Kenilworth business partners aiming to rival Youtube with new app

Two young businessmen from Kenilworth are aiming to rival Youtube with their new app.

James Sadler and Scott Wilson, who are both 23, met while they were both teenagers working at the Castle Farm Recreational Centre in Kenilworth.

The two then became business partners.

Their first business was teaching young children a basic first aid course - which was sold on to St John's Ambulance.

James and Scott then started to develop interactive e-learning games that taught young people to be financially responsible, which were sold to the Gibraltar Government.

The funds from these allowed them to start their latest business - Wotch - a new video streaming app, which has also raised half a million pound in startup capital from investors

The pair started by forming a partnership with Channel 4 for exclusive content for release on their platform, and after building the first prototype of the app, decided with only a few days to spare to fly to Vidcon in LA.

Since then the pair have travelled across the world from Coventry to Copacabana for their pitches and promotions of their app and met many stars along the way including TikTok royalty, Charlie and Dixie D'Amelio, House of Cards star Michael Kelly and YouTube icon Jake Paul.

Most recently the pair became finalists at both TechCrunch Disrupt in Berlin as one of twelve revolutionary startups from across the continent and were chosen to take part in KPMG’s Best British Tech Pioneer, based in London’s City Hall.

James and Scott are gearing up to launch their app in the new year.

According to the pair, Wotch aims to 'transform the creator, content and fan experience for Gen Z' and has already signed up influencers, with a combined following of more than 100 million, to the platform.

In return, Wotch is promising creators 'real ownership' and the chance to earn equity if they continue to produce exclusive content, a fairer distribution of the subscription revenue brought in, and financial support to fund and facilitate their best ideas for content.

James, a former student at Kenilworth School, said: "Authentic influencer content is more popular with Gen Z than big-budget Hollywood productions - we want to be the platform that supplies this demand with fresh, relevant and innovative content that fans will love.

"We see ourselves as somewhere between YouTube and Netflix and want to deliver the best of both for Gen Z. We really believe that in order to build a next-gen business, for the next generation, it needs to be led by the next generation."

Scott, who attended North Leamington School, added: "Obviously it's a bit of a David meets Goliath scenario at the moment and we have a healthy respect for our competition as we are well aware who we are up against.

"All our research indicates that fans are loyal to the creator and not the platform and so far influencers have been very excited by what we've had to say.

"We have spoken to some of the top influencers from the UK, North America, and Brazil and the feedback we get from them is just amazing - they felt really left out of the conversation and concerned by YouTube's recent problems.

"Even with no marketing support to drive traffic we had 150,000 users join within our first week when we launched the beta app earlier this year from only a single creator - which had the app trending at 3rd on the App store - we expect the finished product to be even more popular."

The new Wotch app is scheduled to launch in 2021.