Hey!Spread helps any producer to publish and track videos on different platforms. I invite you to read the interview I had with him. Hey!spread is evolving in the same space as Tubemogul, Divinitymetrics and Visible measures.
Thomas Owadenko: Hello, in a few lines, please introduce yourself (name, age…) and your track record?
Eric Fontaine: My name is Eric Fontaine. I am 30 years old. I did all my studies in Marketing and Strategy. Before launching my own company, I worked at Universal Music Group International and the mobile phone department for 5 years.
TO: When was your company launched and where is it located?
EF: Hey!Spread was launched in July 07. We are in located in Marseille, in the South of France.
TO: Why did you launch it and what is its mission?
EF: Actually, we always try to develop tools that can help people do everything video-realted as easily as possible. And we do it pretty well through our two services Hey!Watch, our video encoding web service, and of course Hey!Spread. On the one hand, video is the trendiest medium on the web and online video platforms pop up like mushrooms. And on the other hand, people are becoming video web producers and want to create the buzz around their video content. Unfortunately, spreading their content over all the platforms is something very boring and time consuming. That’s how Hey!Spread was born. From now on, promoting your video content over the best video portals can be done in one shot. Easy, efficient and quick.
TO: What are the strengths of your products?
EF: Actually, we do not only distribute content. We promote it and allow our client to highlight their video creations. We propose many innovative options like watermarking, encoding, real time monitoring, cross-posting, credentials-checking, job-restarting… All thees features optimize the distribution. It’s not a closed or blind service. The user is almighty. Besides, as we do for all our products, we propose an API. That way, companies can integrate Hey!Spread as a white label and offer it as a new feature. They can spread from one platform to another. It’s very successful.
TO: How many people work in your company?
EF: We are two founders. I, Chief Business Officer and Bruno Celeste, Chief Technical Officer. When there is a peak of activity, we hire external people.
TO: Who are your clients?
EF: We have many different clients. Live streaming video platforms, online video portals, User Generated Content websites, Web agencies and individuals. Actually, most of our clients combine our two services to have a global and powerful video tool.
TO: Why did they choose you?
EF: The main words that we heard are Flexibility, Reliability and Reactivity. Even if we are a small team, we do not need to sleep a lot. We want to be available for our clients at any time. We do not only want to provide tools. We also want to work closely with them to make their project successful. Proposing a good tool is not sufficient, people need human relationships too.
TO: What is your turnover?
EF: We have not closed our first year of activity, so we can’t provide that information.
TO: Who are your competitors?
EF: Actually, we do not have “real” competitors. I mean our tool was thought out for integration as a white label. Both Hey!Spread and Hey!Watch are technical and business enabler tools. Some other services propose the distribution of content, but only through their interface. We want to free our clients from any technical prison.
TO: SEO and Video ? Myth or reality?
EF: As video content is like text or images, we need to find it. But the way it is right now things are still a little confusing. You can use many methods to find videos, like classic search engines or directly on a well-known video portal like YouTube. The main problem is the same with the text 10 years ago: Relevance.
TO: What do you think about Google universal and how it should be?
EF: Google is a company that impresses. How can one not be impressed by two men building an empire based on free tools and Ads. Actually, they invented the current most used business model. The only problem is what is great for Google is not the same for all. Free is not a business model at all. I am sure that too many small companies suffer from this philosophy that everything must be free on the Web. So, each time the same story, you raise funds, propose a free service hoping you will have huge traffic and wait to be bought. I hate this idea.
TO: Did you raise money? How much and who invested or do you plan to raise?
EF: We are self-funded and very proud of it. We are often approached by VC’s but we want to be independent. We make money, we like our clients and they trust us. We keep the good work.
TO: What are the “top 3″ priorities for your company in the coming year?
EF: We are working a new version of Hey!Watch. We will develop 2 new services this year. We are currently negotiating some nice partnerships.
