As it celebrated its 10th anniversary, Singapore-based content platform Viddsee launched a new web3 IP studio Candee Labs to elevate Asia’s creators and storytellers in the space
Not many startups get to celebrate their 10th anniversary. In fact, statistics say that 70 percent of startups fail within their second to fifth year of existence. For Singapore-based video creator platform Viddsee, hitting the 10th-year milestone calls for not only a celebration but a new beginning as well.
This past March, the company’s co-founders Ho Jia Jian and Derek Tan, both 2018 Gen.T honourees, marked the moment by launching Candee, which serves as the parent company of Viddsee.
It will also house Candee Labs, a new web3-first IP studio that will work alongside projects to develop stories and bring them to their communities. The studio’s first project will be to bring to life the BBRC x Ivy Boys IP, an NFT project by BBRC Studios, the web3 subsidiary of lifestyle and menswear brand Benjamin Barker, in collaboration with South Korean illustrator Aaron Chang.
Ho shares his thoughts about Viddsee turning 10 and the story behind building Candee and Candee Labs.
Congratulations on celebrating 10 years with Viddsee. How do you feel about hitting this milestone?
Ho Jia Jian (JJ): “Starting a company is like jumping off a cliff and assembling a plane on the way down”—this quote by [American entrepreneur and investor] Reid Hoffman aptly describes our experience launching Viddsee. When we first started, there weren't many online video and creator platforms in the region that championed Asian storytelling. With a desire to learn and challenge ourselves, we were determined to bridge the gap in the local filmmaking space.
The most rewarding part about creating Viddsee has been being able to empower and support the region's storytellers, spotlighting their stories and helping to push their short films onto bigger screens.
We feel beyond thankful to our team, clients and partners who have worked with us, one way or another, helping us to reach this major milestone. It was nice to connect with everyone during our 10th-year anniversary [celebration] and hear their testimonials about how Viddsee has helped them beyond just creating good stories.
Having entertained audiences with high-quality stories the last 10 years, we are confident that we will continue to fly the flag for Asia’s storytellers.
Looking back, was there a pivotal moment in Viddsee's journey that shaped or set the company on the path to success?
JJ: Viddsee started by curating films on a Facebook page, sharing a film a day until one day, one of them, titled Gift, blew up and garnered more than 500 million views globally. That indicated to us that short films were not as niche as many believed; what mattered was getting them to the right audiences.
In 2017, we shifted our business model from content curation to content creation, as we noticed how little money went to the creators themselves, especially those who needed help with the distribution of their films.
The launch of Viddsee Studios went hand-in-hand with Viddsee Originals, which allowed creators to develop their own original content that will be streamed on Viddsee. When we first launched, we reached out to Daniel Yam, the filmmaker of Gift, who left his full-time job and started a production house after the success of the short film. We have been working with him since on Viddsee Originals content, branded content and even on his feature film. Daniel is one of the filmmakers from our platform who has been pivotal in our growth.
Another pivotal moment would be when we decided to turn our shorts into a series. An example is the Viddsee Original Scene City short film, Home Is Where The Heart Is, which was adapted for a TV drama with Mediacorp in 2022 and just launched on Netflix. This marked our efforts in pushing more opportunities for our creators and for their stories to be seen by a wider audience.
To this date, we have paid over $10 million to creators globally through Viddsee's platform. We’re continuously searching for new ways for Asian creators to push their stories out to bigger screens and platforms.
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