We talk about Hopin:
- becoming a double unicorn worth $2.1bn in less than 18 months
- hiring 800 people at 40 new people per week
- the StreamYard acquisition and integration
- the potential threat of Clubhouse if any?

On 3rd February Johnny Boufarhat and Geige Vandentop will host a Hopin event for free to discuss the acquisition and their plans for Hopin 2021.

Join here: https://hopin.com/events/hopin-2021-kickoff

Sam and Bhushan talked about the future of work and how PwC along with their clients have managed through the covid crisis and more importantly what they plan to do in 2021.

We talked about how Bhushan sees 2021 as a more hybrid workplace with employees returning back to the office cautiously but only a few days a week. We also talked about how schools and universities will also adopt more online technologies for distance learning and offer hybrid schooling.

Finally we ended up talking about our shared experiences of growing up in 1980’s Britain which was racist, sexist and homophobic but how much that has changed through BLM albeit Brexit and Trump have emboldened those racists once again.

Sam and Faisal talked about his recent tenure as CEO of Blippar. Why now is the right time for an Augmented Reality (AR) rebirth and what are his expansion plans globally for Blippar.

We also talked about his amazing career from the early days in Ofcom and his role in the Premier League football rights. Working with Niklas Zennström and a young Daniel Elk at Skype on their proprietary Peer to Peer platform called Jolted, before he joined Daniel at Spotify as International .

Faisal also gave a surprise answer to my suggestion that Spotify and Netflix need to merge to compete with Apple and Amazon.

Shortly after this interview Blippar’s AR platform was used to deliver the world’s first product launch event entirely in AR for OnePlus; the latest smartphone from premium technology brand OnePlus.

Sam talked with Mukul about how this very early beta project fits into the wider BBC strategy across multiple services to act as a trusted public service voice assistant to the vast array of content on TV, Radio and Sounds (podcasts), be it local, national or international.

Mukul also talks about why Beeb today is a northern male and like Dr Who is genderless and could regenerate into a female voice in the future.

We also talked about why Beeb is not going to compete with Alexa or Google but how the BBC plan to partner with a wide variety of companies to extend the role and reach of Beeb.

Sam Sethi had the pleasure to interview Martin Steers the station manager at NLive Radio and Chair of Community Radio Awards.

We talked about how NLive is continuing to run their station through COVID and what software Martin is using to enable remote broadcasting.

We talked. about the upcoming Community Radio Awards and what has changed and whether there will be an awards ceremony later this year.

We also talked about the newly formed UK Community Radio Network that Martin has formed with a number of station managers across the UK to lobby government on our collective behalf.

We ended up talking about some of the hot topics in radio. Bauer making 260 presenters redundant this September and what that means for local radio. Will DAB+ ever come to community radio and finally are podcasting and streaming services a challenge to radio audiences?

Sam talks with Nigel Eccles about his new company Flick. A companion app for sports fans who want to watch a game while chatting online with likeminded fans and friends.

Nigel talks about how Flick has raised £4m and was growing nicely until Covid-19 put a stop to all live sports. He believes Flick will return to growth once live sports like football return. In fact with stadium bans it could see ever greater demand for Flick as fans try to recreate the stadium atmosphere while at home.

Prior to Flick, Nigel, his wife and three engineers started Hubdub that soon pivoted into FanDuel. Nigel recalls how a WebMission to Silicon Valley in 2008 helped Fanduel grow. Some of the other companies that joined them included edocr, huddle, skimlinks, mydeo, WAYN and TrustedPlaces.

Nigel talks about how FanDuel went on to raise $450m+ and experienced hyper-growth in customer acquisition. Sadly the story did not end up with Nigel and his wife growing a Unicorn, selling it and riding off into the sunset. Nigel talks at length about how the Private Equity company engineered to remove him, the executive team and all the staff who held ordinary shares from benefiting from their growth and success. In fact they ended up with zero while the board that consisted of the PE Equity partners engineered it to make themselves millions.

The story does not end there. Nigel and 90 of his original staff have filed a class action suit against the PE company. We await the outcome.