OpenAI Board Member Shares Advice for AI Startups in CEE: Work Closer to Academia!
What are the ways to bridge the gap between industry and academia? While the AI […]
It’s Tuesday and The Recursive podcast welcomes one engineer by calling and an entrepreneur by accident. Kosta Jordanov is the co-founder of FITE, a global pay-per-view platform for combat sports events. With more than 5000 streamed events and over 10 million users, FITE became the top-grossing app in the world across all categories.
In 2021, the streaming platform was acquired by the US-founded TrillerNet, which counts celebrities like Metallica, Snoop Dogg, Lil Wayne and Pitbull among its investors. Together, they are now preparing for their public offering debut on NASDAQ.
In the episode, Kosta Jordanov talks about what changed for the team of FITE after the acquisition. “FITE has relative independence. The business continues to operate on the same trajectory. What’s changed significantly is the opportunity for us to be way more aggressive when it comes to competition”, he explains. He also shares about the process of preparing for an IPO.
“For us to be successful, we had to go global from day one. Just establishing a global brand, I think at a certain point in time you have to go to the US regardless where you start”, Kosta Jordanov explains and tells the story of how FITE actually conquered the US market.
In his conversation with Georgi Nenov, Kosta Jordanov also talks about how Tim Draper got on board as an investor and how AI is transforming the future of sports and entertainment.
For his leadership philosophy, Kosta says: “I’m not a big believer of the differentiation between a leader and a team. We are one team with one vision and we either succeed together or fail together or maybe a little bit of both.”
Watch the previous episode with the biggest angel investor in Bulgaria Vassil Terziev where he talks about the importance of giving back and replicating success outside the tech ecosystem.
