So, Andrea, thank you so much for taking the time to do this podcast with you. I really appreciate it. And I remember I met you maybe seven years ago. You know, you were leading the North American team of Deltatre. We just started working with a common customer, BritBox. You know, I was quite impressed and really glad to see you took the CEO position in your mid-30s. And you lead a team of 1,000 experts at Deltatre and worked with several leading brands across the globe. So the other thing about Andrea is that you worked at various cities across the globe. So a lot of international experience. Welcome to the show and really appreciate you taking your time. And please add to the listeners, and I’m sure I missed a few interesting pieces of what you’re back there. And so feel free to add.
Thanks a lot for having me. It’s a pleasure. It’s a very nice initiative. I’m calling actually and connecting with Torino in Italy. That is my hometown. And this is where one of the main hubs of Deltatre are, or at least where it all started 38 years ago. But yes, as you said, I’ve been a little bit all around the world. And we met when I was living in Los Angeles. I still travel too much, the more they would like. But yes, now I’m in Italy and very happy to be home.
Awesome. The BritBox was really a great store, and we helped them grow to various countries across the globe and providing them value in terms of expanding their business. And you want to share some data on that?
Sure. So BritBox is one of our longest standing customer from an OTT perspective. Obviously, we have customers that are with us since 38 years, but on another side of the business, in the sport business, OTT was not born yet. BritBox is one of our favorite customers. It’s an incredible platform, self-sustainable. So, I mean, it’s public. They do very, very well. In this moment where a lot of streamers and broadcasters and media are under pressure to be profitable and generate money, I think they are a good example to follow for all the industry. They have a top level team. The guys are really good there. I think one data that, again, is public and is really impressive is in the past four years, the subscriber has been growing of 300%. It’s an incredible number. We’ve been part of the journey with you as one of the people that work really well together. We’re having a good partnership. It really makes the difference.
That’s a great point. And 300% in four years, building a self-sustainable business, a profitable business is not easy. It’s a it’s an exception to the rule. It really speaks to the value we both provide. And from our perspective, you know, enabling them to roll out to other countries, you know, they run to Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, and the Nordics. Each country is a different market. The pricing, promotions, and what they work in one country and may not work in other countries, that’s kind of the flexibility we bring at Evergent. And then in your case, it’s really you’re, you know, handling a lot of the video side of things and the application side of things from BritBox, and together. So really giving that nimbleness and ability to change based on market and what we brought them and, you know, helping them out in the world. It’s a fantastic case study for both of us and also a fantastic team. You know, they’re really innovative team at BritBox. They really know focusing on their product and what’s important for their users, focusing on the content and the user experience, and then picking the best people to come and help them in the area. So we both work with large players across the globe, some of them billion-dollar companies, and we often run into teams that are debating, do I want to build this? Historically, they may have been building certain things. And I know you engaged personally with the C-suite of these companies, and I do the same. And those are all tricky conversations we both have. And so maybe we can share some experience on the pros and cons, and given the current environment, and everybody is wanting to do their beatboxes in terms of rotating the product with the team. What are those conversations like?
So this is actually a big topic for us, a big topic in the industry and in the area of the industry where we sit in, let’s say the front end, the streaming front end and overall the video back bond. It is also one of the services that we provide. We are now in a phase where what we think is happening is that a lot of these giant media, also small, medium, but also the very big ones are actually looking outside on the market, looking at companies like yours, like mine and others and saying like, can these guys help in providing a better product in a cost efficient, effective way? The famous do more for less. Again, it’s all about efficiency. The previous phase was exactly the opposite where instead they were internalizing a lot. So we were with our team flexibility to what we were doing. So we are in a very nice position, I will say, because we can give you a piece of what we do or our tech stack. Like you can take Viva, our video player, you can take Axis, our contest indication layer, and you can integrate it into your OTT, or you can just take Volt, our entire platform and plug Evergent and have a ready to go solution. As you know, from the sport world, we do a lot in sport. Now we do more in media if you want in terms of revenue, but we come from sport and in sport, I think that happens. And some cycles before. So at a certain point, the big sport properties, they realized that they needed to focus on content, the sport itself and some others KPI they did. So they hired a company like us to build their tech. And I think we have seen the same in the media. I’m not sure if you’re seeing the same, but I guess yes.
Yeah, definitely. I think we’re, you know, I really liked what you outlined there, your modular approach. And with these customers, you know, what are the gaps where they’re struggling? And we take similar approach in going and helping them, initially at least, you know, where the gaps are. And we’re seeing the same trend, you know. We’re talking about sports. Sometimes we find that they don’t plan for success. You know, they started internalizing. They wanted to launch something. And they weren’t quite sure. In some cases, okay, they started like a hobby because this was not a mainstream business. And some of them, we found that quickly it took off. And then scaling became an issue. Scaling and flexibility, right? You know, then you saw well-known examples of people trying to log in and they couldn’t, and people were trying to buy things and they couldn’t. And so that’s another aspect, you know, two aspects, you know. Scaling in terms of business complexity, scaling in sheer numbers. So we saw in both cases, you know, companies struggle. And one journey we started with a customer of ours 10 years ago. They started as a hobby. They’re in cricket. You know, cricket is quite popular in India. It’s an amazing team. We worked with Sony for the last 10 years. When they started, they didn’t know how big this could become. They said, okay, let’s find the best guys to come and help us. And we helped them. Sometimes we have 10 million people come in five minutes to watch a cooking game. And India is, you know, it’s a small country. So, again, the scale, both in terms of business complexity, the type of products they want to roll out, is it going to be per game, per season? How do you handle seasonality? So this is where I think some of these providers, the smart ones, they’re realizing that, hey, let’s work with the best players. And really focus on the product. They’re definitely seeing the same trend.
Yeah, we just need to… Cricut is some, and it was, the numbers were incredible. It was our first season, I mean, with a partner, and the numbers are much growing. And scalability is something I didn’t mention, and it’s a key part. And as we presented last year, our new platform, Volt, we adjusted this year. And one of the key selling points is that it’s going to grow with you. So I think we are the only one in the market that can really go from, if you want a niche streamer, to a giant with the same platform. You don’t have to replatform to rebuild and so on. Flexibility is very important. And then what you just said on the safe pair of hands, I mean, if people cannot buy, and you can do all the planning and the concept and the night visual of the world, but people cannot buy, or like if the stream doesn’t work, then it’s the same. So again, I go back to the point of, well, I think we work really, well, I think a strong partnership before even we engage with the clients, I think really made the difference for the success of our clients.
That’s a really good point. I sum it up, it’s like planning for success. You’re here today, but do you have a partner that can actually, three years from now, let’s say you do a 10X, can your partner service that? And with Deltatre having the experience of nearly 40 years, and we’re not as long, but we have similar customers, and having service large-scale customers across the globe, we definitely bring that comfort and, hey, when you succeed beyond your dreams, we’re there with you, so you don’t have to go. And also the pricing scales were in both of our cases, right? And our interest in aligning with the customer, as they succeed, we succeed along with them. So it’s important. And I’m sure we’re seeing a lot of attention these days, sustainable business, profitable business. And then, so what are you seeing in that area of the pressure to become profitable? Money has become tight. We all know that. We’re interested in what’s going to happen. Can you share some experiences there?
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Hopefully it’s not going to come down, but I think we have to wait. Still a little bit, but yeah, I think if we talk about streaming, as you know, we also do website and website, we have more than 300 properties. So I think like I use the example of website because I think something similar is happening on the OTT that a few years ago, many years ago, everyone needed to have a website and a very beautiful one. So they were spending a lot of money. Then it became a little bit commoditized. Then people are starting to extract a real value out of it. So it’s a last that you need to have. It needs to be beautiful. It needs to be cost efficient and it needs to help you reach your goals, whether user information or whatever. On the OTT, I think we are seeing the same. A few years ago, there was a need to do OTT. We have been one of the first, you have been one of the first and people didn’t really know how to do it. So there were huge amount of capital going in and so on. The time is shrinking. So if we think of the amount of money that has been invested in the broadcast industry is incredible. But the period of time was significantly longer than the one on the OTT. We are getting to the same results in terms of quality and reliability. That’s impressive. But I think now we are in the phase where several people can do it. Few people can do it really well. Then there is a big gap. And I think where we have been working a lot in the past two years and there’s been. Painful exercise, to be honest, has been on focusing on really being cost-effective. So being able to deliver the same quality to the top client, but also to the medium and the smaller one, then hopefully we uphold the old and become huge. But having the ability to send the smallest industry, every size, every cost, and every budget is what we believe is going to make a difference in the next 12, 18 months.
Awesome. Another topic of interest is something we learned when we started working with the NBA, really about fan engagement and personalization. And this was a bit of a surprise to me that two-thirds of the fans are outside the U.S. We don’t have any countries for them. I didn’t know that before we started working with the NBA. So the importance of maybe, you know, you’ve been in sports a lot longer, working with many different sports, you know, teams, leagues, et cetera. What are you seeing the importance of in the area of fan engagement and personalization of content? And even using things like AI, generative AI, and so maybe you can, from the various benefits, you can share insights.
Yeah, let’s go. Obviously, it’s a massive area of focus for us, both personalization and the use of AI. And I start from AI. We just had our AI comedy this morning, so I’m fresh about it. If you remove a lot of the bugs, everything is going to be automated. We replace all the development. It is absolutely not true. I think in our world, the biggest drivers are efficiency. That’s a fact. If you do it well, there are some areas where you have incredible efficiency, like documentation. But that’s a bit boring, if you want. It’s very practical and take a side on where we really see big innovation is in the ability to hyper-personalize the content. So, obviously, a huge amount of data coming from you, coming from other providers, coming from the big tech. And if we are able to take this data, massage it properly, and feed it into our front-end, our apps, and with the player, then we can really create an experience that matters for the user and makes the difference. At the end of the day, they will have a better experience. They will spend more time and everyone will be happy. So, I think in the next, again, 12, 18 months, personalization is going to be king. A lot of people are talking about spending time searching for something on Netflix or Amazon, even if you have this huge amount of content. I need that resolved. We are quite advancing. We are serving the right content to the right audience. So, that’s an area for sure. The other area is the ability to interact. And I think it’s important that it’s maximized. So, easy years, probably. 607 that we offer the possibility of choosing the stream, choosing the camera, choosing the audio, but it was really expensive. I think now we are getting to the possibility of having the final user more at the center, like being his own director or her own coach by creating really an experience where you need to process a lot of data and that is where AI is driving efficiency and opening possibilities.
Those are some great insights, and I think I agree with you. Personalization and user experience is really key to creating customer value. I mean, it’s getting them hooked. And you spoke about the data. So, again, the importance of data. It’s nothing if you don’t have the underlying data to guide the AI, right? So, again, on our side, we’ve been fortunate to know over the years, for 16 years we’ve been in the business, we onboarded over 800 million users across the globe, 100 million countries. So we have a lot of data. There are two areas where our customers find it for value, right? And then we provide value using the data and the AI on top of it. It’s really our joint customers have two big problems. One is onboard as many as usual as possible. And how do you make it easy to get them onboarded, right? So that you don’t have to offer 20 products when they come to your door, right? And what’s the right product to offer? And it’s, again, a lot of data. What helps us, we’re doing a lot of innovation in that area. Another thing is once they’re onboard, how do you keep them? So there’s eliminating new voluntary channel, new voluntary channel. Again, a lot of innovation. We are fortunate because we have the data to guide, to predict the right product on the acquisition side, even like promotion. So I agree with you. I think data is the key. And how you use the data. I asked the right question. Do we AI, do we create business around you to our customer?
Yeah.
And so the next topic is, what are you seeing in terms of, I know your Deltatre is constantly innovating and expanding your value footprint for your customers, having been in the business for nearly 40 years. So what are some of the things you guys are working on, innovation and potential areas for value creation for our joint customers?
So to give you also some data, we spent is two, three years that we spent between 10 and 50% of our revenue in CapEx, in R&D. So pure R&D. So we are investing on the high side of the industry. We do a lot of different things. So I will say for us, the most exciting things are everything that you are doing, again, around the hyper-personalization. I really believe that soon we are going to interact with our streaming platform in a different, more efficient way from the advertisement. That’s a big problem. None of us, but advertisement, the more contextualized and proper to what you’re watching, because also that can be a tool to really the ability to choose the content, participate in pools, like make the experience really relevant for every fans, seamless across every device and so on. We are investing a lot on the services that we do also around the sport events. So the other side of the business, one big thing for us is ESG. So when you have soccer match, you have all these bands going to the stadium and all these people and all this electricity. So now we have been asked by most of our clients to don’t send them anymore, the bands. So everything is remote and we have cloud all the operation. That’s an area where we are investing a lot. VAR. In the one we do for the Bundesliga is fully remote. So that’s very exciting for us and is a direct impact also on the world we live in. So is something that I found very interesting to be, obviously the things that excite me the most together with the hyper-personalization and the ability to use real time analytics to drive experience of the fan. That’s what, where we are investing most of our time.
Awesome. I think the first time I met you, right. I figured, you know, you’re an entrepreneur at heart. And in the past year, I wrote a reward. I think, you know, I know your dad was an entrepreneur, right? It’s a-
Yeah.
And so I know you’re one of the, I guess, executives in this business and then you lead a global team of thousand plus people. You know, I think either what gets you excited when you come to work every day and what you find kind of most invigorating when we could share-
Yeah. First of all, thank you. Yes. And my father was one of the founders of Deltatre. And fun enough, I am the same age of the Deltatre. So I, is my elder sister. I grew up with her. And one of the challenges is, let’s start from the challenges is for sure removing a bit of the emotions. So, I mean, the emotions are good. Passion is good and all of a sudden, but at the end of the day, you run a business, you have a responsibility of other people. So you need to be lucid and focused on like, this is not my thing. But, this is a thing that is an impact of the life of thousands of people. So that’s the thing, honestly, that I feel the most. And the entire always pose my center as a challenge to be able to the couple, if you want the entrepreneurial side to the managerial side. But then going back to passion, passion is good. The things that excites me the most of what we do is that we do things that are connected somehow to the passion and the dreams of people. So we’ve launched a quicker platform or you launch. I mean, most the kids spend time looking at it. So that’s really is me and emotion. I was speaking this weekend with some friends of my kids that were asking me, what do you do? And I remember when they were asking to my father, what he was doing was really complicated to explain. And then now I just say the name of one of the platform and they’re like, oh, wow. So that’s very emotional. That’s I think is for me, the best part of what we do is that is tangible and we deliver passion to the people. We build it up both outside and inside of the company. And I think is the same for you at the end of the day.
I appreciate you sharing that. And it wasn’t one of the primary questions I thought I’ll ask you anyways. It’s a-
Yeah, it has. Okay.
Make it a bit more personal. I can relate to many of the things you said, right? It’s really creating value for our customers. And you’re right. It’s kind of relatable. The subscription management and billing is one way to say it. The other way to say it is we help millions of fans of NBA, you know, watch their games. It’s another way to say it, you know. So really, that gets me going in terms of taking care of customers across the globe, providing that value. And also seeing the team grow. We have many employees that have been with us for 15 plus years. And some of them started after college. And really seeing them grow to be executors and really gives me joy. So it can relate to many things you said. And I really appreciate you being part of the podcast. And anything else you want to share with the viewers?
No, really, thanks a lot. It’s a great initiative. I’m looking forward to seeing the other episodes and do more together.
Great. Awesome. Again, thanks again. I know you’re very, very busy, and so I appreciate you taking the time and sharing some of the insights, and I’m sure they’re super valuable and they really appreciate listening and watching to the podcast.
Thank you. Thanks a lot.