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Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

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Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#11

Post by mc32 »

mtw wrote: post #10

The main challenge in building an African Netflix is not technology, it's having critical mass in terms of video content, as well as having at least a couple anchor series that cannot be seen absolutely anywhere else. Netflix has Stranger Things, Marvel series such as Daredevil that creates a lot of social media noise. Once customers watch those, then they discover the smaller series and get hooked on Netflix.

I think you’re right with respect to catalogue size, but original/exclusive content helps them grow their business, but they started out way different while being successful at essentially distribution and ease of use.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#12

Post by rando444 »

It doesn't seem this really even got off the ground, and I think the author hadn't even gotten to the hard bits yet.

One of the bigger problems with trying to organize "african" content is the diversity. There's no central language, and among the content that's available, less than 20% will have subtitles, even for the production's native language.. and that's being generous.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#13

Post by budu3 »

mtw wrote: post #10

The main challenge in building an African Netflix is not technology, it's having critical mass in terms of video content, as well as having at least a couple anchor series that cannot be seen absolutely anywhere else. Netflix has Stranger Things, Marvel series such as Daredevil that creates a lot of social media noise. Once customers watch those, then they discover the smaller series and get hooked on Netflix.

iRoku TV seems to have been successful in becoming the Netflix of Africa

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#14

Post by vezycash »

mtw wrote: post #10

The main challenge in building an African Netflix is not technology, it's having critical mass in terms of video content, as well as having at least a couple anchor series that cannot be seen absolutely anywhere else. Netflix has Stranger Things, Marvel series such as Daredevil that creates a lot of social media noise. Once customers watch those, then they discover the smaller series and get hooked on Netflix.

The continent is still mostly cash based. Trust is low for online purchases. Do not worry about content. It's being created on Instagram, Facebook and YouTube for free - they monetize via ads and sponsorship deals.

There's just one success story for Nigeria iroko.ng - this however targets foreign based Africans who are used to paying online and for whom - per movie is nothing.

According to what I hear, Iroko is highly selective and only allows quality movies on its site. Because of this, some producers upped their quality level and sold exclusively via the site. They recently branched into original content - 2 years ago.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#15

Post by chillacy »

mc32 wrote: post #8
Impossible wrote: post #7

A similar startup called Afrostream was in YC years ago ( https://blog.ycombinator.com/afrostream-yc-s15-makes-it-easy... ) looks like they shut down as well.

That’s too bad. Looks like they had some emphasis on African ex-pat communities. Wonder why the focus wasn’t more on Africa itself?

Africa's a tough one to crack: slow internet speeds, old android hardware, infrequent app updates, etc. On the flipside, one of the fastest growing markets (if not the fastest) in the next century.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#16

Post by azinman2 »

Title doesn’t make sense ending in a question mark.

How I imagine it in my head: Person A: “What should we call this submission to HN?”

Person B: “I’m not sure. How I lost $10k building an African Netflix?”

Person A: Great! Let me copy that verbatim, including your question mark out of context.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#17

Post by yesplorer »

For the large majority of Africans, Internet = Social media + YouTube because telcos have hugely subsidized access to social media at the expense of expensive data rate for everything else. So building anything outside of this wall, is a herculean task.

Also when he says African, I'm sure he meant Nigerian. Building an African product would require millions of dollars to even get it off the ground. Fragmentation of culture, language and even payment systems means you have a lot more work to do than a Westerner pursuing a similar project.

This project didn't really even kick off, I'm sure. With a curation of under 100 films, no one is really going to pay for it.

The founder would have been better off creating content for YouTube and promote his channel on both Youtube and Facebook. That way, with the release of any new content, you have an active subscriber base you may count on because there is no way to charge for this really. And there is nothing wrong with earning from YT ads till you figure your business model out.

If you choose a subscription model for your African video streaming site, you either charge too low, which still makes losses or too high which matches the likes of Netflix and even above irokotv.com, which is arguably the largest video streaming site on the continent.

Building an true African startup is hard.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#18

Post by primitivesuave »

A good friend of mine was in this entrepreneur's situation, where his technical cofounder had their own consulting firm which specialized in building out infrastructure for payment processors, and his only client was my friend's fledgling startup. Was it really worth X% of his company to validate someone else's technology and ideas? Was everyone's incentives actually aligned? My friend had a clear vision to build something to solve a specific problem, but he was ironically cursed to have an expert technologist whose vision was a system so generic that it could later be used to solve everyone's problem.

One more than one occasion I have had to emphatically explain to a non-tech founder that their "tech guy" has to be 100% in the company. I ask them to name me one successful technology company where there were no technical cofounders. There's a reason consultants are consultants and CTOs are CTOs.

In the end, scarcity of time and capital will prevail, so everyone being 100% committed is absolutely essential. In these situations the business cofounder is left with nothing, while the technical cofounder is still a couple lines of code closer to where he wants to go.

Re: Hubrif: Lost $10K Building the Netflix for African Short Films

#20

Post by mruts »

Being a non-technical founder seems like a huge disadvantage. You literally are unable to develop and maintain your product without paying other people or giving out equity. The number one most important thing with a fledgling startup is self-sufficiency. You need to be willing to do it all: development, marketing, sales, etc.

Maybe I’m being harsh, but the founder didn’t really seem to bring any tangible skills to the table besides his “revolutionary” idea.

I live in Tanzania and integrating with mobile payment networks is absolutely critical. If there was one thing you needed to succeed in this business in Africa is integration with Mpesa, Airtel Money, Tigo Money, Zantel Money, etc. Without this integration, your business is dead in the water. His line about how they could never figure it out is borderline ridiculous. Imagine if Amazon never figured out how to charge credit cards: that is the magnitude of the problem he decided not to solve.

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