Jess Butcher, the co-founder of Blippar. It’s a mobile visual browser that lets you search the internet without words, simply by scanning the objects around you. As Chief Marketing Officer, she’s led Blippar to over 60 million app downloads. Listen in to hear about the crazy future of augmented reality and why Jess thinks that “blipping”, like “googling”, will become a verb before too long.

Famous 5:

Favorite Book? – Anything by Seth Godin
What CEO do you follow? — Aaron Levie
Favourite online tool? —Twitter and Linkedin
Do you get 8 hours of sleep?— No
If you could let your 20 year old self know one thing, what would it be?— Fake it til you make it. Stop being so cautious.

Time Stamped Show Notes:
01:08 – Nathan’s introduction
01:40 – Welcoming Jess to the show
01:53 – Blippar is a mobile visual browser that can recognise anything in the physical world and search for information on it - “Search without words”
03:15 – “We could play an audio file on the artwork you see - or open a link to buy the handbag that you see someone holding on the train”
03:40 – Currently working with Coca Cola and Lucky Charms to create interactive experiences with their physical products
03:35 – Founded in 2013; went to market in 2014
05:20 – Raised just over $100 million in funding
06:00 – “We’ve been in the market long enough that we have entrenched relationships with many of our clients. It’s a combination of consultancy and technology fixed fees”
07:30 – Mostly 7-figure retained relationships
08:15 – “Increasingly we’re moving the creative side onto agencies and focusing on tech”
08:30 – Average annual contract is in the mid 6 figures
08:45 – Currently working with well over 500 brands and asset owners
09:40 – Founded in 2011
09:50 – Around 300 team members in 14 offices around the world
11:40 – In addition to the brands they work closely with, Blippar has self-service tools that let smaller companies access their technology
12:20 – Blipp Builder is an affordable and accessible way into Blippar
13:30 – How do you incentivise users to come on board Blippar?
13:50 – “We’ve never sold this as people having access to everyone that uses Blippar...the idea is that the partners themselves are getting people to download the app”
16:00 – What’s the long term goal?
16:15 – “We want to become a verb in common parlance”
18:02 – Within the year, Blippar will be able to recognise its surroundings with the same level of complexity as an adult brain
18:20 – Connect with Jess on Twitter
21:10 – The Famous Five

3 Key Points:
Visual search recognition is the next level of engagement with the internet - visual recognition and augmented reality are going to take off rapidly in the next few years
Fake it til you make it. Pretend you know what you’re doing and you’re where you want to be.
Have ambitious goals. Know when you’re onto a big idea - and chase it.
Resources Mentioned:
Host Gator – The site Nathan uses to buy his domain names and hosting for cheapest price possible.
Freshbooks - The site Nathan uses to manage his invoices and accounts.
Leadpages – The drag and drop tool Nathan uses to quickly create his webinar landing pages which convert at 35%+
Audible – Nathan uses Audible when he's driving from Austin to San Antonio (1.5 hour drive) to listen to audio books.

Show Notes provided by Mallard Creatives

EP 315: Mom Just Had Baby, $100 Million Raised Augmented Reality, 65 Million Users

SaaS Interviews with CEOs, Startups, Founders

EP 315: Mom Just Had Baby, $100 Million Raised Augmented Reality, 65 Million Users