The University of British Columbia
UBC - A Place of Mind
The University of British Columbia Vancouver campus
ETEC 522 – Ventures in Learning Technologies
  • Startup
    • How to Begin?
    • Objectives
    • Course Manual
    • Outline & Schedule
    • Participation Guide
    • Assignments
    • ☛ Introduce Yourself!
    • 👥 Authors
  • W01: Emerging Markets
    • W01: Emerging Market Teams
  • W02-04: Bootcamp
    • Global Dynamics
    • Who is the Customer?
    • What is a Venture?
    • 👥 Opportunity Horizon
    • W03: Analyst Bootcamp
    • A Game with Three Pitches
    • Deconstructing a Pitch
    • 👥 Pitch Critique
    • W04: Entrepreneur Bootcamp
    • Venture Genesis
    • Opportunity Activation
    • The Right Stuff
    • 👥 Founders Parade
  • W05-12: Opportunity Forecasts
    • W05: Personalized Learning
    • W06: Mobile Learning
    • W07: Game-Based Learning
    • W08: Big Data & Learning Analytics
    • W09: Immersive Experience
    • W10: Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning
    • W11: Microlearning
    • W12: Wearables
  • W13: Launch
    • Venture Forum Resources
  • Forums
    • W01 – Emerging Markets
    • W02 – Market Projections
    • W03 – Pitch Pool
    • W04 – Founders Parade
    • W05-12 – Opportunity Forecasts (A2)
    • W13 – Venture Forum (A3)
    • Analyst Reports (A1)
  • Global Feeds
    • Announcements
    • Eva’s Café
    • Radio 522
  • LOGIN
Sort By
Show only these categories:
Show only this category:

Bitstrips – Jacob Blackstock

By rrto on September 30, 2015

 

photo by GEMMA KARSTENS-SMITH, Toronto Star

Jacob “Ba” Blackstock is the CEO and creative director of Bitstrips, “The world’s most popular comics app” (Hamburger, 2013).

Bitstrips began as a website where people could make avatars of themselves and put them into comic strips with an intuitive, user-friendly program. It began to make some money when they created Bitstrips for Schools, and the Ontario Ministry of Education, among others, licensed it for use in schools, but was still a tiny operation, operated by Blackstock and Shahan Panth (now VP marketing). But things really changed for Bitstips in the fall of 2013, when they created the Bitstrips app. Originally put up just for friends to test out, within two weeks “Bitstrips was the no. 1 app in 40 countries and showed no signs of stopping — even though it barely worked” (Hamburger, 2013). By the end of November, 30 million people had created avatars.

“It was like we had built this cruise ship that suddenly millions and millions of people were piling into while it was hurtling through the ocean, bursting at the seams,” Blackstock said. “And so we had to start finding engineers to start battening down the hatches and reinforce the hull and rebuild the engines.” (Karstens-Smith, 2013).

Investors started taking notice including, Solina Chau, co-founder of Horizon Ventures in Hong Kong who convinced the company to invest. Suddenly Blackstock had 3 million dollars to hire a larger staff and get more office space and, as he said, “reinforce the hull and rebuild the engines”. As of today there are 26 employees and 6 new job postings on the Bitstrips website. Judging by their job titles, about 3/4 are developers and engineers while about 1/4 are artists. It seems that Bitstrips have found a nice balance of the comic-artistic savvy that brought them their original appeal, and the computer-scientific savvy they need to keep their product operational with an ever-growing user base. They’ve recently launched Bitmoji, allowing users to create emoticons with their own avatars in it.


 

My personal interest in this story stems from the fact that I have known Ba for 20 years. We both came out of an underground arts scene in the Plateau Montreal in the 1990s. He and a few other successes show me that you can be successful while staying true to your art. I’ve seen Bitstrips grow in the most organic way, from a program that Ba created to animate a short film for the National Film Board of Canada about 15 years ago to the app it is today. I’m proud of him and can’t wait to see where Bitstrips goes from here.

References:

Hamburger, E. (2013, Dec. 17). Strip mining: the rise of the world’s most popular comics app. The Verge. Retrieved from: http://www.theverge.com/2013/12/17/5220916/bitstrips-the-rise-of-the-worlds-most-popular-comics-app

Karstens-Smith, G. (2013, Dec. 13). Toronto-based Bitstrips gets $3 million investment. The Toronto Star. Retrieved from: http://www.thestar.com/business/tech_news/2013/12/17/torontobased_bitstrips_gets_3_million_investment.html

Rating
Average: 3.3/5 Stars
 
 
 
 
 
0 Thumbs Up!

Read More | No Comments

Loading...
4 Oct Posted on Bitstrips – Jacob Blackstock

I am going to have to agree with Susan on this one. Although I love Bitstrips and find them really entertaining I wouldn't classify Jacob Blackstock as an entrepreneur (at least not going by the definition of what an entrepreneur is in this course) since this was a case of his product getting lucky and going viral without implementing any formal marketing strategy. I think in order for Blackstock to be labeled as an entrepreneur he would have keep the bitstrips ball rolling by continuing to innovate it and developing other apps using a formal marketing strategy.

4 Oct
0 Thumbs Up!
ivana @ivanapet

I am going to have to agree with Susan on this one. Although I love Bitstrips and find them really entertaining I wouldn't classify Jacob Blackstock as an entrepreneur (at least not going by the definition of what an entrepreneur is in this course) since this was a case of his product getting lucky and going viral without implementing any formal marketing strategy. I think in order for Blackstock to be labeled as an entrepreneur he would have keep the bitstrips ball rolling by continuing to innovate it and developing other apps using a formal marketing strategy.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Bitstrips – Jacob Blackstock
  • Loading...
1 Oct Posted on Bitstrips – Jacob Blackstock

Mr. Blackstock has been successful in expanding his company Bitstrips at an astonishing rate. Based on his background, I would not label him as an entrepreneur as his product did not really undergo any marketing or venture strategies that its success could be attributed to. Based on the review above, it seems the app went 'viral' and then caught the attention of investors looking to make a profit. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Blackstock has the 'right stuff' to make his company more than a 'one app wonder'. He has surrounded himself with experts in the fields of engineering and design but I think he will need to have some number crunchers and investment folks on his team to really have the company reach its potential.

1 Oct
0 Thumbs Up!
Susan @smroth

Mr. Blackstock has been successful in expanding his company Bitstrips at an astonishing rate. Based on his background, I would not label him as an entrepreneur as his product did not really undergo any marketing or venture strategies that its success could be attributed to. Based on the review above, it seems the app went 'viral' and then caught the attention of investors looking to make a profit. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Blackstock has the 'right stuff' to make his company more than a 'one app wonder'. He has surrounded himself with experts in the fields of engineering and design but I think he will need to have some number crunchers and investment folks on his team to really have the company reach its potential.

  • Expand
  • 0 Replies
  • in reply to Bitstrips – Jacob Blackstock
  • Loading...
  • Previous
  • Next
Show only this category:
How to Begin

Custom Search

Tags

2014 2015 2016

Faculty of Education
Vancouver Campus
2125 Main Mall
Vancouver, BC Canada V6T 1Z4
Website pdce.educ.ubc.ca/
Email pdce.educ@ubc.ca
Back to top
The University of British Columbia
  • Emergency Procedures |
  • Terms of Use |
  • Copyright |
  • Accessibility