Wowza Media Systems

Wowza® Media Systems was founded in 2005 by David Stubenvoll and Charlie Good. They had worked together before and wanted to continue collaborating, so they planned to start a business—any business. They agreed that if they couldn’t make enough money to support a daily Starbucks habit after three months, they had to try a new idea.

They jumped into video blogging first because it just seemed cool. That project started with an existing media server (Adobe Flash Communication Server, it was called at the time), but Dave and Charlie quickly realized it didn’t fit their needs and they weren’t confident founding a business on it. With no other solution on the table, they built their own media server.

Three months of video blogging went by, and that daily Starbucks budget was out of reach. They pivoted to video messaging, using that same media server they’d been working on.

They attended trade shows regularly and talked to as many people as they could. They felt that the best businesses grew out of other businesses, and the unique information they gathered from real customers provided insights into what products and services people were really looking for.

After three months of video messaging, there was still no coffee fund. But as people found out Dave and Charlie had their own media server, they kept asking to buy it. A media server software business—soon to be named Wowza Media Systems—was born. It was an immediate success, and coffee concerns evaporated.

Today Fortune 100 companies, small and mid-sized businesses, leading content delivery networks, top educational institutions, and government entities in more than 90% of countries depend on award-winning Wowza software and services to build, deploy, and manage streaming solutions for the highest-quality delivery of engaging live and on-demand content.