This written summary provides the key insights from the original podcast conversation with Serkan Sevim, Founder and CEO of Medianova, summarized in an easy-to-read Q&A format.

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1. Vitrina: Can you provide an elevator pitch for Medianova, detailing its business lines and its origin story in the content delivery and streaming space?

Serkan Sevim: Medianova started 20 years ago and has been a profitable, bootstrapped company from day one. The company originated from a need in 2004 to watch real-time soccer (football) streaming for Turkish audiences around the globe from 97 countries. Today, we define our company as empowering our customers’ digital journeys by utilizing our distributed cloud platform, which is the next level of cloud technology. We offer services in video delivery, security, and data.

Quote: “So the way we built Medionova back then, it was from a need, actually… So it was extremely high tech back then. So it was 2004 when we started.”

2. Vitrina: You have a background in physics and technology, starting multiple companies. What led you to focus on streaming media and move from the US back to Turkey and Istanbul?

Serkan Sevim: My major is physics, and I’ve always loved innovation, mathematics, and computers. I never worked for any company; Medianova is my third, and I sold my first two businesses. I realized that streaming media would follow the same path as voice over IP (VoIP), where everything would eventually run on IP networks. This understanding, coupled with a personal reason to explore business growth and help Turkey, led me to move back to Turkey around 2006 and start building the streaming media business there. I was fascinated by the ability to monitor and measure everything in streaming, providing highly accurate data for ads and user behavior.

Quote: “I realize the same will happen to streaming media. So because it has so many big advantages, you know who your customer is, you know who the user, where the user, what clicks, what doesn’t clicks, how much they watch, everything…”

3. Vitrina: The media landscape has changed dramatically from cable and satellite to global streaming. How has Medianova evolved to address the needs of its current clientele, and is live sports streaming still a major focus?

Serkan Sevim: Approximately 30% to 40% of our business is with media companies and content owners. Our clientele is diverse, ranging from video-on-demand (VOD) platforms and live streams to short-form video companies, including the largest social media in the world from Asia. Live streaming is our first-ever use case, starting 20 years ago, and it is still very relevant. For short-form video, the challenge is different—making the “time to first frame” extremely fast, in milliseconds. For live sports, the key challenge is the simultaneous log-in of users at the start of a game, which creates a massive load, similar to a DDoS attack on the network. We see a huge opportunity in sports streaming, especially with new content production methods like live-streaming races from inside cars or from a skier’s helmet.

Quote: “When you roll and scroll videos, so you expect every video to start within milliseconds… It’s a lot different than running a VOD where you have the large buffer, two, three minutes of buffer in case something happens, nothing happens on the customer side.”

4. Vitrina: Medianova is focused on the Middle East and Africa as the next big digital frontier. What is your strategy for serving both global players entering the region and global audiences accessing content from the region?

Serkan Sevim: We see the Middle East and Africa as the next big digital frontier, with almost a billion people and high mobile usage. For global companies, both American and Asian, wanting to grow their business in the region, we urge them to use a multi-CDN strategy and specifically route regional traffic to regional CDNs like Medianova. We deliberately built a strong network in this region, being the first CDN to build a network in key markets like Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Qatar, and Egypt. We have the capacity for high-traffic live streams, and our real Points of Presence (PoPs) ensure high performance. We also have the support of local governments, like Saudi Arabia, who want content to reach every user in less than 25 milliseconds.

Quote: “Saudi is unbelievable. are enormous opportunities in Saudi Arabia. They will invest $3 trillion in the next five years to build Saudi again, $3 trillion just in Saudi… Any company who is missing that will regret for the next 10 to 20 years.”

5. Vitrina: In terms of geographical expansion, where is Medianova focusing its efforts right now?

Serkan Sevim: We intentionally go to locations where others do not, often by mapping where our biggest competitors have no presence. Recently, we have launched two PoPs in Africa and two more in Egypt. We also recently launched a PoP in Lebanon and are focusing on countries like Azerbaijan and Pakistan. Our goal is to cover this region exceptionally well, working hand-in-hand with local operators and often receiving support from local governments who want to localize content delivery.

Quote: “We go to locations where others doesn’t go. We are trying to pick, we get it. We have a map, like global map that shows latency, right? So we just filter one of our biggest competitors and we see where they are not there.”

6. Vitrina: How does Medianova approach partnerships, especially with local telecom operators in a region where peering can be challenging?

Serkan Sevim: We definitely partner with local telecom operators who want to provide better service to their end users. We act as a bridge between the content owners and the telcos. A key challenge in our region is that main telecom operators often do not want to peer with each other locally; they prefer to peer in Europe. To deliver high traffic and very low-latency streaming, you must have the right partners—the telecom operators—on board. We believe in being transparent and viewing telecom operators as important partners in the equation, making it a win-win scenario for the end-user, the operator, and the content owner.

Quote: “I mean, this is not a zero sum game. Somebody doesn’t need to lose, right? Everybody wins as long as we all add value.”

7. Vitrina: You mentioned that all your analytics solutions are in-house built. Can you elaborate on your philosophy of building products internally, your key product lines, and how you differentiate on service?

Serkan Sevim: My personal mission and motivation are to build things in the technology arena, so we try to build almost everything internally, only outsourcing non-core strategic items. Our company is divided into three product groups: Performance (CDN, image optimization, encoding), Security (DDoS attacks, APIs), and Real-Time, Big Data. A major differentiator is support: we provide support with real engineers via Slack channels, which is highly appreciated by our customers who do not want to wait for generic support. We also offer radical transparency by being one of the only CDNs that provides latency information on each transaction log pushed to the customer.

Quote: “We think support is a huge differentiator. I don’t like to wait for people, especially for my business… So we are trying to differentiate by building our own products, by understanding the product, and also by supporting through Slack channels with the real engineers.”

8. Vitrina: Considering the market consolidation and failure of some competitors, what is your read on the competitive landscape, and what is your outlook on the future, particularly regarding AI and industry trends?

Serkan Sevim: There is a huge opportunity for well-managed, profitable companies in the wake of companies that failed due to poor management and unsustainable spending (buying at 10 and selling at 5). The failure of several large CDNs has created a disrupted market, which is an opportunity for CDNs like us who are profitable and can offer regional expertise or support as part of a multi-CDN strategy. Regarding the future, I don’t chase buzzwords but believe Distributed Cloud is the next big thing. My AI strategy is to find one or two small, working use cases to leverage the huge amount of data we already possess as a CDN, rather than attempting to do everything at once.

Quote: “I think there’s a huge opportunity for companies who are well managed and making money… I think I see this market is disrupted market. So that companies, maybe today they are working with a CDN because they have to, because they need to save a day.”

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