VideoJug & The $30,000,000 Answer

The article below has been written by Roi Carthy who is an Israeli-based startup consultant.

A few weeks ago I reviewed Israeli startup 5min.com in a post titled "5min & The $30,000,000 Question". In it I mentioned that the company's biggest competition is VideoJug.com which raised staggering $30M.

Doug Kamin, VideoJug's Chief Marketing Officer, was kind enough to offer CenterNetworks an interview so we can learn about the 800lbs gorilla of the DYI video space.

Roi: can you give us a bit of background on VideoJug?

Doug: The founders are David Tabizel and Dan Thompson. The site launched in September 2006, but we re-launched on June 4th, 2007. There are about 120 employees – split between London and Los Angeles.

Roi: Describe VideoJug in your own words.

Doug: It’s life explained – everything you need to know and things you want to know.

Roi: What was the initial premise?

Doug: The Wisdom Project was the original name. Basically they looked at the internet and thought – this could be more and that we all need a place to get the answers to all of life’s questions but also a place to share our personal wisdom.

Roi: Any noteworthy business development accomplishments?

Doug: We recently inked a syndication deal with MSN. You can read more about it, here. And just our sheer volume, we have 20k professionally produced videos on our site right now and we’re adding thousands more every month.

Roi: Why is your primary focus on production video as opposed to on UGC?

Doug: We do have UGC on our site as well. We encourage our community to submit their own personal wisdom and this will be more of a focus moving forward. But since we’re explaining life and using experts from every field to help convey this knowledge and wisdom, we need to maintain high standards for our videos.

Roi: Is your business model based on ad-revenue only?

Doug: It is an advertising supported model, but we don’t make users watch a commercial before watching our videos. We also have syndication deals with different portals and video sites. There will be many b2b applications that we’ll be rolling out in the near future as well.

Roi: By all accounts, $30M is a phenomenal sum for any startup to raise... What do you need some much money for?

Doug: VideoJug has raised money for the long-term: to develop great content, to create engaging community features, build our commercial operations. We are here for the long haul!

Roi: What should young startups entering this space know before they jump in the water?

Doug: Create something that you’re passionate about. Do it first or do it better.