If you’ve ever clicked on an online video to find out about or purchase a product or service, you may well have used an application developed by Coull. Founded by Irfon Watkins (CEO – pictured right) and Aden Forshaw (Chief Technology Officer) in 2008, Bristol-based Coull have been at the forefront of interactive video advertising since its beginning.
We caught up with Irfon to find out more about his South West tech success story.
TS: What inspired you to start Coull?
IW: I’d been fascinated by the potential of online video since its inception. Contrary to TV, which has always been a lean-back experience, with online video I felt there was so much potential to lean in and engage with the video content you were watching.
This was the basis for Coull’s technology at the start, and served as the foundation for the company we are today, a video advertising technology firm that sees 2.1bn+ video views a month.
TS: Where did you meet Aden?
IW: We met in Bristol 2007 and the following year we decided to found Coull together.
TS: What are your backgrounds, are they purely tech based?
IW: Aden’s worked for a number of software companies across a variety of sectors, while I started out with Dell as Sales Director, before moving to Florida to lead the acquisition and running of six software companies across Africa and Europe. I then moved back to the UK and we founded Coull.
TS: Why did you chose Bristol as your UK base?
IW: Bristol is where both Aden and I were based when we first met, and it proved to be the perfect place to set up a technology company.
”Bristol has a vibrant tech community that has flourished organically from the city’s long history of innovative companies across multiple sectors”
Bristol has a vibrant tech community that has flourished organically from the city’s long history of innovative companies across multiple sectors, such as engineering, publishing and the creative arts. It’s extremely multidisciplinary and that lends itself well to fostering innovation.
TS: How is the US expansion going?
IW: It’s going great. We expanded to Santa Barbara in 2012, recently made new hires in New York and the US market now represents our largest revenue stream. We’re building out a fantastic team to take advantage of the opportunity.
TS: What companies or organisations would you consider to be Coull’s biggest wins?
IW: We work with a lot of great clients, but the biggest ‘wins’ we have are internal. We hire great people and empower them to do great things. That’s what’s enabled us to grow so quickly, and will be the thing that enables us to maintain that growth.
“We work with a lot of great clients, but the biggest ‘wins’ we have are internal. We hire great people and empower them to do great things”
TS: How do you see Coull developing in the future? Is further expansion planned? Diversification? New products?
IW: It’s certainly likely we’ll be growing the team in Bristol, as well as our other offices in London, Santa Barbara and New York.
In terms of our products we’ve always been completely focused on building technology that makes video advertising better, more relevant and more valuable. That means innovating constantly and that won’t stop.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fSYE1wffeks
We’re delighted to participate and represent the area’s booming technology scene.
TS: Which tech companies in Bristol and Bath do you think are doing exciting things?
IW: Mubaloo and CX Partners are two examples of local companies who have focused on one thing (mobile and customer experience respectively) and are doing them incredibly well.
Then you’ve got incubators like SETsquared which have created a great environment for entrepreneurs to thrive in. Brilliant ideas like Wriggle, an app that gives Bristolians access to timed deals on food and drinks at independent local venues, have since flourished in the centre.
Many thanks to Irfon for taking the time to speak to us. To keep up with developments at Coull, follow them on Twitter @Coull or check out their blog.
