Local tech exec ramps up research

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This article was published 12/04/2019 (2574 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Almost 10 years ago, Matthew Tate started working as a developer with one of Winnipeg’s earliest and most enigmatic digital-media operations, a loose collection of companies sometimes called Tipping Canoe.

Winnipeg has been the development shop for that company, that over the years has developed a number of very successful international online deals and coupon sites like HotUKdeals.com, Quidco.com, Holidaypirates.com and, more recently, Pepper.com.

The businesses targeted users from all over the world, but the only Canadian presence was a small digital-coupon site called bargainmoose.ca

Over time the enterprise and its founder — Paul Nikkel — moved to Europe. But a core team of developers remained in Winnipeg.

Tate eventually followed the team to Berlin, where, as chief technology officer, he was going to recruit developers to work on new projects and come back to Winnipeg. He figured it would take a few weeks. He ended up staying in Berlin for four years, coming back and forth touching base with the team in Winnipeg.

Eventually, he said, “I asked myself if I wanted to grow old in Germany. The answer was, no.”

He’s been back for a couple of years, and with Nikkel as an investor, has taken over bargainmoose.ca and started his own company called Upfeat.com.

Working out of second-floor offices of an old McDermot Avenue building that Nikkel owns and renovated — the site of Forth Café — Tate has already built a team of around 30 people here and another 10 employees based in the U.K., Australia and the U.S.

Upfeat has grown to 30 from three Winnipeg employees in just a couple of years, and while the company may be under the radar because it does so little business in Canada, Louie Ghiz, the executive director of New Media Manitoba, said it is not dissimilar to many other Winnipeg digital-media companies.

“They are looking to scale up, and just like many other companies in the city, they have challenges recruiting the kind of talent that they need,” he said.

Working for as long as he has with a serial entrepreneur like Nikkel, Tate understands the importance of developing tools that are scalable.

“I started Upfeat with two websites that were doing OK but not really growing,” he said. “I figured I could enhance them and make them better using data and analytics.”

Now, in addition to bargainmoose.ca, Upfeat has designed and markets a content-management system and has developed a number of commercial content-management tools that are integrating with a growing number of digital publishing ventures in the U.K., Australia and the U.S.

Since he has been working in the development of digital coupons and cash-back websites for so long (Quidco.com is the Ebates of the U.K.), Tate knows a thing or two about how to negotiate that digital marketplace and also how publishers can monetize content — an area that’s taking off in the U.K. and one he believes will start catching on in North America, as well.

In addition to the upcoming re-launch in a couple of weeks of a major U.K. lifestyle magazine’s website using Upfeat’s content-management system, its commercial-content tools are used on websites by such well-known magazines as the NME and Marie Claire, as well as the Australian lifestyle sites lifehacker.com.au in Australia, and the Canadian deal site wagjag.com.

Tate has some very focused ideas, honed from close to 10 years in the space, about the commercial potential for editorial content. He believes that as publishers transition from print to digital, there is a disconnect when it comes to the value of the content.

“To some extent, content is seen as commodity. It is what it is, and no one is supposed to mess with it,” he said. “Then you have the commercial people who are concerned with increasing earnings per visit by running this add or this deal. And because these guys are driving a lot of the revenue, they get all the fancy tools.”

But Tate has developed some of those “fancy tools” he believes will go a long way to enhancing the revenue-generating potential of the content.

And he believes there is a growing number of digital publishers ready to use editorial content not only to drive traffic, but generate revenue and maybe even re-capture some of the revenue that the likes of Google and Facebook have sucked up.

For instance, Tate uses the example of a story about the best laptops on the market. The story would be super well-researched, detailed and balanced but also include a link inside the story to actually buy a laptop. And not only that, it would be able to direct the reader to the best prices on that laptop that day.

The website publisher would attract traffic with up-to-date content and then earn a commission on any sales generated from purchases that originated from that site.

Tate believes the U.K. company Future plc is the current leader in this strategy, with in its portfolio of dozens of web brands like cyclingnews.com, laptopmag.com, tomsguide.com and toptenreviews.com

“There’s not a lot of publishers doing things like that in Canada, and they are starting to get into it in the U.S.,” said Tate, who is now starting to make regular trips to New York where so many publishers are based.

martin.cash@freepress.mb.ca