Jalipo was founded in London as an online marketplace for TV and video content, allowing content owners to offer channels, video-on-demand, and live events directly to viewers worldwide using a unique pay-per-minute model. It gained £5M in funding and launched in 2007 with a variety of products and services. However, despite being innovative and technically advanced, Jalipo struggled to gain customers and ran out of funding, ultimately being acquired in 2008 as it failed to generate sufficient revenue from viewers.

1. Jalipo:
Build It and They Will Come
David Joyce
ThoughtWorks
Thursday, 6 October 2011

2. A New Idea
Jalipo, Ltd. was founded as online marketplace for TV and video content in London,
United Kingdom.
It let content owners use the internet to offer their channels, video-on-demand and live
events direct to viewers around the world.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

3. Micro Payments
Jalipo brought to market a completely new concept in the way on-line digital video
content could be efficiently traded and consumed.
In conjunction with a planned consumer video destination site, Jalipo planned to launch
a unique Pay Per Minute video viewing model, with J:Credits acting as a micro payment
system.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

4. Funding
Chris Deering, Former President of Sony Europe (the father of the playstation) as
Chairman.
Founders Alex Taylor (CEO) and Brent McNish (CTO) additional board members.
Jalipo gained VC funding of £5m from Artemis Investment Management.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

5. Products
Jalipo aimed to combine the latest advances in Flash video streaming and web 2.0
technologies with a range of innovations in rights management, syndication and media
monetisation, to turn the internet into a secure, open market for media distribution.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

6. Agile!
A small team (less than 5) had created early Betas of a player along containing limited
content to generate interest amongst content providers.
Once funding had been obtained the team ramped up to a peak Agile team of over 30
people.
• Product Owners (CEO, CTO, Product Managers)
• Iteration Manager / Coach
• Architect (who coded)
• .NET, UXD, and Flash Developers
• QAs (manual and automated)
• Creative Designers
Thursday, 6 October 2011

7. Agile and Kanban
A combination of Scrum, Kanban and XP adopted
• Fixed delivery date of 6 months defined, launch at MIP TV event in Cannes
• Inceptions session to create prioritised backlog and story map
• Scrum of Scrums product based teams
• Highly skilled (and expensive!) XP development staff hired
• Partnered with Agile testing company - full automation of front end/back end products
following Acceptance Test Driven Development
• Pairing across roles throughout the team
• CI (unit and acceptance tests), high unit test coverage, automated deployment,
replicated UAT environment
• Kanban adopted to deal with high volatility of changing requirements
Thursday, 6 October 2011

8. Long Form
Jalipo was to provide long form, high quality, content on the web for the first time.
Offering viewers a range of bandwidths to view content.
Yahoo! YouTube were concentrating on short form, low quality, user generated content.
Other video solutions e.g. Joost were providing long form via players installed on the
viewers machines.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

9. Long Form
This is absolutely not for
user-generated content.
If you were looking to put
us into the marketplace,
I would put us at the
other end of the market
to YouTube.
This is rights-protected,
territory-restricted and
monetized every minute.
Alex Taylor CEO
Thursday, 6 October 2011

10. Launch!
Custom Flash video player, content administration ‘Console’, Programme Guide site,
Credit Purchasing site, Business Intelligence reporting and corporate marketing site
were successfully delivered on time. Yay Agile!!!
Jalipo then launched on April 2007 at MIP TV Cannes.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

11. YouTube Killer!
Created a lot of buzz upon launch.
http://videos.webpronews.com/2007/04/17/jalipo-to-replace-youtube/
Thursday, 6 October 2011

12. Content Expanded
Thursday, 6 October 2011

13. Things were Looking Good
• Beta prototypes generated interest
• VC Funding obtained
• High profile chairman
• Innovative products
• Well engineered products, easily extendable
• Monetization strategy and revenue forecasts
• High level of interest and word of mouth industry buzz
• State of the art broadcast facilities built
• Expandable server farm built
• Company expanded; Finance, Marketing, Sales, Pre-Sales, IT Support, Help Desk,
Product Management, permanent development staff (rather than contract or partner).
• Offices purchased in West London ready for scaling of staff.
• Many content providers signing up; BBC, Sky, CNN, independent movie studios, live
football qualifiers, live boxing events.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

14. We Have Built It
Now they Will Come
Thursday, 6 October 2011

15. How Much Would YOU Invest?
Thursday, 6 October 2011

16. Warning Signs
All new viewers signing up received free credits, but the number of viewers purchasing
new credits is dwindling.
Live events are drawing in less than expected viewing numbers.
Major content providers are unconvinced model will work. Rumours of Hulu surface.
Other Ad funded video sites launch.
Unfavourable reviews and blog posts
We’re not convinced that a minute-by-minute
credit system is the right way to sell online
video. If the content is worth watching, it’s
probably worth watching till the end, and
should be sold as a complete offering. Jalipo’s
video quality is good, though compelling
content seems lacking.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

17. Advertising and Marketing
■ New marketing strategy devised.
■ An expensive advertising campaign is launched.
■ Google AdWords used.
■ Free Credits increased and period extended.
■ Product lines enhanced based on Product Managers ideas.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

18. Switching Gears
■ Sales force reduced.
■ In view advertising facility built.
■ Funding running out.
■ Development team reduced.
■ Product Development cycle begins again
■ New product ideas and prototypes built
■ Hunt for new investor begins.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

19. Jalipo Runs Out of Credits
Despite being ahead of its time
■ Long form video
■ High quality
■ In viewing advertising
■ Live streaming of events
■ Content marketplace
■ PPM micro currency
■ Syndication model
Jalipo still didnt make it in the market place.
The demise of Jalipo was sadly an event waiting to happen.
The premise of offering people bite-sized portions of channels through the internal
system of J Credits was sound enough, just that as is so often the case with the world
wide web, you can always find something else to entertain you at half the price.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

20. Jalipo Runs Out of Credits
As of April 30, 2008, Jalipo Ltd. operates as a subsidiary of ROK Entertainment Group,
Inc.
Thursday, 6 October 2011

21. Out of the Ashes
Thursday, 6 October 2011

22. You Don’t Know if you are Wrong
Until you are Out of Money
1. Failed from a lack of customers not product development failure. Built it, but no one
came.
2. Had a process to manage product development, but not a process to manage
customer development
3. Sales and Marketing costs front loaded, focussed on execution vs learning and
discovery
4. First customer ship became the goal
5. Financial projections, execution and hiring predicted on business plan hypothesis
Thursday, 6 October 2011

23. A Better Method
Focus On Customers and Markets From Day One
Thursday, 6 October 2011

24. Questions?
Thursday, 6 October 2011