Perhaps it’s the brick-and-beam, high-ceilinged Zen of its environs, but QuickPlay is one calm startup. Surprisingly calm – given that in less than two years they have grown from four to 75 employees, won two national awards, received $16 million in capital financing and compete in a frenzied technological environment.

Founded by telecommunications executive Wayne Purboo and media master Raja Khanna, QuickPlay gives phone companies and media organizations seamless delivery of mobile video to consumers—despite today’s Byzantine array of devices and protocols.

The company is much more than a content platform, however. To succeed, QuickPlay has had to become a startup chimera: parttechnology solution, part design house, and part publisher.

As Mark Farmer, QuickPlay’s Director of Marketing, explains, his organization is as focused on understanding and engineering ‘sticky’ end-user experiences as they are on streaming video at 15 frames a second.

A ‘quick’ company history
Launched in September of 2004, QuickPlay was born in a tiny office carved out of Raja Khanna’s Gemini-winning company, Snap Media. By November, the company had launched pioneering video-on-demand services with Rogers and Telus, adding Bell a year later.

QuickPlay has won a CNMA award two years running

With success came a need for capital – to the tune of $4 million from partners JL Albright and Up Capital in the late spring of 2005. The company relocated and absorbed its former landlord, moving into a spacious and creative home in Toronto’s King West neighborhood.

QuickPlay’s Toronto Headquarters

New clients were added in the form of Canadian media companies, but it’s no secret that the trunk of the mobile marketplace is the United States, so QuickPlay secured a second round of financing, a total of $12 million from Boston’s General Catalyst and JL Albright.

With funding fueling expansion, the company opened offices in Atlanta, Washington, Boston and San Francisco, has south-of-the-border deals with ESPN and MTV, and is aggressively pursuing American carriers.

A two-pronged, customer-centric solution
QuickPlay’s white-label solution makes nice with content and devices, allowing them to sit (transparently) in the middle of the content-to-user chain for either carriers or media companies. QuickPlay also offers the human expertise and hardware required to program (in the TV sense of the word) content.

Five minutes of fun: QuickPlay’s Secret Sauce
Even the most efficient mousetrap needs great cheese. QuickPlay’s irresistible bait isn’t the technical superiority and device interoperability of their platform – it’s knowing the customer – the mobile consumer – and creating user interfaces that fit their needs.

“There are 2 billion cell users worldwide…and only a billion TVs.” – Mark Farmer, QuickPlay

A traditional mobile web interface

As Mark Farmer explains, mobile surfing isn’t anything like desktop surfing, yet most device interfaces look, feel and operate on that traditional model. Unlike the deskbound, most mobile users have just enough time for a quick, five-minute fix. Every extra click or layer detracts from the experience and from the ‘five minutes of fun’ that QuickPlay uses as their motto.
QuickPlay’s secret sauce is knowing how to build a faster, better, and stickier mobile mousetrap

Working at QuickPlay
The combination of working creatively with leading-edge technology and a friendly, supportive environment makes QuickPlay an engaging place to work, so much so that turnover – the bane of high-pressure startups – is nearly zero.

How does QuickPlay maintain its quiet harbour amid a storm of growth and change? It’s due in part to trickle down. The senior management have ‘been there’ through the highs and lows of running a small company. They know what to expect, so there’s no executive panic button.

“You can actually see how the stuff you work on works, and impacts the consumer” – Mark Farmer

Nothing says ‘startup’ like a milk crate in the foyer

Culture adds a second note to the harmony. The workspace is bright, dog-friendly and open concept, and many of the employees have worked together in the past. There’s a blend of people from creative and operational backgrounds and the groups have faith in each other.

The work itself is challenging, satisfying and tactile; you can show what you’ve built to your friends and neighbors simply by taking out your phone. Winning is fun, and building a better mousetrap is a challenge on many levels.

As Farmer says, QuickPlay has to keep itself at the edge of a market where innovation is the rule.

What the Future Holds – Job Growth

According to Mark Farmer, QuickPlay’s recent funding is proof that it isn’t moving toward an M&A. They are in it for the long haul, and plan to keep putting their windfall to aggressive use south of the border. That means they’re looking for more talented people to help them lead an increasingly competitive market. Mark suspects that the company will number over 100 employees by early 2007.

“We’ve had several offers from several quarters, but we’re not focused on getting acquired, we’re focused on building a company that has a great revenue stream.” - Mark Farmer

Quickplay’s loft workspace has multiple levels.

A Growing Market
Pundits once suggested that placing a camera in a phone was absurd. Prices would be too high and quality too low, or so went the criticism. The same questions are leveled at mobile video-on-demand.

Yet QuickPlay’s market is growing by leaps and bounds. Devices are maturing, networks are improving and consumers are demanding more (and better) services. Phone companies and media empires are well aware of this, and are pushing hard to get in on the action.

As Mark Farmer puts it, “in the past, we’d approach clients and they’d say, ‘ok. we’ll try this mobile content thing”. Now they say, ‘we have to do this’.
Technology and design are inexorably bridging the gap between devices, networks and the user experience – and QuickPlay is at the forefront of giving clients – and consumers – the perfect mobile mousetrap.