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The Key to Being a Successful Startup is Focus

Published

4 years ago

03/22/2021

Kossi Adzo

Philippe Brodeur, CEO at Overcast tells us about digital asset management for agencies & creatives.

Table of Contents

First of all, how are you and your family doing in these COVID-19 times?

Philippe Brodeur: The entire family is well. Like everyone, we have had a few members of our family contract the virus. Luckily, none has been affected that badly.

Tell us about you, your career, how you founded Overcast.

Philippe Brodeur: I’ve worked in media all my life. About 12 years ago, I started my first online platform and it went to eventually be sold to Virgin Media. Since then, I have launched 3 more video platforms with Overcast being the most recent.

How does Overcast innovate?

Philippe Brodeur: Our company has 3 main focuses. First, it’s content owners CMS – and by that, I mean that we build it to solve challenges that content owners have with the ultimate goal of developing more revenue or revenue streams. Second, we are a tech company where we build tech solutions although we are not a professional services company. Third, we are a research lab. We work with Trinity College Dublin and some of the biggest players in media to develop new groundbreaking technologies.

How the coronavirus pandemic affects your business and how are you coping?

Philippe Brodeur: It’s tough from a social point of view. From a business perspective, it has accelerated uptake in the industry of what we do…

Did you have to make difficult choices and what are the lessons learned?

Philippe Brodeur: All founders have difficult choices to make. We try to focus on product-market fit – with PMF there are only good lessons.

What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?

Philippe Brodeur: We have reduced the number of meetings we have and encourage our staff to have asynchronous days – work when you want to rather than simply 9-5. It’s good for the head.

Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?

Philippe Brodeur: Our competitors are the likes of Box, Dropbox, and other file-sharing solutions. We focus on Video – very difficult files to collaborate on because they are big and come in many formats.