Four questions for Rob Lane of Overlay.tv – (Updated)

UPDATE: I just came across an amazing use of Overlay.tv technology at Elle Magazine. As you watch the video click on the stuff you think is nice and you can find out more info about it.  This is a really good idea.

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Here is a four question interview that we did recently with Rob Lane of Overlay.tv.  Rob is very active in the Ottawa startup and social media communities and he knows what it takes to get a startup off the ground.  To find out what he is up to right now you can always follow him on twitter @roblane.  Enjoy the interview…

1. Who are you?

I am Rob Lane, CEO & Co-founder of Overlay.TV. I am a Brit-adian (!), who came to this fine country via a brief spell running a division of a much larger company in Dallas, Texas. Prior to founding Overlay.TV I ran Sales and Marketing for Tropic Networks which was sold in April 2007 to Alcatel-Lucent.

Educationally, I am a failed Engineer with a Bachelors in Electronics, a post grad in Marketing and an MBA from Cranfield University in the UK, all of which gives me a dangerous knowledge in many subjects.

Despite having spent the first ten years of my career working for large multi-nationals before moving into the start up game in 2000, I’ve always thought myself as an entrepreneur. Maybe this comes from my family background and having experienced as a child the joys and pains of growing several different types of businesses from catering to medical. I believe everybody should have spent time scrubbing floors as it helps build character and perspective. I’ve been married for over 14 years to my childhood sweat-heart and have two sons, aged 9 and 7.

2. What do you do?

There are two answers to this question and both are equally important.

The first answer is around the functional aspects of what I do. This includes "keeping the beast fed" by raising finance, finding the best people on the planet to surround myself with and to drive Overlay.TV forward, providing leadership to those people and creating an environment where people can excel and finally, to act as chief evangelist for customers, partners, users, in fact anyone who will listen. 

The second answer is around the human aspects of the job and the real reason I get out of bed. At all times I try to bring energy, passion, drive and humor to the team. Over the last 20 years I have continually tried to disprove my hypothesis that you can be 90% positive on a person within 3minutes of meeting them, but I continually fail to disprove this. When I’m interviewing people, which is a ongoing process even when we are not expanding, obviously I need/expect candidates to have the basic functional experience to do the job but beyond that I need to feel their passion and energy. Positivity is everything for me. I ask myself ‘what will this person be like in the middle of the night after months of slogging it out when we all decided that we can do better? Will they explode, will they cry, will they step up to the challenge, will they have a breakdown? I look for real people and don’t expect perfection…at all times.

3. Why do you do it?

The answer to this is very linked to the last part of the previous question. I do it because I see hope in building something amazing. I recognize the huge battles that lay ahead but love the challenge. I get to surround myself with amazing people and give life to an idea that grows and continually evolves. I love to see the team prosper as we achieve our goals and take it very personally when those goals are not meet.  I continually strive to get the best out of people and build on their strengths.

Am I financially motivated? Damn right I am but I see this as an outcome rather than let it drive me on a day-to-day basis. Money is a means to an end in that it provides the security you need to build the next great thing.

4. Why is it important?

Overlay.TV sits at the major intersection of online video, advertising and eCommerce and there are huge challenges going on in each of these sectors.

Over the last 3/4 years, video has essentially gone from zero to largest phenomenon being experienced on the web today. To give you some scale, last month there were around ten billion online searches performed in N.America but there were over 12 billion online videos watched. The shift to more social media has created an opportunity looking to build community around video while some of the largest companies on the planet are still struggling to try and figure out how they play in this space while still making money.

Advertising is seeing a vast audience migration, the likes of which have only just started to evolve. As viewers migrate from mass TV watching to other media, they become very fragmented and hence very difficult to target by the advertisers that pay for the content.  Advertising has to evolve and in our view become more relevant to the audience consuming it.

So why is it important? It important because we believe at Overlay.TV we have the core of a platform that can address many of these big issues and how often in business do you really ever get the opportunity to have such a fundamental impact.

By Scott Lake