All eyes on the screen
Entrepreneur Artima Suraphongchai uses the lessons learned from a failed startup to turn the iflix Thailand video-on-demand service into a thriving business
Had she not failed in her first startup, Artima Suraphongchai’s life would probably have been very different. Today, the former management consultant and strategic planner is enjoying every minute of her career as the first country manager of iflix Thailand, the Asia-based Internet TV service offering video-on-demand.
Known to her family and friends as Kimmy, she credits her failure to get her free call service called Freebie off the ground for landing her job.
“The main reason I was chosen for iflix was Freebie. I started it from scratch with the aim of offering a service in the Thai market. Iflix’s mission was also to offer a service starting from scratch,” the 40-year old female entrepreneur says.
Founded in 2014, iflix launched its service in Malaysia and Philippines in May last year. At the time, it was looking for someone to head up its Thailand operation and Artima was an obvious choice.
She worked alone in the very early days, building up the business and encouraging Thais to take full advantage of the huge resource of licensed content available to them.
Her experience in strategic planning and business development served her well and it wasn’t long before the company was up and running and she could start looking for her team. Today iflix employs a young staff of 30; the average age is just 29.
“Working at iflix is very much an entrepreneurial job and it’s enjoyable too. It wasn’t even too difficult starting it from scratch as I had learned from my errors with Freebie. And iflix already has strong products and resources, which was a major advantage,” she says.
Artima’s main task was to localise the products, mainly movies and series, develop the service and marketing sides of the business, build business partners and boost subscriber numbers.
Here again, the experience gained over 10 years with The Boston Consulting Group (BCG)], Novartis Thailand and Big C Supercenter served her well as did her work with Freebie. Launched in 2013, the corporate-sponsored free call service quickly drew 300,000 subscribers and dozens of advertisers.
“Freebie came to the market too early and we were affected by both the economic situation and the political protests. The service was warmly welcomed by users but the sponsors could not meet the costs as ad spending declined by 15 per cent. So after a year of operations we decided to call it a day,” Artima explains.
But Lady Luck was smiling on her and she soon found herself back in the entrepreneur game.
During her first six months with iflix, she worked from home, the workload gradually spreading to just about every room as she recruited her first 12 staff.
“During the initial stage, we ran iflix along the lines of a lean startup concept – build, measure, and learn. We were employees but working as entrepreneurs. It was tiring but very enjoyable,” she says.
“It’s my dream job. I’ve felt tense on occasion over the last six months but I’ve never felt like I wanted to jack it in to do something else.
“To me, the iflix service addresses the needs of those who love watching movies and TV series. Our service here offers 1,000 movie titles and 1,600 series seasons, so there’s plenty to watch.”
Video-on-demand via the Internet, web browser and application is a relatively new service, she adds. Iflix has been on the market for two years and its nearest rival has been in the business for five.
Since its launch in September last year, iflix Thailand has accumulated 500,000 active members, slightly behind the Philippines and Malaysia, where it was introduced six months earlier. The service, spread over all three markets, counts about two million active members.
Artima’s mission is to have five million active members by the end of 2016 and she is confident that she will reach her target, pointing out that iflix offers a good service, has a strong team and solid partners.
The next phase is to strengthen the partnership strategy, she says. And in that, Artima is succeeding, having recently entered into an agreement with True Corp to bring iflix service to True Move H’s 25 million users.
“We will work with partners to bring iflix to their customers as a privilege. Fitness First, for example, is buying into the iflix service to offer to its customers as a privilege. Under the arrangement, its customers can use iflix service for free for a certain time.
“True Move H is also using this B2B2C model. We do not sell our services to the end-customers by ourselves but push it through our partners. We are planning to deal with device companies to preload iflix,” says Artima.
iflix currently offers a one-month free trial. Once users evolve into customers they will be charged only Bt100 per month or Bt1,000 per year for unlimited series seasons and movie titles. One account holder can use the iflix service on up to five devices and can even watch content via two devices at the same time. Moreover, they can download up to 10 titles to watch offline.
But Artima is modest enough not to credit herself with the service’s success in Thailand. “The reason it’s taken off is because the market was ready for it,” she says candidly.
Thailand is s significant market in term of size since it has 39 million Internet users, a good Internet infrastructure and a fast Internet speed. Smartphone [and tablet] penetration in Thailand is also quite high. And more importantly, there’s a demand.
“Thais love to take control of their own entertainment no matter how old or young they are. Our service allows them to do exactly that. It’s convenient, affordable and the content, which comes with good resolution and subtitle choices in several languages, matches what members want.
“Thais spend an average of 100 minutes a day watching iflix. I’m a major series fan and watch it for four hours everyday,” she says with a grin.
Now totally content in her job, she has some advice for the up-and-coming female entrepreneur,
“Find your passion and be brave. Do what you like and use what you learn. And when you are recruiting a team, don’t just try to find people similar to yourself. Differences of opinions and in tastes are good too. And remember, always have fun.”
