The co-founder and CEO of StarzPlay, a leading over-the-top (OTT) streaming platform in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region, recently shared insights into the company’s journey and strategic pillars at an industry event.
“When we first got started, we benefited from lack of competition, we had the early mover advantage,” Maaz Sheikh said.
Sheikh’s comments came on the sidelines of the Arabian Business Leadership Summit 2024, held at the Armani Hotel in Dubai on Wednesday.
From a startup to a media empire: StarzPlay’s journey so far
Revealed by Sheikh, StarzPlay is ranked number 2 in MENA as an OTT platform with an 18 percent market share as of 2023.
Launched in 2015, Starzplay offers SVOD (subscription video on demand) and FAST (free ad-supported streaming TV) services across various devices like Smart TVs, mobile, web, and gaming platforms. Its content offerings include entertainment, Arabic, and sports programming.
The platform’s subscriber growth journey, started from 0.1 million subscribers in 2014 and projecting to reach 3.5 million subscribers by April 2024, showing steady year-over-year growth, with investors like Lionsgate, GE, and the Abu Dhabi Investment Office backing the platform.
StarzPlay’s strategic pillars include localisation (building content for the MENA audience), partnerships (creating win-win distribution and content deals with companies like Ooredoo, STC, UFC, Disney, and ICC), and agility (adapting their model to cater to evolving content and audience preferences across Western, Arabic, anime, and sports genres).
However, despite its success, Sheikh believes that when faced with important life missions, one must dig deep within their heart and soul to understand the true purpose.
“It cannot merely be about professional success or financial gain. There has to be a deeper driving force that provides the energy to persevere. For me, it was the desire to provide for my family that served as that profound motivation to keep pushing forward,” he said.
The qualities of a good leader
When asked if Sheikh has the same team from when he began StarzPlay, he said: “The process of evolution and adaptation has been ongoing, and I don’t believe it will ever truly end. We haven’t cracked any definitive formula. In all honesty, we are consistently learning and making mistakes, even with our team. When we first began, there were four of us who had already worked together in this region for over a decade. Now, that core group of three or four team members have collaborated side-by-side for 20 years.
“We have known each other for a long time, which is quite rare. I believe this continuity has been one of the core reasons for our success. Typically, founders start companies, visions shift, frustrations arise, and founders ultimately part ways. We are blessed as a company that all the original founders have remained from day one,” he said, concluding that the defining traits of a good leader is resilience, patience and to lead by example.
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