Hi folks!
This is Martin, CEO of hitbox. We have been online now for a few weeks with the beta of hitbox.tv, so I thought it was time to give you more insights into the management and the intentions behind hitbox.tv.
Our CTO, René, is our technical mastermind and has years of experience in the streaming business as he built up the core technology of own3D.tv and managed to create a platform which was considered one of the best at the time and delivered a service for thousands of streamers and millions of viewers. Being a hardcore gamer himself, his goal is to help eSports grow, to bring it in every livingroom not depending on where you are and to make it as big or even bigger than other sports. That was and still is his great vision.
Talking about myself, I bring a lot of financial experience to the table. I was working as a company auditor and as head of controlling in the headquarter of one of the largest financial institutions in Central and Eastern Europe. I was responsible for the whole planning and controlling processes, for the groups strategy and the competitive market analysis.
René and myself have been good friends for a long time. By the end of 2012 he approached me as he saw his life´s work endangered. He asked me to have a look into the figures of own3D and to restructure the company if necessary.
Being an eSports fanatic myself and given the opportunity to work in such a great project, I didn’t hesitate a second and became their CFO. However it didn´t take long to find out that the company was in trouble.
I think you guys know the main reasons why own3D failed. The company didn’t manage to scale its business and to grow with its viewers and size. What exactly does that mean?
Let me put it in simple terms: Having millions of viewers creating massive traffic brings you tons of costs. The company lacked funding and was stuck in bad contracts. That led to cost savings on the employers end and thus to a poor income management.
High costs + low income = a big problem
Given this situation the owners and investors of own3D tried their best to sell the company and to pay out all debts to its customers. We worked days and nights to get that deal done but our main target company surprisingly stepped away after 3 months of negotiations and due diligence. René lost his life´s work and a lot of streamers their money.
However, we still believe in eSports and our vision and just love watching awesome live content, so René and me decided to build up a new live streaming site putting together both technical know-how and business experience right from the get-go.
We believe that competition is good, even if we just give an impulse to the existing players to improve their service.
Still in beta and tons of tasks ahead, we love what we do and hope you give us a chance to prove that we know what we are doing. Having a great investor as partner and a super experienced infrastructure team on board, we are convinced that we can offer you a stable and reliable service, with great usability and some awesome new features.
I'll try hitbox next time I stream something, let's see what this can do 