OEN Member Spotlight: Luke Ordway of CEO of My Replay Live (MRL)
My Replay Live connects people with performance spaces so nobody misses a moment and everyone can be the star.
Q: What does your business do?
A: My Replay Live provides an automated video recording system to connect people with performance spaces. Being built for public and private venues so parents never have to hold the video camera again, the service will help families stay connected and ensure nobody misses a moment and everybody has the chance to be the star.
Q: What problem does it solve?
A: Millions of people miss special events each day because of work, family commitments, or geographical separation. If you can attend, whether it’s athletic, theatrical, or musical , your experience is greatly demised by holding an arm aching camcorder. At an MRL equipped facility, you can sit-back, enjoy, and leave the recording to us.
Q: How did you come up with this business idea?
A: Following a colligate soccer career I found myself working at indoor center. Needless to say I was playing and watching a lot of sports and for all the good times, nobody was there with a camera. Parents would struggle and inevitable give up on recording their kids. Nobody wanted to hold the camera but there was so much valuable footage being created. Then came the “wouldn’t it be cool if,” conversations.
Q: What are your biggest challenges?
A: MRL is entering an emerging space combining cameras from the security industry with the new social media space. While this technology is becoming more and more commoditized and software reaching new height everyday we still need to get hardware distributed across numerous markets and mediums in a timely fashion.
Q: What are your goals for the company?
A: My Replay Live goals revolved around solidifying three core competencies: automated video capture, crowdsourcing layers of content, and progressive analytics. Unlike other companies in the video space, My Replay Live’s exclusive content will be curated and enriched by the crowd. Based on their input, My Replay Live’s progressive analytics will recognize significant moments in time and spread them to more and more eyes with the intent of creating viral videos.
Q: Are you looking for funding?
A: Yes
Q: What would funding enable you to do?
A: Funding would greatly accelerate product development. Recently we reached a major benchmark by completing our first sales. Prior to this, use of funding would be to get into more facilities, however at the moment we hope to grow organically based on our profit sharing and advertisement business models.
Q: Have you been an entrepreneur before?
A: I have, but to this level and sophistication is uncharted territory. I run a series of summer soccer camps in rural areas and helped open a restaurant in 2008. Both still in existence.
Q: What brought you to OEN? What do you hope to gain from membership?
A: As a company we don’t want to do anything different then other successful entrepreneurs have done before us. The OEN is a logical progressive step towards sophistication and success.
Q: What has been the biggest surprise in your entrepreneurial experience to date?
A: This is a major venture addressing a major pain and on the leading edge of technology. We have reached a minimal viable product for the big problem only after three, somewhat painful, development cycles. But with that pain has come an understanding that business takes time, like relationships take development. Although I would like to see development happen much faster, while bootstrapping and burning the midnight, the team and product have made real progress fueled by belief and persistence.
Q: What has been the best entrepreneurial advice you’ve received?
A: “An entrepreneur will often have their worst and best day in the same day.” Unknown. The last year has been a self-incubation period by the Portland start-up community. Participation with the Portland State Business Accelerator, PSU’s Lab2Market, PDX Startup Weekend, numerous Keiretsu and OEN events, PDC software finance committee just to name a few, have all been treasured.