From 2012 to 2013 our founder Carey Martell hired Scio to develop a prototype of the Zenither app which was constructed under the working title of 'Martell TV'. The app functioned perfectly on web browsers but fundraising for completion of the mobile app versions was unsuccessful.

The project was set aside while Carey built his MCN 'Power Up TV' which he grew to over 10 million views a month, over 1,000 channel partners and a combined 1 million+ subscribers. Carey then served as a Vice President at Los Angeles California based Thunder Studios after the studio acquired PUTV. Carey exited Thunder Studios in 2015 and waited out the duration of his noncompete agreement.

We're now ready to move forward with this project and the time seems right as equity based crowdfunding is now available as a means of fundraising, which gives interested folks like YouTube creators the opportunity to invest into a platform that will better serve their needs.

If this funding round is successful we expect to launch the completed version of Zenither into the market during the last quarter of 2017 or first quarter of 2018.

The Zenither web app currently has a limited set of features. With your help we can complete all these planned features;

1. Permalink URLs for Station, Show and Episode watch VOD pages (similar to custom urls for Wordpress pages, which makes the app optimized for search engine results). This is a website feature only.

2. 'Like' button to follow a Station and add it to the viewer's customized TV guide.

3. Station updates: Subscription feed for Viewer account that shows new content released by Stations they are subscribed to-- such as new VOD episodes, a current live broadcast or Merch products added to Store-- the layout should be similar to YouTube’s subscriptions page. Layout in grid or list mode. 

4. Add chat to live episode watch page, and comments to VOD episode watch page.
5. Add a “next broadcast” notification to live episode watch page that pulls data from future schedule for a Show.
6. Add ‘Merch’ tab to live and VOD episode watch pages; Shopify integration for Station owners to sell merchandise.
7. Add Merch’ button Station pages, which links to a page within Station that has Shopify store integration and allows display and purchase of items from the web app.
8. Enhance the graphical user interface of Station pages to look more polished. This includes placing the current day schedule for the station at the top of the Station page under its banner.
9. Add a ‘Live Now’ section to Station pages that shows only when a live broadcast has been turned on in Station controls. This links to a live broadcast episode watch page.
10. Customizable TV watch channel guide; featured stations are pinned to the top of the guide at all times and for all users, which is set by Admin account. Next come “recommended stations” - a rotating list of 3 Stations determined by Viewer account interests which updates daily. After this is reserved space for Subscribed Premium Stations, if any. Next are Stations the user has subscribed to, which initially appear in order the user subscribed to the Stations but can be moved around by the user within this section of the TV guide.
11. Implement Analytics to Publisher account, so that Viewer account behavior is tracked, such as number of views to a Station page, number of subscribers to different stations, devices used to watch stations, how long specific episodes are watched, etc. Similar data tracking that YouTube Analytics does and helps Publishers determine what kind of content to focus on producing.
12. Support for paid Viewer account subscriptions to Station bundles. This will function à la carte and allow Viewers to pay a price (like $9.99 a month) to subscribe to a package of Premium stations which can only be watched if the Viewer account is subscribed to the Package which lists those Stations.  
13. Support for pay-per-view live broadcast streams from a Station. These are broadcasts that must be purchased individually separate from any Premium package bundle. 
14. Audio balancer on episode container which will set audio levels of each segment to be balanced, preventing clips from being excessively loud.
15. Implement Geo-fencing for ad delivery and search discovery such as recommending Stations and Shows to Viewer accounts which are broadcasting near their physical location.
16. Implement dynamic ad display system that allows Publishers to set the price for ad inventory on their Stations.
17. Implement multiple TV Guide feeds for a Station based on time zone and region so that Publishers can create program lineups specific to time zones and regions. 
18. Implement geo-blocking options so that license holders do not show content in regions they do not have a license for and instead show alternative content that is available for watching in that region.
19. Enhanced multi-scheduler to set a show to re-broadcast in a certain schedule by day and timeslot, and schedule episodes in correct continuity (Episode 1 at 2 pm on Mon, then Episode 2 at 2 pm on Tues, etc. (‘Set repeating schedule’ feature)
20. Implement Content Licensing Library (described in detail in sections below).
21. Native apps for iOS and Android devices.
22. Apps for smart TVs like Roku, Apple TV, PS4, Xbox, Wii, etc.

*Additional features are planned as well but we are keeping the specifics of these close to our chests as they are potentially patentable technology.

Payments for Station premium subscriptions and Merch store will support payments made with credit cards, Paypal and cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Litecoin, etc.)

Let's look at an example with cooking shows.

On cable TV there is a station called the Food Network, which has wide distribution through all major cable and satellite TV providers. If you want to purchase ad inventory on Food Network shows you have to pay the rate the channel owner (Television Food Network, G.P) demands.

Secondly, for every half hour of television programming on the Food Network there are about 18 commercial spots. That means every day there is around 864 commercial spots available for purchase as a national campaign. As the viewership of the Food Network is broadcast and not on demand, the network has the most viewers in the evening so of those 864 commercial spots per day, 108 of these spots are "premium", or "prime time" ad inventory.

This prime time category commands the highest rates because it is scarce and reaches the largest number of Food Network audience viewers at once. There might be tens of thousands of companies that want to advertise every day on the Food Network and they will bid against each other for those coveted 108 slots, which increases the price.

Now let's look at YouTube, where there is hundreds and hundreds of cooking related shows from creators big and small. Epic Meal Time, Nerdy Nummies and My Drunk Kitchen might command the largest number of eyeballs but they do not possess any control whatsoever over the ad inventory of their shows. The creators of the channels don't even get to decide how many ad inventory spots are available on their shows per half hour of programming, nor do they get to decide how much it costs to advertise on their channels.

YouTube sells ads on the videos uploaded to their ENTIRE platform based largely on keywords a video ranks for, and although Google Preferred does allow advertisers to ensure their ads only show on certain channels, advertisers who pay far less money can reach the same audiences using the regular ol' wholesale AdWords system. So, there are billions and billions of ad inventory spots every day on YouTube which drives down the price of ad inventory to rock bottom prices even if there are millions of companies buying ads, because there is simply too much ad inventory available every day on YouTube.

Worse it is anti-competitive; it would be like if you could buy ads on the Food Network and BBC Food at the same time for the same price even though both companies are competitors to one another. Doesn't seem good for business, does it? That's because it isn't!

Worse yet, with YouTube the creators only get paid view by view, which might be a good deal for advertisers and encourage them to give YouTube more money to advertise on many thousands of channels but it doesn't help the creators maximize their own revenue opportunity. You can't go to Time Warner or Comcast and buy TV advertising on stations they don't own. You have to go directly to the owners of the TV stations and pay the rate they ask for in order to advertise to their audiences. This creates an advertising market of TV station owners which allows for competition in the market. Internet based TV stations should work the same way. 

YouTube isn't a market. It's just a monopoly owned by Google. Monopolies are bad because they drive down the price of goods for the manufacturers (in this case, YouTube creators who manufacture content) and make it difficult for them to be profitable enterprises. Profitable enterprises are necessary for a market to thrive and mature, because it leads to higher quality products as the manufacturers compete with each other. This means *drum roll* if YouTube creators make more money from their content they will make more content and at much higher production values than they do right now. This is good for audiences!

We believe Zenither’s model will allow for a market to be created, which drives up the price of advertising inventory and leads to happier, more productive creators who won't have to video blog all day anymore just to stay financially viable and relevant in YouTube's bizzaro world monopoly. And it means better quality shows for audiences to watch.

There are many video streaming apps but none truly revolutionize the television industry, which is why cable and satellite providers still dominate today.

The problem as we see it is that most of these app makers focus too much on neat features and not enough on creating a platform that truly improves upon the traditional television business model.

We believe the app produced by Martell Broadcasting Systems, the Zenither app, will succeed because it makes the traditional business norms easier and more profitable for content owners of all sizes (YouTube creator, indie studio or major Hollywood studio).

What we believe the market wants desperately is a multichannel video programming distributor that brings the full traditional TV business model to the internet and makes it accessible to indie content creators. That's what we're doing.

We're also putting total control of monetization into the hands of the content owners. While YouTube is currently the predominant video streaming platform, over the past year they have implemented new "brand friendly" policies which have seen millions of channels become de-monetized -- even channels which promote charities or feature news media content. We believe in order for video creators to continue to thrive they need a new business model where someone else no longer has total control over their revenue stream anymore.  

Most video app producers focus on feature lists and the audience viewer experience, which is really important, but they often do these things at the expense of recognizing the real customer for video apps is the video creators. Consequently they don't build a business model that allows the content providers to thrive very well which creates growth problems when business minded folk try to use the platforms. 

Take YouTube for example; the platform was created in 2005 and they still struggle to make scripted serial content thrive on the platform because the revenue model and app features on YouTube do not support the creation, monetization and promotion of high quality video programming. Television quality video production requires having a production budget and the blunt truth is YouTube's revenue model doesn't allow for these budgets to be large enough to produce half hour scripted serial content. 

This results in even the most popular YouTube creators having to spend the vast majority of their time glued to their cameras, uploading video blogs every day of their lives because the value of their past video libraries are diminished by the nonsensically designed search algorithm that rewards "fresh" content and punishes older video libraries (which is the exact opposite of how the traditional TV industry works where shows and movies made decades ago still produce financial returns for their owners through licensing).

Traditional TV and film stars don't work nearly as hard as YouTube creators do and yet these Hollywood stars obtain greater financial rewards. This is because the revenue model and feature list of a platform like YouTube is actually poorly designed for the needs of the entertainment industry.

The biggest problem with platforms like YouTube is they tend to treat the content owners as generic consumers rather than business partners. The vast majority of YouTube creators don't even get tech support assistance!

At Martell Broadcasting Systems Inc. we're listening to what the content owners need and building a platform to provide those needs. We know the viewers will follow the content of the stars they watch; the real customer for our app is the content owners who desperately need a better business model to scale their businesses in a way no other video streaming app developer is providing.

MBS Inc. believes in the value of free speech and distribution of ideas. We know there are many news programs on YouTube currently being censored and demonetized because the hosts share ideologies that YouTube's admins do not agree with. So we know our censorship policies will be something many current YouTubers are interested in hearing abut.

(for those unfamiliar with this topic, please read http://www.tubefilter.com/2017/06/06/philip-defranco-next-show-off-youtube/ and the resulting user comments to the article)

Historically television has been a public utility and broadcasting protected as free speech. The Supreme Court has repeatedly stated that the public expression of ideas should not be prohibited merely because the ideas themselves may be offensive to some of the hearers. However with internet television becoming something that is operated entirely by private companies like YouTube not bound by FCC regulations for television, they are free to enact whatever content policies they like. This means the corporations can and frequently do reject the principles of free speech. Therefore the only way that free speech can exist for television in the future is if a company operating a video streaming platform allows free speech to thrive. MBS Inc. seeks to be one of these companies and fulfill this social contract with the public.

Unlike YouTube, MBS does not intend to monetize every user's Station in our app with ads we place ourselves, so we won't be as heavy handed in our acceptable content policies as YouTube is. YouTube de-monetizes videos under the guise of saying they are not "advertiser friendly" and because Zenither's business model is not focused on MBS selling ads on all third party owned videos we don't have the same need to censor content like YouTube does. It is one of the key differences in our business model. Unlike YouTube our entire revenue model is not based in acting as a middle man between advertisers and content owners. Instead we provide the tools for content owners to easily sell their own ads at the price they specify and work with the advertisers they want to work with.

Also unlike YouTube our app will have significantly better parental controls options for parents to employ on accounts for their kids to use, and these parental controls will be similar to what you find on cable TV services. Furthermore because advertisers can directly make deals with Station owners the "ad market" within the Zenither eco-system becomes self-policing the same way it is for traditional media buys. The biggest flaw with YouTube is advertisers generally can't control what specific videos their ads appear on and with Zenither they can.

For further information on why we believe in free speech, please read our Founder Carey Martell's blog post 'Why the Zenither Video Streaming Platform Will Support Free Speech'.

The vast majority of stations in our app will be free to watch stations supported by ad revenue but a select few channels will only be viewable to subscribers who pay a premium monthly fee per month. This fee is per each package of premium stations; if a viewer is subscribed to two packages (such as Sports and Movies packages) they would pay about $20 per month to watch premium stations in both bundles.

Specifically, we plan to offer subscribers several tiers of premium channel packages ( example. Kids channel package, Sports channel package, Movie

channel package, etc.) which only have a max of 20-50 channels in each package, charging the subscriber anywhere from $5 to $19.99 for each

bundle depending on the type of content.

Premium stations in our app receive carriage fees just like with traditional cable TV. This means that whether people watch their content or not, the station owners receive a % of the total subscription money earned based on the number of subscribers to the premium service.

This allows for realistic, predictable revenue earnings.

And just like with cable TV the station owners keep 100% of their ad revenue and do not have to share it with the carrier (in this case, Zenither).

Unlike how YouTube Red works, the Zenither a la carte subscription model prevents dilution of the carriage fee pool and ensures each channel owner receives a fair share of fees.

Example: If 50 premium stations in our Basic Bundle service.

For every subscriber to the service, each station owner receives a carriage fee rate from us of $0.0999.

Station Owner Potential Earnings from Carriage Fees:

•1,000 subscriber = $99.90 / month.

•10,000 subscribers = $999 / month.

•100K subscribers = $9,990 / month.

•500K subscribers = $49,950 / month

•1M subscribers = $99,900 / month.

Annually, with a million subscribers a premium station owner could make up to $1,198,800 annually from carriage fees alone (plus whatever they receive from ad sales, merchandise sales and other revenue streams!)

Content Licensing on YouTube is handled under the "Content ID" system but we recognize it has seriously bad consequences for content owners.

Content ID is actually designed to identify piracy and issue DMCA takedown notices, and not to specifically license content.

Worse, YouTube takes 45% of all ad revenue earned on these "unauthorized re-uploads" the system identifies and the content owner has NO control over price of ad inventory sold on these unauthorized re-uploads, nor can they ask for a license fee from the channels hosting their content.

Lastly Content ID is an imperfect system prone to abuse by certain MCNs, who put public domain movies and sheet music into their accounts and then seize the ad revenue from others who attempt to use this public domain content in their original videos. YouTube provides little to no recourse for victims of these Content ID abusers, many of whom have been stealing ad revenue from others for years by illegally claiming ownership of public domain works. The only way to get them to lift one of these claims is to sue them in court, a process many YouTube creators cannot afford to do.

Our assessment of Content ID is that it is Utterly Chaotic & Does Not Conform to Business Norms of the Television Industry.

So what are we doing differently?

Zenither Station owners will have access to a content aggregation library where IP Owners will upload television shows, music videos and films from their catalogs to make them available for streaming licensing on Stations within the Zenither app.

Inserting the licensed content into your Station's broadcast feed or available for VOD watching will be easy with drag and drop tools in the Zenither station toolset. You won't even need to download the videos and re-upload them. The content you license will be in the cloud for you to use. 

The IP Owner will set the price of licensing, and will even have the option to make licenses exclusive to regional territories. IP Owners can charge upfront licensing fees, a % of ad inventory revenue sold against the content, or a combination of both fees. And the Station owners will determine the price of ad inventory sold against the licensed content, the same way they do against any other content uploaded to their Stations.

Best of all, MBS, Inc. will only take a 5% transaction fee on each licensing deal made using this aggregation service, nowhere near the 45% of revenue fee YouTube demands from Content ID matches.

At its core the business of television is advertising. The global television advertising market alone is over $200 Billion (source). The North American market alone is forecast to grow from 73 billion U.S. dollars in 2016 to around 75 billion U.S. dollars in 2017 and 82 billion in 2020 (source). 

With the Zenither app, third-party Station owners can sell their own ad inventory and keep 100% of that revenue, but they will also have the option to sell some of their ad inventory through the display network owned by MBS Inc (which will operate similarly to AdWords for Video). From these latter transactions MBS Inc. will take a 25% commission on ad revenue from any ads served through our ad display system (as compared to YouTube's 45% commission).

Furthermore MBS Inc. will operate several Stations and sell ads against the content on these stations the same way that cable providers like Time Warner and Comcast operate their own TV stations on their services. We believe there is an enormous opportunity here to tap into the television advertising market as it transitions from traditional broadcasting into digital video.

The Zenither app produced by MBS, Inc. will also support premium a la carte channel bundles for subscribers at a price similar to Netflix, which generates $8.83 Billion US in revenue in 2016 (source). We believe we can also tap into this market by allowing third party content owners to operate premium stations on Zenither which require a monthly paid subscription to watch.

Lastly the Zenither app will also have a built in content licensing library that will make it easy for Station owners to license bundles of video content for streaming on their Stations and MBS Inc. will take a 5% commission on each licensing transaction. Traditionally content bundles can sell for $25,000 to $250,000 but the system will also support small license purchases from content produced by indies such as YouTube creators. Content owners could even make some videos available for licensing at no fee! There is a great opportunity here fulfilling a need that no other video streaming app is providing.

If you like the idea of owning part of a next-generation digital television carrier that is going after a $200 Billion market (source), then you should invest into us. We're swinging for the fences but all great rewards come with some amount of risk. The great thing about this campaign is you only need to invest hundreds of dollars into us to obtain a good number of shares that will appreciate over time and may be worth a substantial amount of money based on the future success of our application Zenither in the market.

Also consider this; you can't go back in time to invest into Google, Time Warner or Disney when they first started out but YOU CAN invest into Martell Broadcasting Systems, Inc. which seeks to become a company of the same size and scale as these aforementioned companies and we believe possesses a sound business plan for accomplishing this feat.

A lot of people have many different ideas about how wealth can be acquired. Our founder Carey Martell believes wealth is best obtained through early access to private companies with promising business models. We believe such an opportunity sits before you on this page. The question you must ask yourself is this; will you take a chance on this opportunity? Carey has invested his own money into this venture and now you can invest your own alongside him.

An example of how Zenny is incorporated into the app: A video of this test card will be shown when there are any "gaps" in the TV Guide timeline between episodes ending and starting due to Publisher's failing to account for the time correctly, or when the scheduler cannot locate a video segment for whatever reason, or when other kinds of errors are experienced by the viewer. Just another little touch we're adding to simulate a "television" experience in our app! 

How Do We Intend to Use Funds From Your Investment?

$200,000 -- We will complete the iOS and Android apps. We will also finish the remaining features in the prototype and launch these services to the public.

$500,000 -- Rather than license a third party video streaming player for internally hosted video content (which is what we're doing right now), we will build our own through software development with our developer Scio which will reduce video player licensing costs and improve quality performance, taking on up to twelve additional engineers for the project.

$1,000,000 -- Reaching $1M will allow us to super-charge our marketing efforts for rapid user growth and build the very best app possible, scaling up the social media campaigns using Facebook ads for web conversions (new user signups to the Zenither app) and Google AdWords. 

We will also license a bundle of video content (TV shows and movies) for streaming on Stations owned and operated by MBS, Inc. which increases revenue opportunity by offering premium TV shows and films for watch in Zenither. We might also help fund some original programming pitched to us by our Station partners similar to how Netflix and Amazon are developing original content. Our fund will be smaller but more prioritized on working with indie content creators. 

*Note: We don't intend to use any money from this raise to fund original video content, rather we will assist with fund-raising efforts for those shows by launching specific crowdfunding campaigns for those projects. We will however have our employees assist with those campaigns.

What's Our biggest risk? What keeps us up at night?

We're a small company so we are facing a lot of risk.

However our founder is experienced at building video networks and knows the ins and outs of the digital video industry. He is also an accomplished growth hacker. That said, the market can experience rapid change and the founder cannot control the entire market and all its factors.

1. There is a risk of running out of money by having expenses due to unforeseeable problems such as new regulations, patent trolls, and so on which increase the monthly burn rate to unexpected amounts.
2. There is a risk that our business model, while not new for traditional media companies, may be considered too novel for indies to embrace making market adoption more challenging than expected.
3. While the development team has been chosen based on their demonstrated skills and haven previously worked with Carey to design software products, there is a risk that they may experience unexpected challenges in designing new software features which increases the development time and delays the intended launch date.
4. While we believe our startup will be successful, it is true that most new business ventures often fail. It is possible investors may not see a return on their money.
5. Equity crowdfunding is new. There is no current market for Martell Broadcasting Systems, Inc. shares.
6. While the exit strategy for a company like MBS, Inc. is clear to us at this time it is possible market changes and competitors could make it difficult to obtain a high valuation during any potential future acquisition negotiation and impact the details of the deals. At this time user-generated content such as that made by YouTube creators is not viewed as a hot commodity among VCs due to many prior failed investments into MCNs and digital studios. While MBS, Inc. is creating a new platform and not developing original video content, the value of the content streamed on the platform can impact its value in the eyes of future investors. This is subject to market changes and opinions.
7. The Company may never receive any future equity financing. In addition, the Company may never undergo a liquidity event such as a sale of the Company. If neither the conversion of the Securities nor a liquidity event occurs, the Purchasers could be left holding the Securities in perpetuity. The Securities have numerous transfer restrictions and will likely be highly liquid, with no secondary market on which to sell them.
8. Because the Zenither application has not yet launched we do not have any historical trends to make precise predictions about future revenue earnings. It is possible we could underestimate or over-estimate the amount of revenue earned through ad sales.
9. Because the Zenither application has not yet launched we do not have any historical trends to make precise predictions about future premium channel subscription earnings. It is possible we could underestimate or over-estimate the amount of revenue earned through paid subscriptions.

How can you accomplish this with just $200K?

This is just the first phase of this startup. Once the native Android and iOS apps and proprietary ad inventory sales tools are complete the company will start generating revenue immediately through pre-sales of ad inventory on Stations operated by MBS, Inc. sold at a sweetheart rate to entice the advertisers until viewership grows. Furthermore content owners who create stations will bring their own relationships with advertisers to the platform.

From these successes we'll be able to do additional rounds of funding that will allow us to expand globally and further improve user experience / performance.

We expect this ball to roll extremely fast and have no doubts major content owners will be reaching out to us begging to get a station.

Having said that, we hope to raise at least $500K during this round which will greatly accelerate our growth. If we raise the $1 million maximum allowed by the SEC for a Regulation Crowdfunding campaign that will be even better as we won't need to do a 2nd round for awhile and can focus purely on growth.

Who do you expect to create Stations in Zenither?

We expect multi-channel networks and popular YouTube creators to be some of the first customers, as they have a huge library of content and problems with optimizing revenue for it. One of the toughest things about YouTube is it's impossible to utilize traditional broadcast strategies for promoting content since everything is on demand. These strategies might be old but they work extremely well, which is why YouTube and Netflix have never fully replaced traditional broadcast television. We believe once we give digital creators the ability to use the same techniques as TV networks and possess full control over the value of their ad inventory, then we'll see a dramatic shift in the situation.

The second type of Station creator is likely to be a company with access to tons of old TV shows and movies, who will create Stations so they can schedule this content and generate additional revenue from it. These can be anywhere from major Hollywood studios to indie film-makers who have found it difficult to thrive in today's market due to the shriveling of the home video market (DVD / Blu-Ray sales aren't what they used to be). Their content can find a second life in the Zenither app.

The third type of Station creator is probably going to be local public access and college stations who want to reach wider audiences on the internet with the content they already have and continue to produce.

Furthermore all types of content publishers can embed their Station feeds into their own websites so they can actually promote their own websites, too. 

Here's an example of Station feeds embedded into a website using the Station embed widget function of Publisher accounts.

What is Martell Broadcasting Systems, Inc. ?

MBS Inc. is a company founded by Carey Martell in November 2013 for the purpose of developing a video streaming app, which was originally called 'Martell TV' and is now the Zenither app. The company had difficulties raising funding from traditional investor groups and will now use Regulation Crowdfunding to accomplish its goals by directly reaching out to the people who can see its potential -- online video creators and their audiences.

The company also owns various Intellectual Property such as Carey's former YouTube show, 'The RPG Fanatic' and other films produced by his former company, Martell Brothers Studios. These assets will be repurposed after the Zenither app has launched and used to help populate stations owned by MBS Inc. with watchable content.

You should know that when you invest into MBS Inc. you are not just investing into the Zenither app, but rather into a media company that aims to become a major player on the scale of Time Warner. It is our intentions to produce original content after the Zenither app has proven profitable in the market and by becoming a shareholder in MBS Inc. you will reap the rewards of an early investment into what we believe will become a major entertainment conglomerate; the first owned by creators of digital video content.

Tell me about the founder Carey Martell. Who is he?

Carey Martell is a serial entrepreneur with a long history in the digital video space.

Carey first registered a YouTube channel in 2005 shortly after the site launched. He operated several channels but his most popular was The RPG Fanatic, a videogame review show. He grew his channel to millions of views and 14,000+ subscribers but found growth difficult due to the low ad revenue that YouTube videos generate which left little resources for marketing the channel. He also came to the belief that he was better suited for the business side of entertainment, and lacked the necessary talent to be an onscreen actor. He began thinking of ways to make streaming video more profitable for the content creators.

Carey founded the Power Up TV multi-channel network in March 2014, which he then sold to Thunder Studios in January 2015. As part of the acquisition he then served as Vice President of Thunder TV. In this role he spearheaded the transformation of Thunder Studios (a very traditional film studio focused on stage rentals) into Thunder Digital Media (a new media company focused on producing video entertainment for Millennial audiences).

As the architect for the conversion of Thunder Studios into Thunder Digital Media Carey took the high level desires of the company and broke them down into lists of actionable items, which included the development of new software products; the formation of new service divisions; the hiring of new employees and training in operational procedures; and supervised the creation of new legal contracts for forming strategic partnerships and recruiting new talent. He directly negotiated strategic alliances and built a YouTube multi-channel network from scratch.

Since exiting Thunder, Carey has worked as a entertainment consultant for companies wanting to start their own MCNs. See his consultancy page at http://www.startyourownmcn.com/ for more details.

Carey is also the author of several popular books related to growing a business around YouTube channels such as 'How to Start Your Own YouTube Network: An Insider's Guide' and 'The Lean Channel: YouTube for Entrepreneurs'.

Carey is a graduate of the Tech Ranch Austin Venture Forth accelerator program. He possesses extensive, practical real world experience with applying Lean Startup methodology to growing a business.

Why is there only one founder in the team? Why have you chosen to outsource app development?

Our founder Carey Martell is a growth hacker by trade. His true north is growth and consequently all of his decisions are focused on maximizing growth for the company. He has a clear vision for what MBS Inc. should be and is able to guide the company toward achieving that vision.

Having a growth hacker as the President and sole officer is advantageous for a company like MBS Inc. An effective growth hacker disciplines himself to follow a growth hacking process of prioritizing ideas and testing the ideas to ensure they result in growth. He must be analytical enough to know which tested growth drivers to keep and which ones to cut, and make quick decisions to ensure resources are not wasted on frivolous things that do not create growth. The faster this process can be repeated, the more likely the growth hacker is to find scalable, repeatable ways to grow the business. Without any other officers during the launch phase of Zenither, Carey can focus 100% of his efforts on tried and true growth tactics that he knows works and not need to debate with other team members who may have different priorities than the greasy lighting speed of growth that Carey has in mind.

And Carey has proven his ability to obtain this kind of growth in his past venture Power Up TV, where he single-handily grew his YouTube network to obtain crazy metrics. Within 7 months of launching PUTV the network had 190 million+ video views, 1.3 million subscribers and recruited 1,400+ creator channels. This success allowed Carey to sell PUTV to a Los Angeles based film studio two years ago, where he became Vice President of its digital division until he exited the company. Carey's tactics are tried and true. He knows what he is doing.

Now, you might be used to seeing unicorn companies with a huge list of co-founders with many diverse backgrounds and skill-sets, but not every startup *needs* to have a full team of execs and internal rockstar engineers in order to launch into the market. There are many startups with small founder teams who used outsourced software developers to quickly launch into the market (notable examples: Uber, Skype, Slack, Fab, Klout, AppSumo, and Github).

What is important for a company is if the officers have the skills to make the company succeed. Carey is an experienced manager and marketer, and he has worked with the developer Scio on several successful past projects.

The advantage of having a single officer of a startup is that it allows for tight control over the innovation and product pipeline while protecting the investors from dilution. Not every startup has a founder that has the skills to grow a company while acting as the sole officer but Carey Martell does and has demonstrated this in his past ventures.

Of course no company can grow single-highhandedly which is why Carey is working with Scio to develop the Zenither app. With Scio there is a full team of engineers Carey is working with to craft the prototype into a product that is market ready and has all of the features described in our documentation. Upon successful funding Carey will also hire several employees for MBS, Inc. who will be tasked with jobs in marketing, advertising sales, content scheduling, station training and customer service.

MBS Inc. currently has one officer but it will have many employees during its launch phase who will work directly under Carey until the departments grow large enough to require more senior management to be brought on board.

One of the key advantages of outsourced software development is cost. Working with a nearshore developer such as Scio will keep software development costs down by 70% as compared to the more common method of hiring domestic rockstar engineers who require $100K+ salaries and sizable equity participation, which will dilute value for shareholders. So rather than divest a sizable portion of shares to the initial programmers of the app the employee equity pool can now instead be reserved for attracting senior executive talent who will be able to assist MBS Inc. with scaling the business during later phases of growth. This is good business sense and indicative of a long-term vision for the company.

So as MBS Inc. matures in the market, additional officers will be brought on to help scale the business but for the launch phase Carey is sufficient to lead the company.

Will software development eventually be brought internal to MBS, Inc.?

Yes, when the economics make sense.

It is more economical and faster to hire a third party development team to build the first version of the Zenither app than to go through the process of building a new team from scratch. You have to not only find qualified engineers, but also engineers who can work well with each other. A third party developer like Scio already has a team proven to work well together and produce results.

It would be troublesome if MBS, Inc. had to bring together a new team which has not worked together before and discovered personalities clashed, causing delays in critical development timelines as employees need to be counseled and/or replaced. Using a proven team like Scio is the smart thing to do.

Furthermore MBS, Inc. will be in a better financial position to negotiate compensation with internally hired software engineers once the app is launched into the market and the company is producing revenue, as well as more likely to attract high quality talent who want the opportunity to work for the company on this exciting venture.

http://www.zenither.com