Alva H. Taylor
Length: 6 pages
Publication date: 2018
CASE: 2018BAB

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Babylon Video: Product Design and Expansion in the Online Video Industry

Professor Alva Taylor, Geoff Mattei (T’12 and Alumni Fellow of the Center for Digital Strategies), prepared this case for the Tuck School of Business solely as the basis for class discussion. Cases are not intended to serve as endorsements, sources of primary or factual data, nor illustrations of effective or ineffective management.

Jeff Maker looked at his calendar on his phone as he ride-shared to work. Maker had just been hired as a Senior Product Manager for Babylon, a video streaming network that focused on highly curated international, art house, indie films, and live and recorded streaming of music concerts. Founded in 2009, Babylon’s early growth had gone well and the company had built substantial market share in video streaming markets such as the US, UK, DE and Japan. The company had reached 22 million subscribers, making it the fourth largest player in the streaming video space. Maker now had key product decisions to make as Babylon scaled up both the exposure and the expectations of their streaming offering. The next round of new features would be essential for driving customer engagement and differentiation in this highly competitive market. Despite early success, growth was starting to slow, and Babylon’s online streaming development team had to important product decisions to make. Maker was given the responsibility to examine Babylon’s user interface and features. His project task was as follows: (1) educate himself on the online streaming industry and the dynamics of competition; (2) understand the feature set and decisions that the industry leaders have made: and (3) make suggestions to Babylon for the next version of their streaming product.