In the fall of 2008, we celebrated signing our first major customer, Sony Music. Yet, the thrill of that victory was met with a harsh reality. We were out of cash as the global financial crisis began.

I had a choice to make, pack it up after all our hard work when we had just signed our first big customer, or double down and give it everything we had to make it through the uncertainty. I bet on myself and bootstrapped Clikthrough for the next five months. I traveled the world and was able to raise $1M from an incredible group of music industry leaders like Savan Kotecha, Max Martin, Steve Kipner, and Andrew Frampton. I often reminisce of the thrill in fundraising, but it was our collective resilience that led our nascent startup to survive and become profitable. A big thank you to Erik, my founding angel investor, who believed in me and helped make my dream a reality. This trying time solidified my belief as a founder: Never Give Up!

Avex Music, Japan's largest music company, partnered with Clikthrough in 2009 to revolutionize the industry with interactive, shoppable music videos for its cast of rising stars. The opportunity to scale our operations to the global stage brought unique challenges in adapting our platform to new languages, foreign currency, and nuanced user behavior. The result? A roaring success with 5M+ streams in the first month, paving the way for fandom without borders.

It all started in 2008 with The Script, an incredible band from Ireland signed to Phonogenic Records and Sony Music. With their first single, Break Even, topping charts worldwide, we took fans inside their world with clickable video. This success enabled us to partner further with Sony and Universal Music to create 30 music videos that enabled fans to see what their favorite artists were wearing, who the backup dancers were, or where the video was shot. By creating interactive music videos, we drove an average 320% CTR and 6% click-to-buy, changing the game on how artists reach their audience in real time outside of the concert venue.

We wanted to deliver something that all gamers love: interactivity. Together with Sony, we developed a custom video player platform that supported 12 productions in 25 languages that made editorial feel immersive and entertaining in equal measure. With the global launch we garnered over 2M views and 2M+ clicks.

Gucci pioneered luxury fashion's entry into interactive video by partnering with us to develop a global shoppable video series. As the first luxury brand to implement this technology, Gucci enabled customers to directly purchase products featured in their videos through Clikthrough's interactive platform. The solution required extensive localization, supporting 12 languages and 14 currencies while maintaining seamless functionality across all devices. This innovative approach to luxury e-commerce proved highly successful, achieving an extraordinary 88% CTR and a 19% click-to-buy, demonstrating the effectiveness of interactive video in engaging luxury consumers and driving sales.

From exclusive content, to fashion shows, to seasonal commercials, we created shoppable moments on livestream and embedded videos in one central location: CKTV. The platform, supported on mobile, tablet, and desktop, was distributed across multiple countries and currencies, driving 5M views from all over the world that led to 78% CTR and 17% click-to-buy.

In partnership with Executive Producer Mark Burnett and Cliffs Notes, our team was able to bring Shakespeare classics to life through a series of animated, interactive videos. These stories, hosted on AOL, were designed to have the viewer lean in and become immersed in the world of Romeo & Juliet, Macbeth, Othello and more. With over 2M views in our release and 2M+ clicks per video, our partnership was an international success that made timeless plays feel like time well spent.

Together, we built StylePad to allow shoppers the opportunity to learn more about where every campaign was produced, the artistic direction, makeup composition, and of course, the clothing involved. The shoppable moments were designed to be digitally native, hosted on iPad and mobile, driving market-leading engagement metrics like time spent and website traffic. Fans created their own canvases through a drag-and-drop interface to style their backgrounds with visual assets from each photo shoot.