Wanting to YouTube my startup journey
Hey guys!
I'm looking to start YouTubing the start of my new SaaS startup. Now I'm wondering a couple things
Is there anyone out there who's done this, and do you mind showing me your videos? I'd love to see other startup founders documenting their journey on YouTube or other platforms.
What do you think would make a startup YouTube video helpful for other founders?
EDIT - my first video - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL36Z1CQ91g&t=151s
I started doing this last week 😊— my first video: https://youtu.be/TERxAPH7eaE
(PS — If anyone has topic suggestions let me know!)
Dude this is incredible. You're an amazing story teller and the video editing is on point.
Ditto. Really awesome story teller. Was hooked first 10 seconds.
Thanks Jesse! Really appreciate it :)
Thank you!! Making another one this week and your encouragement gets me excited to do it 😊
WOW! nice. subbed.
Topics that sound great (like you already mentioned):
Awesome! Thanks for the topic ideas and the sub!!
Love the authenticity! I'd love to help you test and optimise your thumbnail with Thumblytics so you can get more views and grow faster!
More than happy to run the first experiment for free!
If you're interested just shoot me a DM on twitter @thumblytics and say you are from IH 😊
Oh cool— will do!
Checked your video as well, I like the vibe you created for videos. We have a community full of makers, and we do it in VIDEO way. Feel free to stop by lonely.dev 🤗
Just watched a few videos— very cool. I'll stop by later today :)
Thank you Steve! Just subed your channel, looking forwarding to seeing you in Lonely Dev as well 🤗
Hey, this looks great. Just subscribed. I'd like to do something similar for my journey creating https://storycreatorapp.com/.
I have a Canon 70D but it's sitting in the closet broken from an ex-girlfriend :/ Which camera are you using?
The biggest thing stopping me is I am scared it'll distract me. How long do you spend making video content?
Haha shouldn't you be all over it considering your product is a video product 😭
Touche except. The whole reason I built it is because I hate spending hours making videos. I used to do daily videos in my early 20s and would spend hours editing. Then IG stories came around and I was able to document in seconds. I wanted to build a tool that gave you the ability to edit and control the video a bit more while having the speed of quick stories.
That said I think if you have a framework in place you can pump out videos fairly fast. It would be really nice to have a personal video editor on staff - would be somewhat ironic though at Story Creator haha.
BTW: Just checked out Story Creator— wow! Amazing job 👌
That's awesome— do it!
I use a Canon c300 but it's way overkill. The one thing I would focus on if I was starting from scratch is buying an iPhone teleprompter (they're cheap) and getting the audio sounding good.
Videos take me awhile to make— probably an hour of work for every minute of video. But I'm also pretty heavily scripted (just what I feel comfortable with) and other people may be able to do it faster.
I love the idea. Gary V. talked about doing this in one of his books. It should do well for you.
I would definitely be interested in watching your documentary!
However, just a few fruits for thoughts: have you ever editted videos? Have you uploaded on youtube? I am only asking because I tried before myself, and making a good video is very very time consuming and might take your focus away from building your core product - your SaaS startup.
If you can think you can do that, then I'd say why the heck not! Go for it Kevin!
You are definitely right Kenneth. So much overhead to create an attractive youtube video. But our goal is not to become a successful influencer on youtube, right? Our goal is just to document our journey. There shouldn't be too much editing. Just keep it in raw is also fun, and most importantly real.
I really wanted to do this as well. However, we eventually gave up because it was too time consuming. I hope to pick this up again one day.
I really liked Dexter Storey on YouTube. They’re business advice isn’t always the best, however their content is amazing. I really liked their editing style, it was definitely my inspiration for what my channel was going to be like.
https://youtu.be/a6qq8E70_GY
Nice! This is exactly what I was looking for.
I really enjoyed these videos.
Yes it's a shame he doesn't have more subscribers. It's definitely the best business vlog I've ever came across.
Thanks for the comments guys, just added mine to YouTube! - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jL36Z1CQ91g
Cool concept!
If you do end up YouTubing the start of your startup, I'd love to help you optimise your thumbnail strategy with Thumblytics
Will be 100% free :)
Sure! I am down! How do I get started?
Amazing - all I need from you is 3 versions of the thumbnail you're planning to use and I can start the experiment. This could be as simple as a thumbnail with text on it, the same thumbnail without text and one other variation.
I'm not sure if we can send images over IH so just shoot me a DM on twitter @thumblytics and say you are from IH 😊
Hey Kevin, I am documenting my own journey here: lonely.dev/product/lonelydev. And we have other makers document their journey as well in our Lonely Dev community. Come take a look 😜
Lonely.founder is a good ring too! Haha
Yah, but there is no such .founder domain extension😜
Hey, this is something I am considering as well. My biggest concern is it will be a time suck and what are the cost-benefit. It seems like as long as I can inspire people and it wouldn't distract the main mission then this would be a really cool thing to do.
Also, I checked out your product and signed up. Great work looks amazing.
I did it with my first startup showing my first customer to making marketing videos and passing out flyers on college campuses and even coding. I am still doing it, but haven't posted in 2 months since I am working on something new and documenting that (I have been documenting for 2 years).
https://www.youtube.com/alfredosequeida
I also document on other platforms, but the more I do it, the more I find myself sticking to YouTube and Instagram/Instagram stories
https://alfredosequeida.github.io/social
There are people that have messaged me on Instagram from my videos and therefore I have seen what people find the most valuable in terms of content
For me, it has been
People that see something about my programing so they message me to get some help on getting started with coding.
People that are younger than me or around my age (23) that see someone else young doing something they themselves have thought about doing and want to know what I do or how I do something.
Feel free to ask any questions .
Hey Aldredo really liking the content!
I'd love to help you test and optimise your thumbnail with Thumblytics so you can get more views and grow your channel!
More than happy to run the first experiment for free!
If you're interested just shoot me a DM on twitter @thumblytics and say you are from IH 😊
You are really a good storyteller Alfredo! Keep it up!
Alfredo! I'm liking your stuff man! Keep it going.
Thank you Kevin, feel free to reach out if there is anything I can help you with.
I was thinking about it.
If you succeeded it would be extremely interesting to look back at you building it from scratch.
Maybe the business fails but youtube becomes very popular?
Damn, maybe I will do it to, it sounds so interesting.
On the contrary I think most of my work is fairly boring.
Add feature here, fix that, setup this...
You would have to think of a way to make it entertaining I think.
Why would it have to be entertaining?
Oh sure, it does not have to.
I am just saying if I were to make one, I would like mine to be entertaining.
Most stuff that I watch on YouTube an enjoy is some sorts of edutainment, where there is a lot of information given, but also a lot of fun & humour, so that probably influences me.
For sure. People upload to YT because they want others to see. There must be some tricks in videos as you said, like fun, entertaining. I 💯agree with you 😉
I thought the same thing when I first started documenting and then found out that your work is interesting to someone somewhere.
Oh sure, I think everything can be interesting, but I am thinking more about how to show your work.
How to make it interesting from the filmmaking standpoint?
What are you filming exactly? Screencasts of you coding? Your face when you are coding? Short summary of what you are doing a given day?
There is many options. Each one will evoke different emotions and interest different people.
So that's my question. How are you making it entertaining, beyond it simply being interesting?
I think it would be much more awesome, if you had small team and you lived together "social network" style.
You could film both coding and parties, struggles between founders, hiring new people, having to fire some others, running out of cash and doing some weird stuff to get funding.
Well... okay that's basically "Sillicon Valley".
But that's what I would watch 100%.
Yeah, I can undestand that perspective.
I know alot of people building in public on twitter, but don't know of too many people on youtube doing this! Would love to see your journey and good luck 🙌
Can you share some on your favourites from Twitter?
Hey! Check out this IH post I made a couple of weeks ago: https://www.indiehackers.com/post/decided-to-document-tweet-my-journey-87edd442ef?commentId=-M5KQ2pVu6d9mLPc7ejg
I really like the idea: I am thinking of something similar. Having a Youtube channel to document the app creation process. It would be interesting to know how other people did it :)
This comment was deleted 6 years ago