Video ads made easy with Fliva

Søren Arnsbo, Founder, Co-Owner and CIO of Arnsbo Media, talk about his new startup Fliva and his experiences at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Product videos are hot at the moment. Retailers with product videos on their site report much higher average order values and conversion rates. A survey including big retailers like Best Buy, show that more than 55 percent of retailers could report a substantial increase in their average order values and conversion rates after adding a video on their product page.
It can be hard to utilize the new opportunities in video advertisement, because of expensive, time-consuming and complex video production. Fliva makes it possible to create affordable video ads for specific targeted audiences in the highest quality with pro voice-overs, while maintaining an easy-to-use interface and avoiding the high costs.
I had a talk with Søren Arnsbo about Fliva and his experiences at TechCrunch Disrupt.

Can you tell us a bit about yourself?

I am Søren Arnsbo, CEO of Fliva. I started my first startup, Arnsbo Media, back in 1997 and been going ever since. I got 15 startups on my conscience spread out through different branches like media, advertising, IT hardware and many more.
Today I function as CIO of Arnsbo Media, which operates seven companies with 65 employees.
The core of Arnsbo Media’s companies are centered around my own 5 business mantras of automation, scalability, recurring revenue, focus on industries and markets in growth and last but not least, have fun with it!

It sounds like you are busy! How do you manage to maintain focus on Fliva?

It is hard to hold focus on one specific startup, because we got many other projects as well. At the moment, we are focusing on specific customer-oriented projects, which give us momentum and help us get the final proof of concept of the entire business. When this succeeds, we will “push the button” and secure furthermore internal resources to enable fast growth and scalability.

How did you get the idea for Fliva?

The idea behind Fliva occurred in the spring of 2014, at one of countless lunches with one of the other co-founder Jesper Hvejsel. We are normally bouncing many different ideas back and forth during these lunches, but this time our focus were on trying to add a little twist to parts of the products and software of our existing business, Arnsbo Property Media, and thus open up sales to other industries. Arnsbo Property Media produces more than 60.000 videos a year and the products are primarily aimed at larger organizations, which buys several thousand videos a year, and therefore requires a deeper integration to the customers. Fliva can also offer this, but at the same time the product also target other types of users who need fewer videos and an easier integration.

What makes Fliva unique compared to other available solutions?

Fliva Video Builder makes it incredibly simple to make a slide show based video with professional narration. You build your video up based on slides as in PowerPoint, and then you can chose between 90 different languages, different voice over talents and add other cool effects to your video. Additionally, you can mass-produce videos with narration in many languages, based on pre-approved templates.

How does the future look for Fliva?

There is very good traction in the video market at this time. Both for the evolution of media platforms, where companies such as Facebook and YouTube offer video ads to significantly smaller segments than known from the TV ad market, making it far more cost efficient. In addition, numerous studies show that webshops with product videos on their product pages has a higher average order values as well as a higher conversion rate.

How did your visit to TechCrunch Disrupt go?

Our product was new and not even in private beta, when we were attending TechCrunch Disrupt, so our primary goal in attending thewa conference was to get “proof of concept” and getting lots of input about our product. In addition, of course, lots of contacts with relevant partners and potential customers. We certainly reached our goal for the trip!
There was an overwhelming response to our product, and several stood and could use the product NOW, while others told us that if the product could do this and that, then it would be relevant to them. We got us a long list of product features, which we subsequently assess whether they are commercially bearing, as well as a large pipeline of contacts.

What are your best experiences from the event?

The best form of proof of concept is selling and getting direct customer orders. As our product was not even in beta, this was not an option for us. Therefore, the next best proof of concept is getting positive feedback from potential customers, while they stand and try the product. We had a number of sessions with potential investors and VC’s before and after TechCrunch , who showed great interest in the project , and one in a private meeting one of the top VC’s directly said “If you guys are thinking of funding your project , then there are no doubt you will get funded”.

Any advice for new startups going to their first event?

You probably should be a little longer down the product development road with your product than we were. It is important to prepare both your short and long pitch from home. When you stand at a technology exhibition such as TechCrunch, then it is in my opinion even more important to have a few, very brief bullet points teasers , which you can use to get in touch with people who come across your booth. Some people only stop by to take a brief look; therefore, you must be proactive to get their attention. It is good to have a plan for following up on the contacts, you gain at the event to make sure business cards and LinkedIn contacts get used. I can highly recommend having a booth at a TechCrunch fair!

Fliva is currently still in development, but will be launching in public beta soon. At this stage, Fliva is testing the video builder and the general concept with customers, who are in the market for large quantities of multilingual product videos. They still have a few beta-seats open for potential customers that have a demand this product type.
Check out http://fliva.com/ for more information!