Posted: 02/11/2015
I’ve spent the last 20 years of my career in sports production and sports technology, from the long nights as producer of a British institution, Match of The Day, to building deltatre into a market leading sports technology provider.
It was a difficult decision to leave the talented team at deltatre but my desire to enter the world of entrepreneurialism was too great. The truth is I have a skill: building businesses with ideas and concepts that people want and that make them money. My latest venture, FanView, will be a business designed to bring sports fans closer to the action. As we began business planning, a requirement appeared to quickly, easily, get content to market, and of course I chose Forscene. I say “of course” because there really is no tool like it in the market. So when the team approached me to interview for a non-executive director role, I was incredibly excited.
The first meeting I had with Aziz and Jason cemented my excitement. I already knew the power of Forscene and had played with eva so could easily see the huge potential of that platform. But the product that really got me excited and I saw the most potential in was Captevate – online video editor. I honestly don’t think I’ve seen an editing solution so easy to learn in my entire career. The team walked me through the growth model, but actually my mind went instantly to specific use cases. Since that first meeting we’ve already created professional sports proposals with Captevate as the centrepiece.
The future for Forbidden Technologies is incredibly exciting. The new team are extremely talented and focused (or ‘relentlessly focused’ as Aziz keeps telling us!) on growing the commerciality of the business. And that’s why I’m here. I’m here to help build revenues. I’m here to help build a commercial culture. I’m here to help get Forbidden’s products into people’s homes and offices around the world. I love sport and I love to win. And so above all, I’m here to win with Forbidden Technologies.
Blackbird is best-of-breed
Jon Hanford - Group CTO, Deltatre