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How EDpuzzle Went Straight To Silicon Valley Without A Single Line Of Code

Barcelona startup EDpuzzle went through Y-combinator’s Edtech program imagine K12.

A lot of Spanish entrepreneurs go to the US to expand their markets. It’s normal, it’s the right thing to do for most companies. But usually you take with you a portfolio of achievements and milestones from the country you started up in.

Not EDpuzzle, according to co-founder and CTO Santi Herrero.

We started from scratch at ImagineK12, now part of Y Combinator where big companies like Dropbox and Airbnb were born. We applied with an idea, but without any line of code at all. The idea we had when we moved to San Francisco was that we needed to build a tool that allowed teachers to make any video their lesson.

The Barcelona startup combines simple video-editing tools with analytics so that a teacher can take a video and make it personal for their classrooms.

The teachers can take already existing videos from Youtube, Khan Academy, Crash Course, etc. or upload your own, and then enable self-paced learning with interactive lessons, adding their voice and questions along the video.

Not global from day one

Experts often say that you need to have a global mindset from the first day, no matter where you start your venture.

And even though EDpuzzle hoped their product could reach a global audience, and today is used in 150 countries by 6 million users, the first focus was very local, says Herrero.

Our initial approach was to connect with 10 very interested and energetic teachers to learn from them as much as possible. This way we would get a lot of very vital information for the development of the product. Those teachers ultimately became some of our biggest evangelists.

After three months and demo day at Y-combinator, EDpuzzle had several interested investors in the US, so not long after returning to Barcelona, a part of the team went back to start raising a seed round which resulted in $800.000.

The CTO and co-founder thinks their very local focus helped them create a better global product, compared to if they went straight for the masses.

To really learn from your users you need to be very close to them, you can’t retract everything from analytics etc. After we got the validation we needed from several teachers, we started driving around in the US to all the education events we could find, and talk to as many teachers as possible. That’s how we grew.

Barcelona + San Fransisco

Even though parts of EDpuzzle’s team have been in San Fransisco from day one, the development of the product has been done from Barcelona.

Our competitive advantage is that we can hire great developers from our network in Barcelona, with a lower cost than in San Fransisco, and create a great product from here.

Says CTO Herrero who is hiring people in all kinds of positions after the company closed $3 million in their series A this August.

It makes a lot of sense for us to divide the business between Spain and the US, because our biggest market is in the states. I can’t say that this is the right thing to do for everyone, but the US market is easier to enter and people are open to new solutions, especially in the Edtech sector.

Keeping it simple

From the beginning EDpuzzle valued keeping their product as simple as possible.

Both EDpuzzle’s landing page and their product reflect their value of keeping what they do as simple as possible.

Both their product and their landing page reflect this value of simpleness.

They said it’s about knowing their audience, and that the last thing a busy teacher needs, is spending time on learning a new complicated tool.

In a matter of days they’ll release their android app, so students can consume their teachers’ videos no matter if they have a computer at home, or not.

We are now in 1/4 schools in the US, but our goal is to be in all of them.

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This post was written by Sindre Hopland, media manager at itnig.

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Why Barcelona Is Turning Into An European Hub For Gaming Startups

A total of 120.000 people attended the Barcelona Games World conference in 2016.

Barcelona Games World 2016 recently ended as a success with over 120.000 visitors over four days. It was the first year the congress was held, and entertained its attendants with over 1000 gaming stations, 30 mini conferences and 371 interviews with prominent game developers.

But this is only one of several elements that makes Barcelona one of the most vibrant hubs for gaming startups in Europe.

Big players

Most technology hubs around the world has big players both stealing & contributing to the environment. In some ways you can say that the big players validate the ecosystem with their presence.

As London houses major fintech startups such as Transferwise, Mondo & Atom, Barcelona has several big gaming startups like King (Activision), Social Point (local), Digital Legends and Tutotoons which have raised millions of euros the last years and engages 100 of millions of people through mobile and desktop games every day.

There’s also been a long time presence from veterans such as Ubisoft, Gameloft and other heavy hitters.

There are also a community of many AR and VR startups and companies that can be beneficial for game developers looking to create games in this space. Not to talk about betting games startups such as Playfulbet with over 6 million users worldwide, that have a huge community of Esports enthusiasts.

Pol Ruiz, CEO and founder of Playfulbet attended the Barcelona Games World, and told me how the conference was one of the greatest gatherings of gaming industry ever taking place in Barcelona.

The city is playing along

But big companies and innovative startups are not enough in the long run, to foster a true hub for gaming startups in Barcelona you also need supporters: gamers.

Luckily, Barcelona is also home to thousands of gamers. Not only shown through the Barcelona Games World conference, but through the annual Esports event ESL Expo, that attracted over 5000 people last year.

ESL Expo Barcelona attracted thousands of people.

Also local authorities are playing along, as Barcelona Activa, the local government arm supporting startups in the region has been backing an accelerator called Game BCN, aiming at accelerating gaming startups. There are also several gaming startups with funding and loans from the government operating from the city.

But it’s not only the local government who’s playing along, also the technical universities offer education focused on game design and development, both and bachelor and master degrees.

One of the biggest events in Barcelona every year is the Mobile World Congress, with over 100.000 attendants from all over the world. The speakers for the MWC 2017 was released last week, and the top headliner was John Hanke CEO of Niantic Labs that created Pokémon GO.

There are few statistics about the gaming industry in Barcelona, but in Spain there are about 450 development studios, with about 5.000 employees, where 40% of the workers are in Catalonia, according to Asociación Española de Videojuegos.

According to the AEV there are around 110 game studios located in Catalunya, and the number is growing every year.

What to expect from the future?

So with all these gaming related companies and institutions, can we call Catalunya or Barcelona one of Europe’s growing gaming hubs?

I think it’s safe to say that if the community continues to grow like it does now, we’ll see a lot of great companies coming out of the city.

For now, it makes it easier for the existing startups and entrepreneurs to find a friendly community and support for their ideas.

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Why Smart Cities Depend On Smart Parking

Smart parking is one of the easiest ways humans can make cities more sustainable.

The term smart city has become quite popular the last years. The expression indicates an urban area that, thanks to the use of advanced technology, isable to deal with a wide range of the citizen problems and needs in an innovative way. The purpose is to improve radically the quality of life, opportunity, health, social and economic development of the city.

However, a smart city is more than a digital or technologically advanced place. According to a group of researchers of the Vienna University of Technologies, the essence of a smart city is defined by six parameters: Smart Economy, Smart Mobility, Smart Environment, Smart People, Smart Living and Smart Governance.

Parking smart

One of the main problems for all big cities, and that touch on several of the six “smart parameters” are the lack of parking lots. Often, the public car parks built by the authorities, are not able to comply with the real needs of a city, defacing the landscape, with insufficient functional results.

That’s why different ventures have been launched the last years to reduce traffic and pollution in cities and make public transportation cheaper. For example, booking a parking spot online, allows you to avoid unnecessary queues, which again causes less pollution.

Parking is a central point of a Smart City, because a smart city informs people about available staging points in real time and enables them to build the best accessibility path with buses, trams, bikes or scooters, pedestrian areas, car sharing, taxis.

And to make the parking experience both more seamless and smarter, it’s also vital to allow people to pay for the parking service through their connected devices.

Even though the government or local authorities are the biggest owner of parking spots in most cities, they lack the flexibility to make concrete choices, investments in technology (for example for geo-referencing all the road staging points and therefore the possibility of informing on availability), but also directing and integration capacities whenever they are needed. This needs to be handled by a private company to work properly.

Not convinced?

That smart parking saves people a lot of time, instead of looking for a free parking spot, is alone extremely beneficial for society, making it much more efficient.

But if you’re not convinced by the arguments presented already, there are countless others showing how beneficial smart parking actually is for the cities of the future:

  • In the long run it would be possible to offer incentives to motorists for parking in low-demand areas to reduce congestion in areas with a lot of activity.
  • Set higher prices on blocks with low turnover and reduce prices in nearby areas with little or no parking activity.
  • Increase parking pricing during peak hours of the day and reduce it during off-peak hours to encourage drivers to run errands within off-peak hours.
  • Smart parking lets drivers reduce stress (according to a 2015 study)

50.000 cars

Parkimeter, a Barcelona grown startup, have since 2013 parked over 50.000 cars, becoming a leader in the booking market for parkings in Barcelona and Spain.

“How parking has been changed through technology, is similar to how the travel sector was disrupted 15 years ago,” explains co-founder of Parkimeter Jordi Badal.

There is hundred of choices for people choosing to park smart in Barcelona.

Our app allows users (local private, professionals and tourists) to find available parking spots, to choose (and pay for) the most convenient parking spot for them and determine the shortest route to get there. In other words, it’s a way to connect users with parking spaces and payment services thanks to modern mobile technology.

Climate changes, a fast growing urban population, limited energy and water resources, economic and technological changes are just some of the challenges cities have faced the last decades. Smarter parking solutions will not solve all these issues, but it’s an easy way to start, and a way all of us can contribute.

After all, the goal of smart cities are to address these challenges, big and small, and exploit the opportunities offered by these changes, and try to create new projects and services to improve quality of life, respecting the environment and future generations.

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This post was written by Braggion Martina at itnig startup Parkimeter.

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Why Videos Are Key To Promoting Your Startup

Video, video, video, the Facebook feed will be all videos in five years.

That’s the words of Facebook vice president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Nicola Mendelsohn earlier this year.

Vice president for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, Nicola Mendelsohn.

The last 3–4 years we’ve seen videos explode in social media. With the emergence of Snapchat and Vine the rest of the social networks followed, and there’s now no social networks that doesn’t take video seriously.

By next year (2017) video will account for 69% of all consumer internet traffic, according to Cisco.

This means that if you’re doing marketing for your startup, you need to start looking for someone who can handle a camera.

Digesting information

This is what it’s all about — digesting information in a time where information is overflowing.

Videos and pictures helps you present a story faster and smarter than through written words:

  • Faster: You only need a minute to explain a concept, an idea or news through video, as the audiovisual combination lets a person take in more information compared with only audio or text.
  • Smarter: All social channels are adapting in way that favors video. Research has shown that the chance of people clicking on a link more than doubles by using a pictures or a video in the post. It’s also smarter, because video is convertible, meaning that if you shoot a video, you can make that into both written content and audio content.

And if you’re not convinced by my words, Axonn Research found 7 in 10 people view brands in a more positive light after watching interesting video content from them.

It’s important to add that video is not only great for attracting clients and customers from your own channels, but your chance of being featured in media outlets and tech blogs, also increases a lot with the use of video.

VR and 360 degrees

You’ve hopefully understood by now that video will essential to spread the word about your startup.

But if you want to be in front of the trend, you should look into VR and 360 video as well, according the Facebook VP Mendelsohn:

In five years 360 videos will feel very common, as it today is a bit new and interesting.

The big question is when virtual reality will become mainstream. In other words, when is it worth to dedicate resources to VR marketing?

The 2016 Virtual Reality Industry Report estimates that there will be 135.6 million VR headset in use by 2025, of which 122 million will be mobile. So if you want to be in front of the trend, you should at least put it in your notebook as something to watch out for.

There’s no doubt where to invest your marketing budget the next years.

Too expensive?

Renting a professional video team has been, and still is way too expensive for a startup. However, as the video gear is getting cheaper by the year, and the quality and user friendliness increases, most people can learn how to make a corporate video, and that at a reasonable price.

I won’t go into what kind of gear you should use for your films, but a fast google search will get you on the right track.

To get you going with videos – check out and subscribe to the itnig Youtube channel.

Som examples:

Technical events: the most essential content is the code the presenter is using, that’s why you should emphasize on recording the screen during the presentation. But to not miss the human touch, it’s works great to include a small video bar inside the code screen:

Video podcasts: As mentioned before, the content is always more important than the quality, but for longer content, quality also counts. Using different camera angles that both captures the whole room, but also close ups, is key. It’s also important with good sound quality, which doesn’t need to be expensive at all:

Interviews: Make sure you have a decent microphone, and if the interview object is sitting the same place the whole talk, make sure to use a tripod. Use open questions, and not cut too much:

 
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How Playfulbet Grew To 400K Followers On Facebook And 300K On Twitter

Even though Playfulbet’s product is e-sports and sports betting games, our success in capturing thousands of users and followers has not been left up to chance.

Behind Playfulbet there’s a young team that first and foremost love what they do, as we get to work with our biggest passion — games. And it feels even better to share these insights when our devotion is bearing fruit, as our social media following have been growing exponentially the last few years.

We recently reached a couple of milestones in our social channels, as we reached 300.000 followers on Twitter and 400.000 followers on Facebook.

As mentioned earlier, nothing is left up to chance, and at times we’ve been overwhelmed by the massive growth from some of our campaigns, especially as Playfulbet has been expanding internationally.

LOVE

We love our followers, and have great respect for everyone that follow our social media channels. And here lies some of the key-elements to our growth, we have a big emphasis on entertaining our audience every single day.

It’s important to see you social media as an extension of your product, as our social channel is an extension of Playfulbet’s betting platform.

We focus on communicating with our audience, and not just broadcasting a message. In this we use all kinds of media tools like pictures, video, GIF’s, surveys and contests that can steal a smile or a reaction from our followers.

If you have a product to leverage through the platform, use it for what it’s worth. We give away our virtual money (Coins) that users can take advantage of on the platform to win prizes.

The precious feedback

To maintain a high interaction rate in your social channels is key to keep growing. As we are a sports betting platform we base a lot of our content on actual sports news. In that way we’re staying relevant to our followers, and not only entertaining. I think this is one of toughest nuts to crack — stay relevant.

If you’re interacting with your audience every day, you’ll be sure to get feedback, which is very valuable. It’s important that you follow up on all your feedback, as your brand will be more credible, and your followers will be more faithful if they feel they’re being heard.

Jorge Badenes, content manager at Playfulbet — an itnig startup.

Having depurated non-toxic social networks where the user feels comfortable also serves as a real time barometer of what’s going on in your company. At Playfulbet the users may ask for support about prizes they’ve won or they aspire to win, they report cheaters and people who don’t play clean by using multi-accounts, which are forbidden, or they simply alert us about canceled or suspended matches they want their coins back from. All of this is super helpful for our team, and makes our platform better.

Right now we’re engaging our followers all across Europe and in Southern America, giving away hundreds of prizes every month, while creating entertaining content. Follow us for some inspiration on how you can do the same, because our team rocks!

Playfulbet, the adventure continues..

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This post was written by Jorge Badenes, content manager at itnig startup Playfulbet.