Martin Macmillan

🎥 HBO Releases Full Episodes for Seasons 1-8 of ‘Last Week Tonight With John Oliver’ on YouTube In a noteworthy development, HBO has taken a strategic shift in releasing full episodes from its catalogue of John Oliver's hit show onto YouTube. At first glance, this might seem unconventional for the premium cable network as YouTube is a direct competitor to its streaming service MAX, but it’s a savvy business move that reflects broader industry trends. Content owners like HBO are increasingly leveraging platforms like YouTube and TikTok to tease their premium offerings. By dropping full episodes online for free, they aim to entice viewers by driving traffic, viewership, and subscriptions to their services. This approach can effectively convert casual viewers into paying subscribers. However, this strategy carries its inherent risks. There's a delicate balance between attracting new subscribers on a third party platform like YouTube and potentially cannibalizing the existing viewership on their primary platform. The success of such initiatives ultimately depends on how effectively they can convert free viewers into committed subscribers without diluting the perceived value of their premium service. As professionals in the media and entertainment industry, this move by HBO offers us a fascinating case study in strategic content deployment. How do you think this will play out for HBO and the industry at large?

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There has to be a fair and transparent process to any change to taxes and a coherent plan for the future. Unfreezing fuel duty would raise £3bn to absolutely dwarf these taxes on ambition and value creation. And benefit the environment.

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DULCEDO Management bought Node App for $13M. This marks Dulcedo’s 5th acquisition since 2016. Let's break it down... ---SELLER: Node--- • AI-powered influencer marketing platform • Mission = bridge gap between small businesses and micro-influencers • Founded 2019 by Armin Faraji, Mackenzie Dérival ✌🏾 • Initially focused on restaurants, expanded to ecom brands • Focuses on Instagram, TikTok campaigns • 2021 raised $1M seed round from Techstars, Alchemist, strategic angels ---TECH OVERVIEW: Node App--- • In 2022 selected for Google for Startups Accelerator program • Pioneered a machine-learning technology to revolutionize agency workflows by improving influencer discovery and data reporting • “Creators can participate in brand campaigns in 3 clicks via Node, as opposed to pitching/negotiating with brands” • “Brands can create a campaign and begin interacting with influencers within 5-10 min of landing on Node's website” ---PERFORMANCE HIGHLIGHTS: Node App--- • Over 2,000 clients across North America • Generated “tens of millions of social media impressions” • Clients incl Kraft, Samsonite, Jarritos, St-Regis, Marriott • Has activated 5,000+ content creators in campaigns • Creators include A-list models, elite athletes, actors, social influencers • During pandemic scaled from 30 to 800 brands five months ---BUYER: Dulcedo Group--- • Global talent mgmt and digital marketing agency • 4 divisions – Models, Sports, Gaming, Influencer • Offices in Montreal and Toronto • Founded 2008 by CEO Karim Leduc • 3 co-owners incl founder • 70+ team members ---M&A HISTORY: Dulcedo Group--- • 2022 acquired C4G, a startup esports marketing agency • 2016 acquired 4249, an influencer relations agency • 2023 acquired Influence + All Management • 2023 acquired Sundae Creative Agency • 2024 acquired Node ---DEAL DETAILS--- • $13M purchase price • No other details were disclosed ---DEAL VALUE PROP--- • Give Node added funding, resources for growth • Access to Dulcedo's 300M network following  • Access to Dulcedo’s diverse creator roster to support IM campaigns across various industries • Accelerate development of AI-enabled tools to enhance the IM campaign lifecycle ---POST DEAL OPS--- • Dulcedo CEO will serve as interim Node CEO • Node co-founder Armin Faraji moves to COO • Node co-founder Mackenzie Dérival remains as CPO ---WHAT ELSE I FIND INTERESTING--- I'll write more about the deal in my Friday newsletter. I'll estimate Node's revenue and EBITDA, and discuss valuation multiples and likely deal structure. Signup link in comments below 👇 -- I'm the founder of RockWater Industries. We do M&A and strategy advisory for media, agencies, and creator economy. My DMs are open.

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This free 14-page preview—practically a whole issue from those other guys—is still available. Read the preview and plan your purchase of The Big Burn!

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"In the hierarchy of warm intros, if you can get through an investor's portfolio founder, that is probably the most warm referral that an investor can take". Anthony Joyce-Rivera, founder of Vokamancy and I were talking about EasyVC and shared this great piece with me from Underscore VC's podcast, Startup Secrets, with their General Partner Lily Lyman talking about a golden nugget that took me years of fundraising to learn: Aim for warm intros. Fundraising is about a numbers game and building trust. 1) A Numbers Game: As Lily mentions, you need to build a list of +50 investors that you have to target for your funding round to start. This means you'll get many No's until that "Yes". 2) Build Trust: Investors get 100 cold emails a day from founders telling them they're the next Steve Jobs. YOU need to stand out, and that comes from working on your network. At EasyVC, 1) Our AI builds a short list of investors for you based on your startup description so you don't have to do the heavy lifting ✅, and 2) Every investor in the platform has a list with all their portfolio founders, and their contact info, so you can connect with them and get warm intros✅. Forget about magic wands and intermediaries promising you a VC deal. Work on your network. #fundraising #venturecapital #entrepreneurship #startup

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Thanks Jon Walsh unsurprising to see lots of diverse opinions 🙂. That’s the one constant in this whole debacle. With or without Google, directionally the world is progressing to “privacy as a feature, not an obstacle”, and the end-goal must be a cookieless world and a privacy-first approach by the entire adtech ecosystem.  #InGamePlay #ingameadvertising #Privacy  #AdTech  #DataPrivacy #cookies AdInMo

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In New York for fantastic investor pitches organised by London & Partners. It has been really exciting to bring our AI technology and skills to NY. HOWEVER, this post is to share a summary from a brilliant keynote by Amy Kalokerinos AKalaid which has ten key insights that all non-US companies should address before moving to the US: 1. Product market fit outside of the US does not mean it will work in the US. Tip: Partnering with a local company that has a strong base in the US is a good short cut. 2. Sales people are coin-operated, meaning they need to have all the sales material in place before they start. This includes a CRM, Analytics, Ability to A/B test, and most importantly one single brilliant deck. 3. Separated by a common language. Having a UK spelling in comms or a deck is a mistake. Localize the spell check! Brits are humble, but that doesn't work in US start ups or sales for a more agressive and competitive environment. 4. Meetings Non-US meetings might chat for an hour about personal lives, family but not get to business. This is weird in the US. Stick to 10 mins pleasantries [I'd say 5 !] and then focus on why the meeting is happening, and what the outcomes should be. 5. Hire local It's tempting to send a rep, but hiring local with proven connections is the way to go, even though it will be more expensive. 6. Sales Channels The UK uses email for 30-40% of sales comms, but the US is an omnichannel market using phone, social media, LinkedIn, conferences and warm intros, and increasingly live chat on your websites, *but* control the volume across each channel to optimise. 7. Add value to all customer interactions Default to Speeds and Feeds. Listen to customer problems, and add value such as giving a white paper, insights, invites to an event. Become a great value-add partner over and above what you're selling. 8. Time to respond. The average time to respond to a sales lead in the UK is 47 hours. In New York, this is one hour. At most! 9. If a sales person is not performing, let them go. Make the overseer of the sales person is American, as the UK managers are likely to take much longer to fire an underperformer. Tip: NYC is the sales capital of the US, and with many redundancies there are more people on the market than usual. 10. Marketing owns the message, and Sales owns the relationship. A start-up often doesn't focus on getting the marketing right for two years after starting. Needs to be much sooner! Michal Marcinik, Oana Andreea Jinga, Kaushal Shah, Timo P Kunz 🎧, Serge Milbank, Tunde Ogundipe, Phil Westcott, Joshua Wöhle, Simon Hicks, Jeremy Brassington, Dami Hastrup, Jorge Muñoz, Juan Crosby, Gauthier Van Malderen, Gori Yahaya Laura Citron OBE Amrit Kang Richa Ghai Chauhan #Startupsuccess #Salesforstartups #Entrepreneurswhoscale

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Yikes! A book about the Metaverse that I actually understand. It's Xsolla founder Shurick Agapitov laying out a future that would clearly benefit his company (e-commerce, web stores etc), but this is worth a closer look. Full disclosure, I read Once Upon Tomorrow to understand more about the force behind a company we will be doing things with thanks to Berkley Egenes, David Stelzer and Christopher Meredith but, honestly, it surprises me this book hasn't been publicised more, at least in the games biz, but also applies to music and beyond. It’s the best business quick-read I have come across since Leaders Eat Last by Simon Sinek and, from a games perspective, Game Over by David Sheff.  Thirty years ago, Sheff pulled no punches ( ‘How Nintendo Zapped an American Industry, Captured Your Dollars, and Enslaved Your Children’) and neither does Agapitov. Once Upon Tomorrow looks to a de-centralised future very different to the walled gardens of Apple, Alphabet, Meta, Spotify etc. It’s a personal manifesto that the author thinks we should all sign up for and profit from.  Forget everything you think you know about the Internet and start again, basically.

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Understanding AppLovin In the latest episode of the Mobile Dev Memo podcast, I present a long-form analysis of AppLovin's business and its significant recent growth. But understanding AppLovin the company is fundamentally predicated on understanding the market in which it operates, mobile games advertising, and the direct response digital advertising landscape more broadly. And so the podcast is structured in three parts: - Understanding direct response advertising - Understanding mobile gaming advertising - Understanding AppLovin’s growth Link below.

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Brilliant to be taking to independent agencies and explain how they never need to lose a pitch every again, by using the SQREEM AI tech stack.

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I think this is right Danny; to add true value in an LLM-ubiquitous economy, you have to build products that leverage LLM functionality but go far beyond for (increasinly narrow) use-cases. We are building a highly flexible tech-stack that leverages multiple LLMs (and can easily hot-swap) in a way that demonstrates compelling content now but is componentized for the future.

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