Marcus Richards
At Fugo, we are on a mission to democratize digital signage – meaning, making software that’s easy, affordable & flexible in an industry where software clunk & friction are the standard.
We help businesses in all industries put meaningful content on their TV screens so they can engage their audience & build their businesses via the often-overlooked medium of TV screens.
Tell us about yourself?
I run the Marketing & Branding efforts at Fugo. Before Fugo, my background was in comms & partnership management in the non-profit sector, but I’ve always had a knack for writing & love helping organizations find their voice. Which led me to Fugo a few years back.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
Don’t sweat shake-ups. They can be scary, but everybody goes through them (hello COVID) and we’re all doing our best to come out with wins & losses in our pockets.
What problem does your business solve?
We help businesses make their “dumb” TV screens smart. I.e. tap into the potential of digital signage to communicate in meaningful ways with customers & employees.
Screens can do way more than stream video – they can integrate with popular business apps, take part in connected experiences and be incredible mouthpieces for your message, whoever that’s for.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Our co-founders bonded over a broken digital menu board in a London cafe & later came together to create a software that would lead to less embarrassing blacked-out & malfunctioning screens in places of businesses.
We want to solve the problem of boring screens that are difficult to update by providing a tool that lets you put things on screen like TV dashboards, live social feeds, dynamic & interactive media, and business app integrations.
What is your magic sauce?
Fugo is for creators – for business owners, marketing managers, etc… who want to make their own digital signage content & skip the middlemen of designers & IT technicians. We have a content design studio that’s better than just about any other visual editor for digital signage on the market.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We are going to continue to move upmarket & enter the Enterprise space for our industry (which we’re well on the way to already.) And – without giving away the keys to the castle – we’ll be looking for Fugo to reach screens outside of the typical ‘digital signage’ category.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
Differentiating. The digital signage industry is huge and set to grow even more in the next 10 years to around $24B. So digital signage software is a crowded space to be in right now. The biggest issue for us is how do we narrow in on a particular slice of that space & make our platform the best solution for that need?
For the last year, we’ve seen a massive uptake in the corporate communications sector. I.e. organizations who see the potential for screens to solve some of their communications issues brought on by flexible & deskless working situations. That’s where our focus is right now & figuring out how best to serve them.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
Right now our biggest mission is helping organizations that are facing communications challenges (email overload, hybrid working schedules, deskless workers).
We see a giant opportunity for TV screens to help ease some of those burdens & re-shape workplace messaging. If that sounds like you, the best way to reach out is via our website or shoot us an email at [email protected]
We love giving demos of our platform & are always happy to chat with organizations who are at any stage in their digital signage journey – even those who are simply curious about what that is.
