I Fondly Recall Bopjet
Bopjet (officially Bopjet Media Inc.) was founded in 1996 by Sean O’Mahony as a sister company to his software development firm, Bitmovers. Based in Vancouver, the team was an early pioneer in the following areas:
- Streaming & Web Hosting: They specialized in early webhosting and streaming technologies.
- Media Innovation: The company was part of a wave of innovative startups that defined the early Vancouver tech landscape alongside names like Capcom and Electronic Arts.
- Design & Print: The name also appears in artistic contexts related to specialized large-format printing and book design projects.
Sean:
I moved to Vancouver and started two companies consecutively – this was around 1996: Bitmovers, for software development and Bopjet for webhosting and streaming. We were the world’s first Quicktime streaming. So we rapidly got a foothold in that business. The main reason I started the companies was because I was doing software development and we needed our own servers – to make it more profitable we started renting them out to other people. In no time at all I had five people working on that side of the business. At one time I think we had about 15 or 16 at Bitmovers. I had just sold Bopjet to Digital Forrest so I could focus on raising money for Bitmovers: then September 11th happened. Literally, within 3 weeks all my contracts were cancelled. We had no revenue. Done. And within six weeks I had shut the company down. I lost about a quarter of a million dollars, my investors lost money – the whole thing was toast.
These days Seano is based in Vancouver and is with Precision Fuel & Hydration. He’s a successful tech startup exec and boasts a wealth of international management and operational experience, having been involved in Silicon Valley in the good ol’ days.
He is a keen cyclist and triathlete.
