Innovative platform for social television: a Tunisian success story

Pinhole is building an innovative platform for social television to improve the TV viewing experience and help producers reach more audience online. This is one of the companies that TAYP worked closely with its founders and provided advice and mentoring when needed as part of our entrepreneurship mentoring and coaching program.

The idea of a the startup was conceived 3 years ago, with the goal of delivering a technology that would enable the user to interact with live shows. After spending 2 years on market study and Set Top Box prototyping, Pinhole filed for a patent which enabled it to raise Seed Fund and start product development. The startup was officially created a year ago, and launched its product after 7 months of software development. It has accumulated more than 400K users during its first 3 and half months.

With Pinhole Social TV, you’ll never miss a show! Pinhole offers a social media application layer which enables the connection with established social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. It allows the users to watch VOD (video on demand) content and interact with shows and TV programs. On the other hand, it enables marketers to target users by ads and coupons directly relating to the content seen on TV and VOD.

Over the last couple of weeks, Pinhole has also started pitching its product to potential advertising clients with great feedback. The sales process has been activated and a few great deals should be closed in a couple of months. With such great success in Tunisia, Pinhole management is looking outside the country for expansion, with the goal of reaching the whole MENA region by Q4 2014. One of the key factors in Pinhole’s success was the mentorship that enabled its leaders to broaden the vision, think big and stay grounded.