I awoke yesterday morning and thumbed through my Twitter feed, stumbling on a tweet by Jeff Clavier confirming an investment in MovieClips.com. I know MovieClips well, and seeing their funding success and traction over the past 12 months has been remarkable.
In September of 2009 one of the founder Zach James flew to the Bay Area to show me their product in development. Zach and I knew each other in college and have lots of mutual friends. When I heard Zach was doing a startup I was immediately excited for him and offered to help if I could.
When we met last year I had briefly left digital media to pursue a crazy idea in a different industry (future blog post). He convinced me I was crazy, and allowed me to be a part of the team as they prepared for launch in December. For that I am forever grateful. I was privieged to be apart of the site launch, and helped create a YouTube channel with +2MM views, and a Facebook community with 35k fans. They’ve been on a roll ever since.
The other co-founder Rich Raddon is probably the most connected person in Hollywood you’ve never heard of. He knows EVERYONE. He’s also one of the genuinely nicest guys you’ll ever meet. If it were just these two guys starting a company I’d back them regardless of the idea…but wait; they also have a killer product!
MovieClips.com is one of the only places on the web to legally watch clips from your favorite movies. While other companies try to dance around the content owners, these guys did it right. They got every studio that matters on board and started making it happen. They’ve also built an amazing team led by wonderboy Philip Southam and others.
Did I get your attention yet? I hope so. They are one to watch. Besides, I just can’t help root for them.
Check it out. http://movieclips.com