(Re)inventing Television - A Brief History of the Brief History of Philo
In 2010 I conceived, built, financed, and launched a social television platform called Philo. It let TV viewers use their mobile phones and laptops to connect and interact with programming and other viewers. Philo and its brethren kicked-off the social TV revolution. Ultimately, the original product failed and I pivoted and sold the company, but not before the television viewing experience was forever changed.
I waited almost three years to finally put some thoughts down on this experience so forgive me if the facts are a little fuzzy. Sometimes it’s best to get your thoughts down right away. And sometimes it’s better to put some space in between the experience and the post mortem. In the case of both of my first two startups, I needed time to recuperate. Rested, recovered, and reflective… here goes….
[[MORE]]“It’s Otis! Otis Loves Us!”
“Check-in for TV?” was the subject of the email I sent to my CTO-to-be on December 13, 2009. I was watching Animal House for the millionth time and after the “Otis” allusion in the email’s first line, I continued…. “TV check-in…. I’d like that…. Lots of bizdev opps…. This could replace Nielsen.” And thus the seed for Philo was planted. For most of the three years prior I had been slogging away on my first startup, a gifting company called Tigerbow. It had become clear that Tigerbow was going nowhere with customers and investors and I needed a new idea. Philo was it. It blended my passion for digital media and television and it was clear to me that the nearly $200 billion global television industry was on the cusp of radical transformation.
To vet the idea I did a high-level search for comparable digital products. After all, people were already using social media to talk about television in real-time, but the process was cumbersome and consequently added limited value to the viewer’s experience. The search yielded little so even if there were available platforms, they had not gone mainstream thus the opportunity persisted.
Next, I lobbied my dearest friend from college, who had emerged as one of Hollywood’s most prolific reality TV show producers. He understood the television business better than anyone I knew and had close relationships with all of the television networks and production companies. He soon quit his lucrative TV production job and my CTO quit his comfortable software development position to join me in creating Philo (named, appropriately, after Philo Farnsworth, who is credited with inventing the television in the early 20th century).
There was little to build from (other than check-in apps in other verticals like Foursquare in location) as social TV was barely a term let alone an industry. And I had never really built my own digital product from scratch so had zero experience with writing a product specification for developers. As a result, I spent the next several days (and nights) meticulously drawing out by hand each screen of Philo’s mobile application and fitting together the puzzle of how the user experience would flow. While my CTO holed up and coded our application to that specification, I began to woo investors, many of whom I had grown to know during my previous startup. Within a few months we had investors committed and a working prototype. We launched Philo to the public in May 2010.
“[Re]inventing Television.”
Watching television is an inherently social activity, making it the subject of much of office water cooler conversation. So we set out to build a dead simple application that would unleash and encourage that activity by helping viewers find something to watch, share and invite friends to watch together, and interact with other viewers and programming. We built Philo to cater to every viewer’s needs. Philo’s mobile application featured a complete television schedule, recommendations for popular and trending shows, and chatrooms for every show on air. We mitigated the “empty room” dilemma by partnering with networks and production companies to throw virtual viewing parties, often with the participation of celebrity talent on Philo’s platform. We were striving to make watching television without Philo comparable to watching television with the sound off. We were striving to make Philo an indispensable component of the television viewing experience.
Initially, the television networks were supportive. After all, among their biggest issues was the erosion of live viewership (where networks earn the bulk of their revenue) resulting from DVR and over-the-top television. Turning each viewer into a promotional vehicle for their shows by encouraging them to share what they were watching via Facebook and Twitter (with the help of Philo) was a no cost, viral, and effective marketing strategy. Empirical evidence was already beginning to show a correlation between social media activity and ratings. In theory, networks later would gain the ability to pay Philo to promote relevant shows to relevant viewers via sponsored recommendations. Considering networks spend more money promoting shows than creating shows, a Philo success story would make for a network television promotional bonanza.
But Philo Failed.
Philo did not succeed for three reasons. First, our execution was sloppy. In attempting to deliver to the user everything we believed the viewer wanted, we made a critical error in product development by trying to pack in too many features. The product just was not simple or elegant enough. As CEO, the product was a direct reflection of my vision and my product vision was flawed. (In contrast, one of our competitor’s products began with only a single function: share what you are watching.)
Second, we did not have the right team in place. After launch, it became evident that our technology team was not the right one to build the platform we needed to support a large viewing audience. Worse, I felt like our technical leadership did not take ownership of the product, company, successes, or failures. But as CEO, my job was to rectify that immediately. Eventually I replaced our entire tech team with a top notch group - a process that included bringing one fleeting CTO who, in effect, fired our original tech team only to quit days before he was to start in the office (which made for one helluva weekend and board meeting and one helluva story for another post). But I had waited too long to make the changes, which had significant negative impacts on team morale, product, and overall execution.
Third, and finally, it turns out that viewers did not need a separate application for blending social media and television. Facebook and, especially, Twitter were more than enough to satisfy viewers’ needs. And with installed bases of hundreds of millions or more, not only were the social media giants more important to television networks, but the user experience itself was remarkably enhanced by the participation of so many people. Philo, and ultimately its competitors, could not effectively compete.
#SocialTVToday
Roughly half a year after Philo’s launch and after the realization that television viewers were content to use Facebook and Twitter to interact with programming, I made the difficult decision to scrap Philo’s consumer product and focus my newly hired tech team on using parts of our platform to build a product to help networks reach out to viewers with content and offers. Before we completed that product, I orchestrated the sale of Philo to a social advertising platform, which gave my team a new home and our investors some skin in the game in the form of stock in a new company.
Philo itself did not become the indispensable companion to television viewing that I had hoped. But Philo’s social television experiment was part of a much bigger movement that persists #today.