capabilities, and expansions of Analytics Suite within the Media Cloud®.
Through collaboration with MEGASTREAM for app framework development, Lightcast.com has access to numerous new app templates and feature sets that the company is eager to integrate into the Media Cloud®. Moreover, it is getting ready to launch the next evolution of the real-time App Builder and other real-time app controls within the Media Cloud® throughout this year. The company is expanding the global Content Delivery Network (CDN) infrastructure to accommodate the significant surge in demand for streaming media. The influx of new publishers and brands joining the company, and the remarkable audience growth of publishers worldwide.
It will be integrating several new major CDNs, adding over 30 new data centers and 70,000 additional streaming servers globally. This expansion will bolster its presence and distribution across North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Africa. The number of data centers and streaming servers to deliver content to viewers on all devices is increasing. The company is enhancing automated live-stream distribution to all major social media platforms to achieve a new level of cutting-edge efficiency.
Innovation and Customer Loyalty
Lightcast.com has cultivated strong, long-standing relationships with customers. The customers are considered the supporters of the company. These relationships and the support and feedback of the most important customers are more valuable to the company than dollars from investors.
The company prioritizes listening to its customers. It understands the customers’ challenges, needs, goals, and requirements—and adapts to the development roadmap accordingly. While the company boasts exceptional teams fueled by innovation, the customers need to dictate the priorities. No matter how groundbreaking an idea or technology may be, its value lies in its ability to solve a problem and deliver sufficient value to customers. Therefore, the decision-making process is straightforward: it blends innovative ideas with customer requests and feedback.
